Gen nodded in vigorous agreement. “We should be free to pursue our own interests. It’s not as if Willy can command us to be celibate for the next half a year, or however long this mission takes. It’s not fair that it be a blanket moratorium.”
Zeph just barely bit back the comment that living a celibate life on the quest wouldn’t be any different for Gen, but she didn’t want to ruin her gambit. Besides, maybe travel would open up some possibilities for Gen. She’d always been far too picky. Being a shy introvert amidst a boisterous extroverted people like the Tala didn’t help either. Meeting new people might be good for her.
“The Dasnarians sometimes command celibacy, depending,” Jak pointed out, and Zeph had to nod in agreement. She’d spent some time in Dasnaria, mostly visiting her mother’s family, and she’d heard plenty of stories. Nobody beat the Dasnarians in iron control of, well, everything. “A moratorium on all sex wouldn’t be unusual.”
“Stop calling it a moratorium,” Astar said, darting Zeph an irritated glance. She smiled at him mercilessly.
“But we are not Dasnarians,” Stella spoke up. “Not even Jak and Zeph can be considered Dasnarian, because they grew up in our culture. We’re friends, and we are adults. We should not be forbidding each other romantic pursuits so long as they don’t interfere with the quest. I agree that Willy’s Moratorium should not extend beyond this group.” She looked up at Astar with a sweet smile and slipped her hand into his.
He returned her gaze with exasperation but kept her hand in his. “All right, then, we’re agreed. I suggest you all get as much sleep as you can. We’ll leave around noon tomorrow.”
No one pointed out that tomorrow was today. And Zeph was keeping a low profile, hiding her glee that Astar hadn’t noticed that she’d dodged agreeing to his decree. Across the table, Stella met her gaze, the gray of Stella’s eyes crystal bright as she smiled knowingly. Astounded, Zeph processed that Stella might actually be on her side, and had spoken as she did to help her cause.
Stella stood. “Lena, Zeph, Gen,” she said, “you can sleep in my rooms if you like. There’s plenty of space for all of us.”
“Same with mine,” Astar belatedly said. “Jak, Rhy—if you want to bunk with me.”
Rhy pushed violently away from the table, glaring at Lena. “It’s not dawn yet,” he shot at her.
She lifted her chin, expression cold. “I rescind the offer.”
“You can’t do that,” he growled.
“We’re under royal orders now,” she replied coolly, gesturing to Astar. “Those supersede any carelessly made and inadvisable personal agreements. See you all tomorrow.” As they headed out of the room, Zeph heard something crash behind them, followed by Astar’s soothing tones.
“No thanks,” came Rhy’s snarled denial. “I’d rather sleep outside.”
A moment later, the distinctive whistling of black wings whooshed over their heads. Rhy, in his raven form, sailed past with furious speed and was gone. Lena watched him go with a jaundiced expression, shaking her head slightly.
“Just you and me, Willy,” Jak’s voice rang down the hall. “Fancy some mjed? There’s plenty.”
Zeph trailed along behind Gen and Lena, who walked arm in arm, heads bent together. Stella, looking tired, walked beside her.
“Are you holding up all right?” Zeph remembered to ask. That had been an emotional scene, and Stella didn’t handle those well. She felt everything. Shielding herself from the turbulent emotions, on top of whatever sorcerous scrying she and Lena had been doing with Queen Andromeda, had to have left her wrung out.
Stella shook her head, then nodded. “I’m tired—trying to keep up with Auntie Andi while she’s working at full power is not easy. My shielding is strong, though, so I wasn’t too bothered by the emotions in that scene just now. You upset Willy a great deal.”
Surprised by the stab of guilt, she slid Stella a searching look. “Just now?”
“Before we walked in. I sensed his turmoil from a distance.”
His turmoil. Ha! What about her turmoil? For some reason, all of her friends, even Stella the empath, seemed to think Zeph didn’t get hurt and upset like anyone else would. “I’m sorry you were disturbed,” she said stiffly, then wondered if she sounded like Astar at his most awkward.
Stella cocked her head, eyes wide and concerned. “Oh, no, honey—I didn’t mean that at all.” She brushed her fingers over Zeph’s bare arm, a rare and fleeting touch, and Stella’s face crumpled. “Oh, Zeph, I’m so sorry. I feel Astar all the time from anywhere, so that can make me insensitive to others. I didn’t realize how much he hurt you.”
Tears stung Zeph’s eyes, a rarity for her, but it had been a trying few hours. “Thank you,” she replied quietly. “I don’t expect you to be monitoring my emotions, though. And I appreciated your covert assistance at the end there.”
Stella’s face lit with mischief. “That was clever of you, ensuring that neither you nor Astar agreed to Willy’s Moratorium.”
Clever, yes—but to what purpose? Zeph wasn’t even sure why she’d been so determined to keep that option open. Except that she’d never been one to give up easily. Some people called her competitive, but she’d never wanted to be better than anyone else. She just had high expectations for herself. If she wanted something, then she felt she should push herself to attain it. She’d wanted Astar for as long as she could remember. Now he’d finally admitted he wanted her just as much—but not enough to set aside his obstinacy about his misguided code of conduct.
“Not that my cleverness will do any good,” Zeph sighed. Because Stella was a good listener, she went on in a rush, speaking quietly, trusting to Stella’s sharp shapeshifter’s ears to pick up her words—and that Gen would be too distracted talking with Lena to overhear. Gen had always been firmly against Zeph seducing Astar, though it had never been entirely clear to Zeph why Gen would care. “He told me that he doesn’t want me enough to compromise his principles. That we can’t ever be together, not even for a fling, because he ‘can’t separate sex and love’ like I do.” The last came out more bitter than she expected.
Stella groaned deep in her throat. “Oh, Willy. You idiot.”
Zeph glanced at her in surprise. “I thought you’d be on his side, to be honest.”
“I am,” Stella replied. “I’m also on your side. Both things can be equally true.”
“He’s probably right,” Zeph admitted. “Love and sex aren’t the same thing for me.”
“Have you ever been in love?” Stella asked curiously.
“No, have you?”
Stella shrugged, gray eyes staring at some distant point, then turning her pensive gaze on Zeph. “How do you know if you are?” she asked.
Zeph echoed the shrug with a far more elaborate Tala one. “You’re asking me? The Tala don’t really do love, not with promises, engagements, and marriages, anyway. Rhy was harsh in there, but there is truth in what he said.”
“Some truth, yes, but not all of the truth,” Stella argued. “Your father is Tala, and he married your mother.”
“Because she’s Dasnarian. She wouldn’t have been happy any other way.”
“And he loved her enough to go against Tala ways, so that she would be happy. Same with Gen’s parents. Zynda married Marskal because it meant something to him.”
Zeph didn’t know what to say to that.
“Anyway,” Stella said after a moment, “I don’t think Willy knows either, about being in love, or about sex versus love. I think he’s just afraid.”
The one thing Astar never seemed to her was afraid. “Of what?”
Stella gave her an owlish look. “Something for you to figure out, perhaps.”
Zeph frowned—not at all sure why Stella thought she needed to figure things out if Astar was the one being wrong-headed—and had opened her mouth to argue when she caught sight of her father ahead. Zyr lounged against the wall, looking restless and bored but brightening when he spotted Zeph.
“Hello, la
dies,” he said, sweeping a bow to all of them. “I’m wondering if I can borrow my daughter.”
“Of course,” Stella replied, standing back as Lena and Gendra gave Zyr enthusiastic hugs. “Just come in whenever, Zeph, and pick a spot to sleep.”
Zeph waved goodnight to the others, then turned to her dad. She didn’t think any of the parents knew about the quest yet. Ursula planned to take care of that, telling them only the cover story. “Is something wrong?”
He shuddered. “Walls. Manners. Social things and talking talking talking. I thought I’d see if you wanted to go fly. Enjoy the moon the Tala way.”
“Yes,” she replied immediately. She hadn’t realized until that moment just how badly she needed to stretch her wings.
He grinned at her and offered a hand. “We can take off from a balcony over here.”
“Where’s Mom?”
“Sleeping.” He rolled his eyes. “She says she’s too old to dance all night anymore. Why aren’t you dancing?”
She shrugged, adding an insouciant smile. “Too many walls, manners, and social things.”
Smiling back, Zyr opened the doors to a windswept terrace, snow blowing thickly and whipping through her clothes. Once Lena had released the magic that had created clear skies and a bubble of warmth for the midnight viewing of the crystalline moon, the storm had returned with a vengeance. Brr. She quickly shifted into owl form, grateful for the downy feathers. Zyr shifted into gríobhth form, surprising her. He didn’t typically take that form around mossbacks, since the sight of the supposedly mythical creature—a monster to some eyes—tended to upset them. But then, who would see them in this weather? He dove off the balcony, snapping out his black wings to catch the wind, long black tail lashing, and releasing a triumphant caw from his lethally curved eagle’s beak.
Changing her mind, Zeph shifted straight from owl to gríobhth, too. Might as well take advantage of the high balcony, as the heavy lion body of the form made lifting off from the ground nigh impossible. Zyr could do it with a running start, but Zeph had yet to master the technique. She would, though, someday. Just like she’d get the trick of dragon form, too.
Zeph leapt into the sky, fighting the drop and working her wings to find the pattern in the winds that would assist her flight instead of buffeting her. The pumping work warmed her, and she followed the black gríobhth up and up, through the tumultuous clouds—then popped free into the clear cold moonlit night above the storm.
The crystalline moon had begun to set, but still dominated the sky with extraordinary clarity, silver light illuminating the roiling sea of clouds below. She searched for any sign of the shadow that had obscured the moon but saw nothing. Only the bright face, clear and pure, as if all was well with the world.
Zeph never thought of herself as all that spiritual, but it seemed Moranu’s regard followed their flight with approval. The goddess of the moon, the night, the shifting shadows and many faces smiled upon Her shapeshifter children. The black gríobhth and the golden soared through the moonlit sea of stars like creatures from another time.
Only Zeph and her father could take the form of the gríobhth, also known as a gryphon in the Common Tongue. The Tala knew, however, that if a shapeshifter could take the form, then the creature must have existed at some point in time—or some place. Shapeshifters couldn’t just pile pieces of animals together. The form had to come from somewhere. But no one had ever seen a real-life gríobhth, though it showed up in illustrations and tapestries, especially in the once-lost land of n’Andana. Then Zyr had been born with the gríobhth astonishingly as his First Form, the form that shapeshifter children instinctively took on their first shift, sometimes while still in the cradle.
And Zeph had been the same, except where Zyr was obsidian black in gríobhth form, from the tip of his lethally curved beak to the tip of his whiplike lion’s tail, Zeph was all in shades of gold. It was as if her mother’s golden Dasnarian coloring showed up in Zeph’s First Form, even though she looked like her father in human form.
As the gryphon, she liked to think of herself as the best of both of her parents. And she sent thanks to Moranu for Her many blessings, but especially this one.
Flying like this, more than anything else that night, felt like an appropriate honoring of the goddess’s feast. The moonlight silvered the glossy black fur and feathers of her father’s gríobhth form flying beside her, and he seemed more relaxed, too, a sense of peace about him. It seemed the moonlight fell palpably over her own golden fur and feathers, a benediction, the loving caress she’d hoped for from Astar and had been so coldly denied.
Zeph had hoped to kiss Astar beneath the crystalline moon at midnight, and she had to squelch her bitter jealousy that Lena had apparently enjoyed a magical moment like that with Rhy. At least she’d had that moment, no matter how brief or how it had fallen out later. Zeph had even spun some fantasies about how it would be, finally kissing Astar. And she was not the spin-romantic-fantasies type, usually. Still, she’d thought the festival night, the special moon, the beautiful dress she’d labored to create and faithfully reproduce after shifting—she’d thought maybe Astar would finally notice her. That he’d finally admit to wanting her.
She hadn’t imagined the longed-for admission would be followed by such a cruel rejection.
I don’t want you enough to compromise my principles.
Like she was something dirty, only a potential stain upon his shining honor.
Up here, in the clear moonlight, with the gríobhth’s wild distance from the tumult of human-shaped hearts, the words didn’t quite slice at her as they had in the moment, when she was in her sadly vulnerable human body. With distance, she could even consider that it could be wiser to simply let Astar go. He didn’t want her enough to change. Maybe that was Stella’s point, that someone has to want it enough, and Astar had been very clear that he didn’t.
I don’t want you enough to compromise my principles. That will never change.
Maybe she didn’t want him enough to keep smashing her skull bloody on the wall of his obstinacy. She’d thought that if she could just show him the fun side of life, how to enjoy his body instead of being so conflicted about his shapeshifter nature and mossback duties, that he would break out of his invisible chains. But no—he’d embraced those chains instead of her, adamantly pushing her away.
Given how she felt like she was bleeding inside, she must have invested more in the fantasy than she’d realized. Astar had certainly hurt her more deeply than she’d thought possible. He didn’t want her enough to compromise his principles. It didn’t get clearer than that.
Enough then. Like Lena, Zeph would go on this quest and do her utmost to be responsible and useful—and she would let Astar go.
He didn’t want her enough. Full stop.
Time to let him go.
Under the full moon, Zyr roared with leonine pride—and Zeph added her own wild call of golden harmony. This could be enough.
This would be enough. She’d make sure of it.
~ 9 ~
Astar nodded absently along with Ursula’s last-minute suggestions on navigating the political waters in the various courts. Truly, he was listening, but Ursula had a tendency to repeat herself out of understandable frustration at having to stay behind and leave the heroics to others. She preferred to be able to control things directly, so in lieu of that, she gave detailed instructions. And Astar did her the courtesy of listening. He could do that and keep an eye on his friends. Five of them milled around the two carriages that would take them north into Carienne, Lena and Rhy studiously ignoring each other while talking animatedly to others.
Everyone was there but Zephyr. He hadn’t seen any sign of her. Where could she be? She couldn’t possibly have gotten hurt, not in the safety of Ordnung.
A messenger ran up to Ursula with some urgent matter, so Astar seized the opportunity to ease over to Stella. She was standing a bit apart from the others, with her face turned up to the sky. Her red-black hair spilled
over her silvery cloak, the smoky fur framing her delicate profile. Eyes closed and lips curved in a smile of quiet delight, she allowed the fat snowflakes to fall on her upturned face, where they clung for a crystalline moment before melting. She looked so serene that Astar hated to interrupt her moment of peace. Stella had so little of that at Castle Ordnung, with its constant hubbub and daily crises. She’d be much happier at Windroven, or in Annfwn—but she stayed in Ordnung for him, because that was where he had to be. Such were the depths of her loyalty to him.
He’d hitched his step and started to reverse so as not to disturb her, but too late. Stella opened her eyes and smiled at him, holding out her gloved hands, her gray eyes clear and sparkling. “What’s wrong, Willy?”
Taking her hands, he brushed a kiss on her cheek. “Nothing’s wrong. Maybe I just wanted to say good morning to my lovely sister.”
She made a face at him. “It’s past noon, so too late for that greeting, and you didn’t escape Ursula’s clutches just for that.”
“True,” he admitted. “Have you seen Zephyr?”
“Not yet. She didn’t come back last night.”
“What?” He nearly barked the question in his shock. Where could she have gone? Maybe she’d returned to the party after all, and found someone else to take to her bed. Someone who’d been more than happy to peel her out of that crimson gown, to bury his face in her veil of black hair and stroke her creamy skin… He clenched his fists, wanting nothing more than to crush the skull of whoever it was.
Stella raised a brow at him. “What has upset you, Willy?”
He eyed her. His twin knew very well how he felt—usually before he did. She had no reason to play coy now. “I thought the girls were all staying in your rooms.”
She shook her head. “Not Zeph. She took off.”
Took off. A growl rose in his chest, and Stella’s serene façade cracked. She snickered, her eyes glinting mischievously. He narrowed his own at her. “Nilly, I am not in the mood to be teased.”
The Golden Gryphon and the Bear Prince: An Epic Fantasy Romance (Heirs of Magic Book 1) Page 7