by Jess Owen
Kenna spoke quietly, and her tone had shifted so completely that Shard couldn’t keep up with what she wanted from him. “No one else knows, Shard.”
He dragged himself back to the moment, and tried to think what a more experienced male might say, like Kjorn. “I just—”
“Don’t worry.” She laughed at him and flopped by the streambed, batting at his wingtip, inviting him to play just the way Thyra might. Shard hesitated, then crouched, tail lashing. She blinked and watched him, then her eyes grew keen and she started to speak–but Shard leaped. She laughed and they rolled together, wrestling. They tumbled into the stream once, both shrieking at the cold. It wasn’t like a spar, for Shard couldn’t see trying to gain the upper claw. They just wrestled, throwing the other, beating wings, until they ran out of ground and bumped into a juniper trunk.
Shard laughed, warmth flushing under his feathers. Kenna, smaller but strong from hunting, pinned him against the trunk. She perked her ears and Shard struggled dazedly to think what he was supposed to say. Should I ask her to fly with me on the Daynight?
“Do you think,” she murmured close to his feathered ear, “that once the settlement is strong, we will have to stay here?”
“I don’t know,” Shard murmured, distracted by the smell of her feathers. Flowers? From her hunts in the field? Or does she rub flowers on them, as Thyra used to? As a healer’s son, Shard could pick out the separate scents of rosemary blossom and wild rose, but the third was elusive. Feeling bold, he nuzzled behind her ear, determined to figure out the third flower. Then she spoke again.
“But surely as wingbrother to the prince, you might choose where—”
“Kjorn?” Suddenly, the flowery scent of her feathers turned his stomach. Shard heaved, pushing her off. She slid back and blinked, sitting.
“I only mean, as his wingbrother—”
“I heard you.” The warmth in him heated to frustration. Wingbrother to the prince. “I thought you liked me.”
“I do, Shard.”
“Why mention Kjorn, then?” He stood and shook himself free of bark and pine needles.
“I was only curious.” Her voice grew an edge. “If you and your mate might get to choose—”
“Are we mated now? That was fast.” He heard his uncle in his voice and paced away, stretching his wings. “Or were you just checking what I might have to offer?”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Then what did you?”
But she never got to tell him. Another voice entered the argument.
“Well if it isn’t Shard, master of flight and fight, and the mysteries of Star Island.” Halvden strode green and flawless through the trees.
Kenna rolled to her belly and perked her ears, looking between both of them. Shard sensed, unhappily, that she was hoping for another fight. She wouldn’t be satisfied, though, for Shard no longer felt like fighting for her or anyone else’s affection. It didn’t feel at all as he thought it would, any of it. He’d thought a female might be more like Thyra. More like the way Kjorn and Thyra seemed to just know that no one else would do, that they fit.
“Kenna,” Halvden changed his attention when Shard didn’t respond. “I was going to hunt before the storm hits. Join me? I still need help with that dive technique for catching a running deer.”
Kenna flattened one ear, then looked expectantly at Shard. Am I supposed to fight for her now? He ground his beak and tightened claws into the pine needles, suddenly wanting to be alone. Surely his future mate could choose her own company without making them fight. But then, Kenna was young.
Too young.
“You should go.” He dipped his head to them both. “Halvden needs all the help he can get.”
Her ears flattened and she pushed stiffly to all fours again, her pretty gray eyes more like the cool sky. “Then I will.”
“Good.”
Her hackles ruffled, then she padded to Halvden and together they bound to the edge of the woods and took off. Shard whirled around and slashed his talons against the juniper trunk. I shouldn’t even care!
“Ah,” croaked a voice above him. “Young love.”
“Shut up,” Shard muttered, and the raven glided away laughing into the trees.
~ 17 ~
Stigr’s Last Lesson
“Be wary of a gryfess thwarted,” Stigr called to Shard over the night wind. They flew over the tossing sea, farther out than they had ever gone. Shard stared down at the roiling waves that heaved pale, salty spray toward the sky. Stigr didn’t seem worried. “There isn’t a power more dangerous on the earth or sky.” Stigr laughed. Shard hadn’t told his uncle all of it. He doubted Stigr would’ve laughed then.
The storm brewing earlier had mostly hit the northern edge of the isles and had blown off by the quarter mark of the night. Perfect conditions, Stigr said, to practice the master maneuver of Vanir flight, but hadn’t yet told Shard what that was.
Shard hadn’t told him that Kenna knew of his night flights. That worry, paired with the sight of endless black ocean stretching before him, the Silver Isles tiny lumps at his back, was enough to weigh his wings like logs. But Stigr either ignored, or didn’t notice, his mood. Shard suspected the former.
“Either way, don’t wait too long to mate if you want one, nephew. That’s my advice. I did, and the Daynight I would have asked my chosen was the very hour the Aesir came raiding. Doesn’t it figure, but I trust bright Tyr guides all. Now then.”
Shard snapped his beak in frustration at the subject change. Often Stigr would do that—hint at stories of the Conquering, of his own past and exile, and then promptly wing forward to a new subject. But Shard followed. Too much information could lead to knowing things he had promised his king he didn’t need to know.
Wind nearly flung him into the water. Shard gasped and stroked up, catching himself.
The sea is death. It took my mate from me …
“That’s good, nephew!” Stigr bellowed over the wind and chop of waves. “Have no fear. Your wings are built for this! You’re just like your father, I can see it. The Aesir can’t fly this way.” He spoke of true sea flight.
Subtle drafts swirled over the water that Shard, with his long curved wings, could catch and glide on. Sometimes it took more effort and that night his flight bumped and stuttered, his wings too tense with nerves and fear to catch a glide. At least it took enough concentration to drive all else from his mind. Stigr was still talking about the Aesir.
“Their wings are too blunt and broad. They’ll breed sea flight out of the Vanir soon enough, I suppose.”
Shard drew a breath, flinging other worries away. He had always flown the best of any in his year. This flight, he was determined to master. Little gusts buoyed his wings and the tangy smell of brine, sea plant and fish swelled in his nostrils with each wave. They flew out past the islands into the windland quarter of the sea. The rush of seeing so much water nearly drove a cry from Shard’s throat and he glanced behind him only once to make sure the Silver Isles were still there.
“If you can master this at night,” Stigr called over the water, “then it will be like kit’s play for you in daylight. Like this, now.”
Shard swallowed a reply, clenching his talons. Stigr banked sharply while Shard wheeled to avoid a high wave, stretching his wings taut to catch every eddy of air and keep aloft.
“Why do we have to fly so low?” Or maybe they weren’t low, Shard realized. The waves grew larger that far out, towering as high as pine trees at their foaming peaks.
“Tor rules the sea,” Stigr called as he glided in close to Shard again. “And so the sea belongs to the Vanir also. You’re ready to learn the greatest flight of all.”
Shard stared as his uncle pulled up, the exile grasping currents with his wings until he found a soft draft that let him spiral high. Shard followed, his long, curved wings catching the same winds as easily as a gull.
“The trick now,” Stigr called from two leaps above, “is no fear. You’ll find y
ourself with different wings than when the wolves drove you into the sea. Behold.”
Before Shard could ask what he was to learn, Stigr slipped out of the current. He stretched his talons out and his hind legs back, tucked his wings, and dove.
Shard’s belly dropped in sharp terror and his shriek of surprise bumped over the waves. Stigr didn’t answer the call.
Is he mad?
“Uncle!” Shard wheeled tightly before rearing back in the sky to peer down as Stigr fell. Then, as Shard held his breath, the dark exile plunged into the cold black waves.
For three heartbeats Shard was alone, the night wind rushing his feathers, the moon on the mountainous waves. Then violent splashing announced his uncle lived. Shard glided lower, wary, but Stigr shrieked in triumph and, to Shard’s awe, hauled himself out of the water with hard, fast wing strokes, like a sea eagle.
“Ha!” Stigr called into the night, while Shard shuddered and stared. Water rained from Stigr’s wings in a silver curtain, droplets flying back to the waves. “Don’t fear, nephew.” Stigr swooped around him in an exhilarated circle. “You were born for this. I’ve seen you fly and spar. Go to this with the same heart, and you won’t fail.”
Shard flattened his ears, whispered, “Yes, Uncle,” and flapped to gain height again.
No fear. Different wings.
The sea is death.
Shard tried to quiet the memory of the king’s voice. Maybe it wasn’t truly blasphemous to catch fish in the shallows, for he still hadn’t been struck down by Tyr, but he didn’t doubt the danger of the open sea.
Stigr watched him a ways off, circling slowly. Shard flapped higher, then glided, stalling. Finally, he drew a breath, quieted his doubts and slipped as Stigr had done, folded his talons, hen his wings.
The horizon tilted as the sea became his sky. A rush of salt air slapped his face. Facing the waves head on, their roar and pull filled him. They rose, rolled and sank again like mountains of salt water. Shard shut his eyes, gasping against the wind. He had dived before. Often.
This is no different.
He heard Stigr’s encouraging cry, then waves—the full power of the sea filled his face and senses and he thought of the frigid water and his salt-heavy wings, and the king’s voice. Terror grasped him. A fear grasped him, too large to be his, digging talons into his muscles, his heart, his thoughts. It felt as if another’s fear whirled over his own, as if he lived some memory. A huge gryfon circled above him, laughing. Stigr? But this gryfon was red, scarred, a vicious king from a hotter land. A memory that was not his own leaped up in Shard’s mind, a memory, or dream.
He was falling, falling to the sea, to his death.
“Shard!” Stigr’s bellow snapped him back. “Straighten out!”
Falling to his death.
But I am alive!
The world spun round and up again as he flared, flapping, stalling, and pulled into a tight spiral to glide out of his dive a leap from the water. His tail feathers slapped the waves. His wingtips brushed the water and he shrieked to release his fear, heart nearly bursting as he regained some height.
Gliding higher, he sucked in cold night air and perked his ears down at the waves. A shadow that was his uncle loomed near his shoulder, but Shard didn’t look at him. Still gripped by the paralyzing fear that hadn’t felt like his own, he gasped for calmer breath.
“Well,” rumbled the old exile, watching him sideways. Disappointment weighted his voice. “Well. That’s all right, Shard. It’s all right. Few get it the first time. Try again.”
Shard swiveled to stare at him. “I—I can’t.”
Stigr flexed his talons, eyes narrowed as if to argue, to push him. A black silence stretched between them. Then Stigr let out a slow breath and spoke quietly in a different tone.
“Shard. Is it because of your father?”
Shard blinked, flicking his wingtips against a ripple of wind. “Is what because of my father?”
Stigr clasped his talons, edging away as their wings bumped too close. “Diving. Are you afraid to dive because of the way your father died?”
Still catching breath, Shard raced to catch up. The vision of a mad red gryfon above him whirled so fiercely he peered up, just in case, and saw nothing but stars, the moon and drifting cloud. I don’t know my father’s name, he had said to Sverin. To his king. I don’t wish to.
Shard tried to grasp for his purpose again, flying out in the middle of the night, over the sea. He feared that the strange vision, the terror that took him over, might at last be the wrath of Tyr, showing him the wrongness of his actions.
Aching to ask Stigr how his father died, but the refusal to break his promise to the king cold in his gut, Shard managed to shake his head, as if he knew. As if someone, once, had told him, or he remembered.
“No. I don’t know. It’s just frightening.” The madness of the whole thing whittled at him and tensed his muscles. He would be sore tomorrow. But he saw clearly now what he must do. If this was the last great thing Stigr had to teach him.
“Well. Next time then. We all have our fears.”
“Uncle.” He drew a breath as they soared higher, away from the trickier breezes over the waves. The ocean rolled out under them, a shining black plain. “I can’t come again.”
The early summer night was almost light enough for him to sense Stigr’s blank, single-eyed stare. “Why?”
“Kenna knows.” Relief washed him at the excuse. He couldn’t look over at the exile again. “It’s too dangerous.” A surprising heat locked his throat. He had never meant to become close to Stigr. An exile.
“I see.”
But there was an edge in his tone that told Shard Stigr had heard a different answer than the one he gave. “I want to, I just can’t.”
“No you don’t.” Stigr pushed, trying to outfly Shard, but Shard flew faster than any gryfon on the islands, and he caught up.
“Oh, I knew. I knew exactly why you came to me. So you could be a stronger, conquered minion of the Red King. But I had hope. I thought if you learned something, if you learned of the Vanir—”
“And I’m glad to know!” Shard caught a draft and flew up over his uncle, trying to see his face. “I am, please believe. But what would you have me do?”
Faster than they had flown out, they reached the edge of Star Isle and landed on a cliff a safe distance from Windwater. Stigr thumped heavily and Shard more lightly beside him. In answer the exile whirled on him, hackles raised, wings hunched up like storm clouds.
“What would you do, nephew? If you weren’t busy wishing for golden wings and the grace of the conquering Aesir? Don’t you see, this is your home. They are nothing but killers and thieves.”
“What should I do then? They’re my family and friends.” Shard half crouched in defense, wary. He had expected Stigr to be upset, but more gruff and cold, not this hot anger. “Come live with you among the dead of Black Rock? Spend my days wishing for the past? If that’s the way of the Vanir, then I will stand by the Red Kings until my last breath. At least they look to the future!”
“I am looking at the future,” Stigr whispered, staring at Shard. “Or I thought I was. You should’ve been honest with me.”
“You said you knew anyway. Why I came. Why I wanted to learn.”
“I thought the knowledge would change you.”
“Into what?” Shard paced away, tail lashing, and wanted nothing more than to leap back into the sky. Dawn approached. “Ever since I met Catori in the woods, strangers have been speaking my name and hinting about a past I cannot know!”
“Why can’t you know?”
“Because …” I made a promise. “It isn’t important. Everyone else has moved on. Everyone else is happy, Stigr! The pride is strong. Even my mother, who you won’t ask about. She took a new mate. She bore me a sister.”
That stopped Stigr. “She mated? Who?”
“Caj,” Shard said, and suddenly, out of all the gryfons in the pride he could have named, he realized that h
e was proud to speak that name. Comparing blue Caj with Hallr, even Sverin, who was harsh and terrifying, made him feel better.
“An Aesir? Of all of them …”
“So. You see. It’s time to move forward.”
“Is it.” Stigr watched him, one ear flattening ironically at Shard’s tone. “Good thing you’re so wise in the way of the world. I see it’s gotten you far.”
Shard advanced a step. “What do you mean? Sverin trusted me with the settlement here—”
“Trusted you? Nephew, I see more clearly out of one eye than you ever will with two, you’re so blinded by red and gems.”
“What are you talking about?
“This is exile.” Stigr stretched a wing. “He may preen it up and call it an opportunity and an honor, but I see what you won’t. He has torn you from your wingbrother’s side, from your mother, from anyone who might support you if you need it, from anyone who would show you the truth.”
“It is an honor,” Shard hissed, “to do whatever my king asks of me. But you wouldn’t understand that.”
Stigr looked as if Shard had slashed his good eye. “You have no idea …” More words and anger flitted over his face, and then he straightened before bowing his head. “If this is what honor has come to, then no. I wouldn’t understand. Goodbye, Shard. Fair winds.”
“Uncle!”
Stigr shoved into the sky, slapping Shard’s face with a wingtip when Shard bounded in to catch him.
Shard felt foolish. Why had he expected some jovial parting, with Stigr going back to live on Black Rock alone among his ghosts? He realized the cold truth that it never would have been possible.
I used him, he thought miserably. He’d never thought to become fond of an exile. He knew I was using him and he still taught me, hoping…hoping what? Shard stood on the cliff edge as the dawn turned the clouds rosy and the dark sky gray. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter now. Shard had gotten what he’d gone to Stigr for. As he’d said himself, it was time to move on.
“Didn’t I tell you?” gabbled the raven, winging up on Stigr’s right. “Red-blooded. A waste of time.”