The Starward Light

by Jess E. Owen

  “She would never,” Keta said sharply. “My king, you aren’t thinking clearly. No one would purposefully frighten you this way.”

  Tollak, emboldened by Keta, stood slowly. “You saw how much she wanted to go. Perhaps she—”

  “Perhaps she what?” Shard’s tail lashed, and he couldn’t hold back a snarl. “Perhaps she ran away? Hid from everyone, trying to come up to the salmon run? Covered her own trail so we wouldn’t be able to track her . . .”

  “. . . and got lost?” Keta offered, along the line that Shard had started in irony, but realized was more and more reasonable than one of his own pride kit-napping the princess in order to frighten him.

  Of course she hadn’t.

  No. Astri would not do that.

  “But she couldn’t possibly get lost,” Shard said, feeling deflated. His own daughter had run away and gotten herself in trouble, but his first action was to blame loyal members of his pride. And she had to be in trouble, for if she knew how they searched and worried, she wouldn’t stay in hiding. Not even she was so rebellious. “She knows to follow Nightrun if she gets confused in the woods. But that means . . .”

  “It means she may be in danger,” Keta said quietly. “But not that one of your own took her.”

  Shard drew a shuddering breath. They were right. He knew they were right. But it didn’t calm his fear. “We keep looking—”

  “My lord.”

  The voice from the dark struck his memory like stones ringing together. For a wild moment, Shard thought Einarr spoke to him, as he had once in a dream. But he turned to see Eyvindr climbing the rocks, without a shred of hesitancy, and mantle to him.

  “Yes, Eyvindr,” Shard greeted numbly.

  “I might know where Embra has gone.”

  Shard perked his ears, surprised at Eyvindr’s boldness, grateful, trying to separate him from the image of his dead father and his clinging mother, and treat him as a young warrior of the pride—and his daughter’s trusted playmate. “Where? We’ve searched every speck of ground between here and the fish camp, and found no scent or sign.”

  “Yes, my lord. I wish I’d thought of it sooner, but it’s just come to me . . .” Eyvindr’s wings twitched, giving away his nervousness. Shard wondered how harried and frightful he must look, to strike fear into the heart of a fledge who might very well grow to be bigger and stronger than himself one day. “You see, we’ve searched every speck of ground . . . above ground.”

  Eyvindr met his eyes with pointed surety.

  Clarity like starlight pierced through Shard’s anger and fear. “Of course,” he breathed. “Keta, Tollak—”

  But his faithful huntress and warrior had already whipped about and taken flight, calling for others to join them as they flew toward the birch woods, toward the river, toward a slash in the ground that led to a once-secret labyrinth of underground caves.

  “EMBRA!”

  “Embra!”

  Embra, embra . . .Their shouts echoed through the damp, cold stone.

  Ember-rah-em-raa-ra . . .

  Shard raced through the caves with Brynja at his heels, not caring if he got himself lost, if they only managed to find Embra again. She wouldn’t know their markings, their careful paths through the tunnels that led to other islands. He couldn’t let himself despair, or think how long she might’ve been wandering the caves alone, or shouted for help, growing hungry, and cold . . .

  “Embra!”

  “When I get my talons on you—” Brynja shouted, “you won’t go anywhere until the snow falls!”

  “I smell fox.” Eyvindr’s voice bounced down an adjacent tunnel.

  “If she followed a fox . . .” Shard breathed, and Brynja snarled, low in her chest.

  “I will have its pelt for our nest.”

  Shard turned down the tunnel Eyvindr had taken. “Eyvindr?”

  Pale, softly glowing fungi and lichens sprouted along the tight stone corridors formed by flowing lava in the First Age. It was an eerie place, ancient, silent, and the longer Shard remained underground, the tighter his breath became, as his mind flashed back on a tiny prison of ice and stone that had once held him . . . Shard shook himself. He could leave this tunnel any time he liked. He was not trapped here.

  But Embra was, somewhere.

  “There was definitely a fox here.” Eyvindr brought him around.

  “You have the nose of a wolf,” Brynja said, lifting her own beak to smell, and looking at a loss.

  “I think I smell Embra, too.” The fledge stood at a dead end, a blockage of tumbled stone. He turned in a circle, ears flicking back and forth. “Embra!”

  A faint whimper met Shard’s straining ears. “Quiet.”

  Brynja and Eyvindr went still. Down other tunnels they heard gryfons calling, and Embra’s name echoing in endless desperation across the stone.

  Then . . .

  “Here!”

  “She’s right here!” Eyvindr cried, and set his talons to the tumbled stones, pulling them away as he spoke. “I knew it. Fox probably—knew just—what—he-was-doing—”

  “Stay there!” Brynja and Shard dug with him, dragging back the larger stones.

  Pebbles and rock debris fell toward them until they cleared a space large enough for Eyvindr to crawl through. Without hesitation, he shoved himself through the crack and for five awful heartbeats Shard waited, staring at the dark stones.

  Dust and pebbles scattered from the hole and there was Embra, with Eyvindr shoving her through the crack and toward Shard and Brynja.

  “Da!” She slid down the rock pile and into Shard and Brynja’s huddled, winged embrace.

  “How could you,” Brynja whispered.

  “I . . .” she looked between them. “I was in the woods. I saw a fox, dragging rabbits, and I thought he was . . . I thought he was trying to make us think mountain cats were—so I chased him, and tried to catch him, but he led me down here . . .”

  Shard ground his beak. “You’re fine. It’s all right. Embra. Tell us later. You’re all right, and that’s all we care about. For now.”

  More rocks bumped down as Eyvindr pulled himself back out from behind the stone wall, and he tumbled down to rejoin them. Brynja threw herself at him, bumping her head against his wing and wrapping her own wing around him.

  “Well done, Eyvindr. Clever fledge. Well done.”

  “Yes.” Shard straightened, regarding him. “Your mother will be proud.”

  Eyvindr looked at him with fierce eyes.

  Shard lifted his beak higher. “And I am, too.” He drew a slow breath, letting his muscles relax now that his daughter was close again, and inclined his head to Eyvindr. Now that he’d left the nest and proven himself brave and clever, Shard felt a spark of excitement to think what Einarr’s son might become. “Thank you, Eyvindr. Embra, say—”

  “Thank you, Eyvindr,” she whispered, turning full-moon eyes on her new hero.

  Eyvindr managed to mantle under Brynja’s wing, then he straightened, somber. “Now about this fox. Let me help hunt it, my lord.”

  Warring anger and curiosity kept Shard silent a moment. Then he shook his head. “I’ll deal with the fox, as I handle disputes with all Named creatures. Embra, do you bear him ill-will?”

  “No,” she said immediately. “I . . . I hunted him first. And he must be leaving rabbits around for a reason.”

  “Then he fears to speak to me,” Shard said, thinking it through. “Or he is trying to scare mountain cats off his territory by fooling them, and it has nothing to do with us.” Shard felt the crawling headache of kingship ease its familiar way up his neck. “I will find him, and handle it either way. For now—”

  “For now, back to the nest to sleep,” Brynja said, herding Embra with her wing. “And let this be a lesson why we don’t wander . . .”

  Brynja walked ahead, scolding a meek princess, and Eyvindr fell in just behind Shard in the cramped tunnel. “You have to admit it was brave for her to hunt him at all,” the fledge whispered to Shard.


  He flicked his tail, and tried not to chuckle. “Yes. Yes, it was, wasn’t it?”

  BACK AT THE FISH camp for the final night of the run, Shard stood near the bank, under the starlight. Behind him, two fires crackled, surrounded by gryfons, and the scent of smoke and some roasting fish made him realize he hadn’t yet eaten that day.

  Dagr trotted up to him. “A good run, my lord. We’ll be well set even if the coast freezes hard.”

  “Thank you for everything, Dagr, for keeping it going when Embra was lost.”

  Dagr huffed and flicked his tail. “Of course. What else were we to do? And what of the fox she spoke of?”

  Shard shook his head. “Gone. Ketil and Astri have led hunt after hunt, and no sign. Perhaps he fears we’d kill him for leading Embra into a trap.”

  “I might’ve,” Dagr grumbled, “if I’d caught the pest.”

  “At least we know that mountain cats aren’t in our lands.”

  “For now,” Dagr said, and Shard looked at him sidelong. Dagr shifted his talons in the river gravel. “My lord, Astri was upset when she spoke of them, but she wasn’t wrong. If this fox felt the need to try scaring off mountain cats by imitating one and living so close to us, that means they’re coming lower. Let me run deeper patrols, and lay stronger markers on our boundaries. We’ve made peace in the islands, but that doesn’t mean we allow others to crawl all over us, wherever they want to hunt. If Embra going missing isn’t enough proof—”

  “Yes, Dagr.” Shard sighed. He wanted to believe that if gryfons were at peace that they had no enemies, no troubles. But there would always be dangers. “I agree with you. But no killing, if we can help it. A stronger show of force should do it.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  For a moment they let the river slip over their feet, and before Dagr could ask him Shard said, “Eyvindr did very well. He’s a credit to you.”

  “And Astri,” Dagr said, in his loyal way. “He fears to leave her alone, and she fears to lose him, but that doesn’t mean she’s done poorly by him. It only means they’re family. A good family.”

  “I know.” Shard wanted to be angry at her for stifling one of his young warriors, but his own terror when Embra had gone missing softened his frustration and deepened his understanding of her fears. “I know that.”

  “I know you do,” Dagr said, bumping a wing against him in a brotherly way. “Which is why you are the greatest king these islands have known, or will ever know.”

  Shard laughed weakly. “You’ve known only two other kings, and neither were fit to rule.”

  “Both were tyrants,” Dagr agreed, and the word rang unpleasantly. Tyrant. Shard looked at him slowly. “Which is why I will always be grateful for you. And why I teach Eyvindr the same.”

  “What do you teach him?” Shard felt the starlight, distant, watching. “Dagr, Embra said the word tyrant, and I’ve never spoken it to her.”

  “I know.” Dagr averted his gaze. “But don’t you agree it’s important to teach them? To teach them the history—Sverin’s redemption, yes, but also his fall? If they don’t know where we’ve come from, they may one day end up back there.”

  Shard couldn’t answer that. He tried not to paint his distant wingbrother’s father as a villain in his stories to Embra . . . but maybe Dagr was right. Maybe he did her a disservice.

  “Only in stillness, the wind,” he mused.

  Dagr skipped to the end of the song by adding, “It was only by knowing the other, that they came to know themselves. My lord, we must know ourselves by knowing that we came from war. Eyvindr is battle-born, like Halvden’s daughter, like Kjorn’s son. They were borne of conquering, of war, and came into this world during a battle.” He turned, talons swishing through the cold water, to face Shard fully.

  “Even Embra is Brynja’s daughter because you flew to the Winderost seeking answers. Only by knowing all of the story, by knowing the dark, will they also know the light. Yes, I call Sverin a tyrant when the nestlings ask me. I also call him a warrior, and a king. We can’t hide from own our legacies, my lord, or we’ll be ruined by them if the young ones learn we hid any of the truth from them.”

  Shard closed his eyes. Embra was so young. He thought on Dagr’s words, on his legacy. On what kind of pride Embra would inherit.

  At length, letting the river cool his talons and his heart, he spoke. “Thank you for being honest with me. I hope you always will. But I don’t know if Embra is ready to hear the whole tale, the darkness, and all of it. She’s so young.”

  Dagr watched him, unblinking. “So were you, when your father was slain, and you were put in the nest of your enemy’s son.”

  “Dagr,” Shard warned. “Kjorn—”

  “Is honorable and just, because he was your friend. Your friendship saved him. It saved all of us. But think how you felt when you learned the truth of the Conquering, and how long it took you to understand that the world was not at all as you’d been raised to believe. Let us be honest with our kits, Shard. Let us at least be honest.”

  Shard watched him, knowing he was right, but struggling still. He wanted to protect Embra from the darkness—the very thing he condemned Astri for doing to Eyvindr.

  “Protect her too much, “ Dagr said, “and it will be to her ruin.”

  Shard closed his eyes at hearing his own words offered back to him. “We’ll never really be rid of it, will we? The past?”

  “No, of course not. But, I’ll tell you what I tell Astri—”

  “We have hope,” Shard said softly. “I know that’s what you say.” Dagr ducked his head in agreement. Somewhere upstream a salmon splashed, and Shard ticked an ear toward it. “We have hope, as we’ve never had before. I have faith in my pride, and in my daughter.”

  “Good,” Dagr said. “Because we all have faith in you—and that is what gives us hope and lights our future.”

  Shard nodded once, running his talons through the river gravel, thinking on the salmon run. The fish, hatched in the cold mountain lakes, took a treacherous journey downstream to live their lives in the sea, only to return, on some ancient call, to the waters where they’d been born. There they spawned and died, letting the next generation be born in cold water, run downstream, and begin again.

  And again . . . and again.

  It was a hallow thing, the salmon run, and Shard closed his eyes a moment to thank all of them, Named or not, for their lives, and for letting him be a part of their song. A thousand whispers rose and faded in his heart . . . or perhaps he just heard the rushing water, close and distant and unending. The thing that settled in his heart at last was hope, after all, for Embra and the future and all the pride.

  Dagr stepped back from him, drawing Shard’s thoughts to earth. “And now, my king, may I encourage you to eat something before you end up skinnier than Tollak?”

  Shard laughed, and waded out of the water with a shiver, and Dagr followed.

  They were met with hearty cheers, and as Shard settled to eat, gryfons reported a final tally of the fish, and they ate until they groaned, and they sang, and they slept at last under the cold and sparkling autumn sky.

  -oOo-

  About the Author

  Jess has been creating works of fantasy art and fiction for over a decade. The Summer King Chronicles is her first foray into the publishing realm, and she plans many more gryfon adventures to come. Her short fiction has appeared in Cricket Magazine for young readers, and various anthologies online. She’s a proud member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and the Authors of the Flathead. Jess lives with her husband and their dog in the mountains of northwest Montana, which offer daily inspiration for creating worlds of wise, wild creatures, magic, and adventure. Jess can be contacted directly through Facebook, Twitter, and her website, www.jessowen.com.

 

 
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