By the Silver Wind

by Jess E. Owen

  “Hail, great wind rider!” Ragna said, bowing her head. “My wingsister tells me you were kind enough to stop here on your journey, and bring us news.”

  “Windwalker,” replied the great, white bird, watching Ragna with placid eyes.

  Ragna opened her beak, thought a moment, and closed it.

  “Not Wind Rider,” he said, as if that clarified things.

  Ragna tilted her head. “Pardon?”

  “Great queen of gryfons,” he said in a voice like an ocean breeze, “my name is Windwalker. You may call me by it.”

  “Forgive me. I . . . thought that birds had no names.”

  “I was given one.”

  Surprised, Ragna actually took a step back from this strange bird. “By whom?”

  He opened his long beak in what she thought was a gleeful expression, and extended his impossible wings. “By the Stormwing, by Shard, Rashard, the Summer King. Last autumn, after the starfire flew, I led him from a storm, and he named me over the sea.”

  Ragna sank to her belly on the sand, placing her eyes level with his, and tried to keep her voice from shaking. “Then, fair Windwalker, we’ll be honored to give you a feast before you depart, if only you’ll tell of the Vanir you met, and all you know of my son.”

  He folded his wings again, and began his tale.

  ~17~

  Dreams of Blood and Stone

  WANDERING CLOUDS CREATED RACING moon shadows along the shore, as if the light and dark were blown by an otherworldly wind. Shard trotted down the beach just before the middlemark, when bright Tor flew at her highest point. After supper the others had left him to nap, and now the chilly wind and silver sky brought him fully awake.

  The priestess stood in the water already, her beak tilted toward the moon, a sliver of shining talon in the dark. Shard waded out to join her, sucking a breath against the icy waves. Tide was out, revealing long planes of stone that reached out into the water, strands of kelp, and bones.

  “My lady,” Shard greeted.

  Tilting her head slightly to acknowledge him, the priestess closed her eyes. “Do you feel the strength of the waves?”

  The water swelled up to his chest and he gasped as it slithered under his oiled feathers, then it tugged away, leaving him breathless. “Yes.”

  “Good. Let it keep you grounded here as you seek the dream. Do you feel the strength of Tor?”

  Shard looked up at the moon, which commanded the rocking sea. Feeling tiny, he closed his eyes. “Yes.”

  “Good. She will guide you.”

  They stood in silence then as four waves washed up and retreated, and Shard grew accustomed to the cold. Down the shoreline, some Vanhar and others remained awake, but their voices faded into a pleasant background along with splashes and the turning of gravel under the waves.

  “Tor,” whispered the priestess, and Shard held a breath. “We seek your high sight. We seek your path along the stars. We, the Named, we your beloved, ask your strength.”

  A wave coursed up, splashing over Shard’s wings. He clenched rocks and gravel, holding firm. The combination of majesty and fear sent a strange, exhilarating power through him.

  “Rashard.” The priestess intoned his name like a summon. “Rashard, see the star path, the dream net, as you have seen it before.”

  Rather than argue that he could only see it when asleep, Shard remained silent, and imagined it instead.

  “Every detail,” the priestess breathed, and for a distracted moment, Shard wondered if it was safe for such an ancient gryfess to be standing out in the freezing ocean.

  “Breathe as if you sleep,” she commanded. “I will not let you float away. See your dream net. Every detail. See how it is also the star dragon, the shell, the leaf. See how it is our own heart, unfolding forever into the world.”

  Shard’s breath caught. No longer simply imagining, he saw the net as it appeared in his dreams, an endless spiral that wove and touched every living thing. Dreams sprinkled along it like stars—dreaming gryfons, distant lions, pronghorn, and birds.

  He almost laughed, but instead he let the net carry him under the moon to the Outlands. Climbing and flying as if through a vast forest, just as in a dream, he traveled while his body remained there in the ocean.

  “Be mindful,” said a warm female voice, and he remembered the priestess. “She may not understand.”

  Shard dug his talons and hind claws deeper into the sand at the bottom, and let the waves rock him. Thinking of Groa, he let his mind slip into the water, down to the sand around his toes, the pull of sea. Down into himself. From there, he found the net again, and her.

  Rhydda. She was awake. She sensed him, like a scent in the wind.

  He thought of her name, and she lifted her head to it. They had finished their hunt. The scent of blood was sharp and fresh, and pride surged within her. A dream, a memory bloomed before Shard. She’d held back, watched the youngest wyrmlings run down a herd of pronghorn. The young ones had done well, had hunted alone. They brought her their kills.

  “Rhydda.” Shard didn’t know if he whispered out loud or not, but he spoke to her, and she seemed to hear, if not understand. Where she was, clouds masked the moon, and darkness lay over her. “You’re proud of them. Does that mean you love them? I know that feeling.”

  Sensing where he swirled and flew within the dreaming net, he crafted a vision for her of Hikaru’s first hunts, of the first fish he’d brought in from the sea. With that he swept her in the emotion of pride. Her massive heart quickened, great gusts of air bellowed from her lungs, and for a moment he was with her, was her, was ancient, aching bones and bulging, weary muscles and fangs the size of a gryfon foreleg.

  Yes, she knew pride.

  She also knew injustice. Her young ones should not be hunting in this dusty land.

  And she knew hatred. Heat suffused her mind, curiosity, anger.

  “You once flew under the sun,” Shard said softly, speaking carefully, painting his words with dream images. “You showed me. You flew over the sea.”

  Fire cracked across his head and he startled, jerking. Salt water lapped into his face, reminding him that his vision was not real. He was safe. The priestess would see to his safety.

  “Show me,” he growled. “Show me.”

  He thought of the gryfon cast in ruby and gold, but instead, saw a land of waving green grass hills and ash forests, and other trees he didn’t know. They had huge, sprawling trunks and twisting branches and leaves like miniscule wyrm tails, like long slender spades. He saw caves, and a golden dawn. A wyrm emerged from the deep earth to see the sun—

  Pain lashed across his eyes, a hissing, cracking voice.

  Back in your hole, beast, until you bring gold. The sun is not for you.

  The sun is not for you.

  Breathing hard, Shard forced himself not to shrink back, reminding himself he was safe, even as anger and injustice coursed through his heart.

  “What’s happening?” he asked Rhydda, and she showed him only that sunlight meant flares of pain.

  “But you flew under the sun! You flew over the sea!”

  “Caution,” murmured the priestess, and the odd echo of her voice in the dream threw Shard from his focus.

  Frustrated, he flung out across along the dream net and back into Rhydda’s presence. She had stood, was pacing, wings flexing and flaring, and her brood milled and snarled and snapped around her, unhappy at her tension.

  “Was that your home?” Shard asked. “What happened there? Was it the dragons?”

  He showed her Hikaru again, the Sunland, the great mountains and the icy ocean. He showed her dragon halls of stone and ice, and the dragons themselves.

  And she knew it. She remembered it. She had been there.

  She held very still, and Shard watched her remember, the words overlapping from his last dream with her.

  “. . . bright with dragon’s blood,” hissed a voice, and this time Shard saw the speaker, a half-grown dragon whose scales shifted lik
e abalone shell. “You will know him and his cursed kin, because they are bright with dragon’s blood.”

  “Kill him,” rasped another, and Shard felt searing pain along his flank that he knew was Rhydda’s pain, a memory of pain.

  He tried to look at the injury but claws locked his head in place, forcing him to stare at the image of a gryfon cast in stone and metal.

  “Kill him, beast, and you will be beautiful as we are.”

  “Kajar,” Shard whispered. Rage and confusion boiled in his mind, but it was Rhydda’s. “The dragons showed you Kajar?”

  “Find him.”

  “They are murderers and thieves, and took what treasures we would have given you, and the blessing of our blood. Kill him and it will be yours.”

  “Kill him.”

  “Kill all of them.”

  In the middle of the scene, Shard remembered himself. He remembered he was supposed to be talking to her about peace, trying to understand her. In the dream he swiped and struggled, then reached for the ruby and gold gryfon, but the ruby feathers melted into the blood and the gold into fire. He jerked away, choking—

  ~

  And he was hacking salt water, scrabbling for purchase on the sea bed. The priestess’ talons locked on his scruff and she hauled him to the beach. Shard collapsed, gasping, and she shook herself before lying beside him to offer warmth.

  Shuddering, taking another wheezing breath, Shard turned to stare up at the moon, then the priestess, who watched him calmly. “Did—did I fall asleep?”

  “You were never asleep. You fell into the dream, though. I felt as you slipped from the net, and then you fell into the water.”

  “I see.” Shard flexed his talons and hind claws in the wet rocks and sand. “But I did it.” The realization filled him with satisfaction like a warm meal. “We did it. I did it, I spoke to her while we were both awake!”

  “Truly, Tor favors you,” she said, so softly Shard might have mistaken her tone for regret.

  “I couldn’t have done it without your guidance.”

  “You honor me.” She looked away, to the moon. “Did you see anything that might help?”

  “Maybe. I saw many things. I think the dragons did more wrong to the wyrms than they want to admit. I learned more, but I failed at speaking of peace. I don’t know if Rhydda will understand.” Feeling regret, Shard thought of how well the dream had started, with a feeling of mutual satisfaction in the hunt.

  The priestess looked thoughtful, and she glanced down the beach, where a single fire flickered. “Speak also to Ajia, when you see the lions. She is a healer and prophetess, and may know older ways than I do.”

  “Thank you,” Shard whispered, unable to bring any more strength to his voice.

  “And also . . .” She hesitated, and the waves surged higher as the moon slipped below its middlemark and the tides shifted. “Also, be wary. Perhaps these wyrms are like us, and their Names are only lost in fear. But perhaps they are not anything we can understand. In my heart I think they are older, like the stone and the tree. Be wary what you show to her, what you say. She might not understand.”

  Or she might understand all too well, Shard thought, recalling Rhydda’s surging sense of injustice at some wrong. “I’ll be careful,” he said. “I think that’s all I can do for tonight. I think I angered her.”

  “Go to your friends,” the priestess advised. “Go to the fire, enjoy the light of Tyr, clear your heart. We can try again as long as you are with us.”

  Shard stood and stretched the cold from his muscles. Drying his feathers at the fire and telling his friends about the dream sounded like the best thing he could think of.

  “Thank you, my lady. Will you join me?”

  “No.” She stood, but didn’t move when he stepped forward. “I will remain, and seek council from Tor.”

  Shard nodded once and left her. He found Asvander, Brynja, and Dagny sitting around a fire near the massive cliff, but he stopped just outside the ring of light. “Where’s Kjorn?”

  Dagny and Brynja exchanged a look, but it was Asvander who spoke. “We thought he was with you.”

  “Why would he be with me?” Shard peered down the line of waves, sparkling in the moon. “I’ve been with the high priestess for the last mark of the moon.”

  Asvander made a low growl and stood slowly.

  “That’s why,” Dagny said by way of explanation.

  “Shard,” Brynja said, drawing his attention. Her gold eyes filled with wariness, which didn’t help his mood. “Kjorn told us he was meeting the priestess at middlemark. So were you. We assumed . . .”

  “He isn’t with me,” Shard said. “I haven’t seen him since supper.”

  “You,” Asvander barked, and at first Shard thought it was addressed to him, then heard a step in the sand behind. He turned to see Nilsine.

  “Where is Kjorn?” Shard asked tightly, as politely as he could manage.

  She lifted her ears. “Not with you?”

  “No.” Asvander strode forward, raising his wings. “Not with us. That fledge told him to meet the priestess a midnight, but Shard has been with her and didn’t see him. What’s going on?”

  Nilsine looked up at Asvander placidly, unmoved by his show of aggression. “I have not seen him since we all sat at supper, here.”

  “You know,” Asvander growled. “You know what these doddering councilors want from him. Is he in danger?”

  Though worry and suspicion flicked in Shard’s heart, he saw a spark of anger in Nilsine’s eyes and felt reassured that she wasn’t in on some plot.

  “Rest assured if I thought he was in danger I would not be standing here talking with you.”

  “Let’s find him,” Shard said, stepping between him. “This has gone on long enough.”

  “Agreed.” Asvander stepped back, though his hackle feathers ruffed up. “I’ll arrange a search party. Dagny?”

  “I’ll help.”

  “Before you go,” Shard cut in, “I don’t suppose he told anyone where he was supposed to meet the priestess?”

  “No, Shard,” Brynja said. Her tail flicked back and forth in agitation. She looked at Nilsine. “If you know anything . . .”

  “I do not. This is all highly unusual.”

  “And still not safe to be roaming at night,” Asvander said.

  “We know,” Shard said, as his dream of Rhydda fell away in the face of this new problem. “Let’s go. Brynja and I will look along the cliffs, with the Vanir.”

  “And I,” Nilsine said.

  “We’ll search the beach,” Dagny said. “It’s all got to be a misunderstanding. The priestess is old, maybe she forgot.”

  Nilsine gave her a slow, burning look. “She would not forget.”

  “We’ll ask her first,” Shard said reassuringly. “Go, now. We’ll meet back here when we find Kjorn or, when the fire burns low.”

  They split. Brynja and Nilsine followed him back down the shore to where Shard had left the priestess. If she had arranged a meeting with Kjorn, surely she could clear all this up easily.

  But when they reached the spot where she had guided Shard, they found only an empty beach and the moonlit sea.

  ~18~

  The Midnight Council

  WIND TURNED THE LONG grass on top of the sea cliffs into ripples of silver and white. Kjorn climbed up the cliff trail on foot, for even the Vanhar wouldn’t fly at night with the threat of the wyrms.

  He saw no gryfons, but he could smell them, as if they waited for him, out of sight in the grass. Growing weary of games and riddles, he stood in silence where he had stood that morning, and waited. The priestess had asked him there, so it was up to her to greet him.

  The shush-shush of the grass seemed to echo the sound of the waves.

  Feeling watched, tested, and un-amused, Kjorn was determined to show his patience. He sat, wings folded calmly, and watched the grass before lifting his gaze to the waning moon. His frustration ebbed with the decision to sit there all night if need
be, and calmness took its place.

  Then, someone spoke from the dark.

  “What bears a gryfon when there is no wind?”

  Kjorn flicked an ear, recognizing Elof’s voice. The elder was off in the grass, somewhere, but Kjorn didn’t need to see him to answer. He remained sitting, and said clearly, “His wingbrother. As the vow says, wind under me when the air is still. When all else fails, our friends and family bear us up.”

  He’d had the evening to think on the questions, on his friend’s ideas, and to come up with his own. Elof had tested him on his knowledge of the Song of First Light, so he thought perhaps some answers would be from songs.

  “What can be held only in claws open wide?” The harsh voice of one of the female elders turned Kjorn’s head, but like Elof, he didn’t see her.

  He thought of water, of light, but had realized another thing that, if grasped too tightly, would slip between one’s talons. “Love,” he said quietly.

  A ghostly form approached through the grass. At first Kjorn thought it was the fledge from before, then realized it was the high priestess herself, silhouetted by the narrow moon.

  “What is the measure of a king?”

  Kjorn stood slowly, mantled, then closed his wings. “I’ve searched my heart and all my history, my lady, and I fear I can’t answer. It could be his kingdom, his subjects, his honor. It could be his legacy. If you know the answer, I humbly ask for your wisdom, and I will do my best to fulfill it.”

  Her pale form looked like stone in the strange, faint glow of the night. “How has he fared today?”

  It took Kjorn a moment to realize she was asking the elders, who rose from the grass in their semi-circle, which matched the crescent moon.

  “He sang with me,” Elof said. “He knows the old songs.”

  “He humbly wove nets with my grand-daughter,” said another. “He does not believe himself above others.”

  “He flew duteously with the guard, serving as if it were his own pride.”

  “He heard our tales, and listened with true attention.”