by Jess E. Owen
Sverin didn’t rise, and Ragna met Catori’s eyes in amazement. The she-wolf’s reddish coat was bright in the dark woods, her amber eyes shining. She had been a friend to Shard, a guide, a fellow seer. “Catori. You said my son lives.”
“Oh yes. And I have even more joyous, and curious news to add. Will you come with us?” She glanced to Sverin. “Both of you.”
Sverin looked wary. Burning with curiosity and hope, Ragna trotted forward, not bothering to urge the red gryfon one way or the other. If he wanted to remain in the woods, alone, then he was welcome to. After a glance at Ahanu, who tilted his head in polite encouragement, Sverin followed at a step behind Ragna.
Ahanu, Catori, and Tocho led the way, picking up to a ground-devouring lope. Ragna and Sverin followed, trotting, leaping over fallen trees and rocks, and the rest of the pack streamed behind them. They ran in silence.
One glance beside her at Sverin showed a determined expression, narrowed gaze, and curiosity to match Ragna’s own. To her surprise, she saw no hint of anger or irritation that he was forced to run on the ground like a wolf—then, she thought—neither of them wanted to risk flying with the monsters at large.
They remained under the cover of cedar and pine and grasping, dark rowan still naked from winter. The wet scent of thawing ground filled Ragna with the wild hopes of spring. It felt good to run, to stretch her anxious muscles and feel the earth under her.
Then they came to a place Ragna had seen only once, in her youth.
The great rowan tree that the wolves called home stood as the crown over a jutting mass of rock that broke up through the forest floor. Roots entwined with rock and earth, forming hollows and holes where the wolves denned, and the branches creaked in a growing wind.
Oddly, a thick coat of snow piled on top of the jutting rock base, all about the rowan roots, shining silver and cut with shadow in the morning light. Ragna would’ve thought even the bare branches, spiraling like a thousand talons into the sky, would’ve been enough to keep snow from the ground beneath.
But she was distracted from that strange sight by realizing that she smelled not only wolf scent all around the den, but gryfon. The strong, heady, downy-feline scent of familiar gryfons filled her senses.
“Who is here?” Ragna whispered. As she asked it, Catori came up beside her, and she saw gryfon faces peek out of the wolf dens, a dozen or more, young and old. They were almost all familiar to her. They were all Vanir.
A gryfess stepped forward from the rest, and Ragna recognized Maja, Halvden’s mother, who had flown starward in Shard’s name to find the rest of the lost Vanir.
Before Ragna could close her beak or ask a question, the Vanir gryfess mantled low, and spoke haltingly.
“Forgive us our cowardice, my queen. We arrived in the night. We heard the roars of the monsters even across the ocean as we flew nearer. We didn’t dare go to the nesting cliffs. Most are weary, ill.” As she stood tall again, her gaze switched to Sverin. Thankfully, he remained quiet, and lowered his head. Maja looked back to Ragna with a guarded expression of triumph.
“We didn’t know the state of things, and we didn’t know what battle you fought. Our guide suggested that we not join the fight yet, that we had no chance against the foe, that you would want us to remain safe. So we landed on Star Isle, and the wolves welcomed us, sheltered us, and told us all that has passed.”
Ragna stared at Maja, around at the other Vanir she had gathered from the highest quarter of the world, then registered the one thing in her story that sounded odd. “Your . . . guide?”
Maja hesitated. “Yes. We met him over the sea, and he told us of the monsters, called wyrms, and of true dragons, and an ancient, unforgiveable act that has caused all of this.”
Sverin’s ears perked, and slowly he raised his head. He was staring at the rowan roots above the rock dens.
“Wyrms?” Ragna asked. “You mean, the monsters? Then what are dragons?”
Maja’s whole face lit as if the sun had broken through the dense, dark branches. After an encouraging whuff from Catori, the gryfess tilted her head to look behind her, at the pile of snow. Sverin also stared at the pile of snow.
Then Ragna realized it was not snow.
It moved.
Her eye caught on the edges of the palest silver scales and she realized the pile of snow was tightly stacked layers of serpentine coils. She saw that the slashes of shadow were black wings like swan wings, and her beak opened slowly as an elegant, wedge-shaped head rose from the shimmering silver, and regarded her with luminous eyes the color of the sun. A soft nose like a deer sniffed the cold air, and two whiskers drooped elegantly from the long snout.
“Fear not,” he said, the voice a strange mix of foreign, windy whispering and the incongruent burr of a gryfon accent.
Then, his gaze fell on Sverin and he loosed an inelegant squeal of surprise and delight, breaking his spell on Ragna.
To Sverin’s credit, he did not look afraid, but watched the creature in pure amazement.
“Oh, this is good,” said the serpent. “This is good, that you’ve come. You’re even redder than I thought, I must say. It’s very surprising. You look like Kagu in his spring scales—”
“Pardon me,” Ragna said. Catori pressed reassuringly against her wing and nosed her feathers. The gigantic eyes found her again, the coils loosened from the rowan, and he flowed toward her. It was only Catori’s warm presence at her side that stopped her from stumbling away. “Pardon, but what, and who are you?”
“Oh!” he purred, climbing down from the rowan mound and settling back into a crouch, like a mountain cat. “You are Ragna, I know you are. He has your very eyes, and I think he must be built a bit more like you than his father, for from this angle, you almost—”
Catori whined in amusement, giving the creature a pointed look. He drew back, drew up, and up, tucking silver claws neatly against his chest.
“Forgive me. I’m so weary from the flight and so excited, so pleased to see you.” He glanced to Catori, Ahanu, then Maja and Ragna again. “I have much to tell you.”
“My king,” the wolf Tocho murmured from behind Ragna. “While our noble friend catches them up, I will tell the other gryfons Ragna and Sverin are well?”
“Yes,” Ahanu said, not taking his eyes from Sverin. Watching Sverin, Ragna thought wryly. Of all the remarkable things in that grove, Sverin was what the wolf king would watch.
“Thank you,” murmured Catori, and the gold wolf sped off into the trees. Ragna noted none of the wolves or Vanir seemed amazed by the silver serpent, realizing they had all spent the night together, and she couldn’t fathom where he’d come from or what he was about.
Sverin spoke, repeating Ragna’s question. “Yes, clearly you have much to tell us. But who are you?”
The serpent opened his slender black wings and inclined his head. “Son of Per, and Ragna the White, have no fear. I am a friend to gryfons. I’m here to help you. I am a dragon of the Sunland, apprentice to the Chronicler. I’ve come here to help, and to tell you a sad history that will make some things clearer.”
He looked at Ragna with a soft gleam in his eyes. “But more than anything, you should know that I am Shard’s wingbrother, Amaratsu’s son, Hikaru.”
~37~
The Measure of a King
THE COUNCIL STRETCHED THROUGH the day, and the fledges whom Shard had called too young for battle took on the duty of finding kindling and wood for the fires.
Kjorn was grateful they found a way to keep busy, grateful they hadn’t had to see a battle.
The fledges, with the yearling lions, juvenile eagles, and some young pack members from the painted wolves, declared an unsteady truce and dissolved into exploration of the canyons, short hunts for small game, and gathering wood.
Kjorn set adults to keep an eye on them and make sure no fights broke out, but once the battle fervor dissolved from the gathering, the youngest of their number banded together in fellowship. Kjorn called it a good sign,
an opportunity. That their youngest could display tolerance and peace, he proclaimed, should show that they could do no less.
He hoped everyone took the hint. The rest of the long, agonizing day, he spent in negotiations.
He almost would’ve preferred a battle.
Clouds gusted across the Voldsom but didn’t rain, and the wind died as the sun shone again in the afternoon. The gryfons and eagles traced maps in the sand of the landscape as they knew it from above, with corrections from various clans, and they laid out new borders. Old borders. Ancient borders, from the time of the first gryfon kings of the Winderost before the Aesir claimed more than was their right.
The arguing and the insults threatened to split Kjorn’s skull.
Still, every time he looked up, Shard was there. Shard, whose mild expression was like a cooling balm. Sometimes, he would furtively imitate Asrik’s sour expression, or murmur a joke for Kjorn’s ears alone, and Kjorn had to fight laughter.
“You’re doing well,” Shard murmured at the first evening mark.
They ceased negotiations for the night, now that Ilesh and the wolves were happy with the hunting grounds surrendered by the Aesir and the Lakelanders. Brynja, Nilsine, and others had gone to hunt, for stretched tempers would surely snap back to violence if there was no food. “Kjorn, you looked like a king today.”
The words helped, and Kjorn knew he meant them. But it didn’t cool his worry over the tensions, or his fear that the wyrms would find the Silver Isles before he could go home to his mate. His sense of urgency swelled.
“Thank you. Shard, it sounds foolish to admit, but I realize I wanted . . .” Glancing to the side, he saw the lions and the painted wolf leader in conversation, saw that the gryfons of the Ostral Shores and the Vanheim were at last speaking civilly, now that Lofgar had been dismissed and another had taken his place in the council.
No one was eavesdropping on them. He strained, tried, wanted to tell his true heart to his wingbrother, but it sounded both foolish and vain. He said it anyway. “I wanted them to see me as a warrior. A hero.”
Shard chirruped in amusement and Kjorn glared at him. Ruffling his feathers, Shard said, “They know you from the Battle of Torches. And look at what you’ve done here. Can’t you be a greater hero for leading no one to their death?”
Kjorn looked away at the fading light in the sky, and laid back his ears. “I can’t explain it to you. You have a peaceful nature.”
“At the end of all this,” Shard said quietly, “you’ll have the peace you promised everyone, and be a wise ruler. Everyone is listening now, Kjorn. Even Asrik can understand the lions. The Aesir of the Dawn Spire have an agreement with the eagles, the respect of the painted packs, and respect for them. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Of course.” He thought of all he’d learned in the Silver Isles, his new friendship with the wolves, his new respect for all Named and thinking creatures. Shame coiled to know that a small part of him had, in his deep heart, wanted a war.
A part of him still wanted it. A part of him still wanted to face the wyrms in combat, to slay one, as Shard had done, to let them see his fury and take vengeance on them for terrorizing his land and his father and taking him from his birthright. Part of him had truly wanted a war that would gloriously win him his kingdom, so that he could be a true hero, remembered as the king who drove the wyrms from the Winderost.
It was difficult to make ballads about treaties and councils.
“You’ll be remembered.” As if reading his mind, Shard walked up alongside to press his wing to Kjorn’s. “You’ll be remembered, and your kits and the new lion cubs of the First Plains and the eaglets who hatch this spring will know it was you who gave the heart and courage of the Aesir back to them, it was you who united the Winderost—not in war, but in peace.”
Kjorn looked over at Shard, at his short, slim, unassuming, lifelong friend. An ember flared and clawed his heart and he didn’t know if he felt love and gratitude, or regret. “Was it truly me, Shard?”
Green eyes met his calmly, and Kjorn saw again a strange, eerie new depth to his friend’s gaze. He wondered what Shard had seen. He wondered at the land of the dragons at the bottom of the world, at the visions of the Vanir, at the dreams where Shard claimed to fly in the mind of the wyrm queen, Rhydda. He wondered many things he was certain he’d never enjoy answers for.
“It was you,” Shard said, in Shard’s own voice—not some strange seer, not some mystical Vanir, but himself again, scrawny and wry and admiring. “Of course it was. You could have ignored everything, battled Orn and claimed the Dawn Spire and set gryfon against gryfon, but you didn’t.”
Kjorn huffed a long breath. “If you say so.”
“I do.”
“Well,” Kjorn said, turning away again and twitching his tail. “If I have the blessing of the Summer King . . .”
Shard laughed and bumped him. “Now finish up your treaties so we can fly home.”
Kjorn’s heart darkened, and he thought of Thyra. He prayed to bright Tyr that the wyrms were lost over the sea, or had simply flown to their own muddy homeland. He was about to speak when a voice from above drew their attention.
“Hail, my lord!” A young gryfon circled, and Kjorn recognized Fraenir. The former rogue had fallen in happily with Asvander and the rest of the Guard of the Dawn Spire. “Your presence is requested at the dawnward border of camp.” He sounded almost as if he might laugh.
“Why?”
Dipping low, wings beating, Fraenir met his gaze. “Orn has come.”
Kjorn and Shard exchanged a look, and as sunset cast purple across the sky, they bounded forward, leaping into the air.
A ring of sentries stood around Orn, and Esla, who had come to greet him as well. In all the haste and planning, Kjorn had still barely spoken to his mother’s sister, nor met his own cousin who was still a nestling. He knew, somehow, that much of it would have to wait until after he’d gone and returned from the Silver Isles again.
Standing with his mate by his side, Orn looked rested, regal, alert. His stern gaze fell on Kjorn as he landed, and then Shard with some skepticism.
“I hear your great enemy has fled.”
“Our great enemy.” Kjorn folded his wings and walked forward, twitching his tail to let Shard know he would handle Orn alone. “Yes. The Battle of Torches drove them out after all.” He decided to leave out the part about Shard speaking to Rhydda, and Shard didn’t correct him. “A mere show of bravery was all it took. They are Nameless, Voiceless cowards, and I doubt if they’ll ever return.”
“Perhaps.” The older gryfon appraised him, and Kjorn was half disappointed to see that he was calm, but pleased to see he was not amused that Kjorn’s great war would not happen. Around them, sentries stood tense, including Asvander, Rok, and Fraenir, ready to leap and defend Kjorn at the first sign of aggression. It wouldn’t do.
“You can go back to the perimeter,” Kjorn said, addressing Asvander mostly. “I think lord Orn and I have an understanding.”
Asvander grated his beak together in protest, then called an order to disperse.
“That was big of you,” Orn said, and now it was only he, Esla, Shard, and Kjorn. The tawny gryfess watched Kjorn quietly, her severe, pale blue eyes alert, her manner tense. He knew she was an ally, but also that she had no desire for Orn to die. Yet the issue of the Dawn Spire remained.
“No it wasn’t.” Kjorn gave him a measuring look. “Do you think I fear you?”
For a long moment, Orn watched him. Then, to Kjorn’s surprise and the rest, he laughed, a harsh, hard laugh. “No. No, son of Sverin. I can’t see that you fear much of anything. I wanted to believe you a warmonger, a conqueror, brave when it suited you, cowardly like your father when the winds shifted. But I see you are a different gryfon. How, I couldn’t say.” His gaze did drift to Shard, then, who inclined his head.
Esla spoke to Orn, her voice like silky wind. “My lord, you see what has happened here in the meantime.”
He stopped, watching as, in the distance, a yearling lion, an Aesir fledge, and a lanky painted wolf pup raced up over the rim of the canyon. Each bore a stick for the nightly fires, in a friendly contest as if they’d known each other all their short lives.
“Well,” he said again.
“Well, indeed,” purred Esla. “My lord.”
Kjorn felt Shard’s eyes on him, and wondered desperately what his wingbrother was thinking. He’d thought of challenging Orn, of slaying him in single combat and claiming the king’s tier of the Dawn Spire. But here stood an aging, reasonable gryfon, father of a nestling who was also Kjorn’s own cousin, and with a mate who was blood to Kjorn.
“What am I to do here?” Orn asked quietly.
Kjorn couldn’t answer, for he asked the same question of himself. A part of him wondered if he deserved the Dawn Spire at all, if he had not won it in battle.
The raspy laughter of eagles and gryfons, growling boasts from Mbari, telling stories around the orange fire, and the rapt exclamations of young gryfons told Kjorn a different story than war, and his heart warmed a little. Once not so long ago, Shard had not been afraid to tell Kjorn he wanted his birthright back, and surely he had earned it. Kjorn stepped forward, raising his wings.
“I want the Dawn Spire, Orn. You see what we’ve done here. I want to stand where my forefathers stood. You’ve watched over the land these ten years, and for that I thank you. But my sun rises now, and I want the kingdom.” Haltingly, he bowed his head. “But I want it only with your blessing, regent of the Dawn Spire, for I know that is the only way for true peace, and my own heart.”