by Jess Owen
“I thank you for telling us when the Red King plans to attack. It will give me time to get the young ones to safety, and lay a trap.”
“Helaku,” Shard whispered. Never had he expected that the old wolf would be so unreasonable, that he wouldn’t even listen to Catori. I should have brought Stigr. “I didn’t bring you that information to use against my family—”
“But you told them where our home was? I suppose you didn’t mean for them to use that information against us?”
“No!” Shard ramped, flaring his wings, feeling wild and in danger. “I had a plan—”
“I don’t need your plan! I am king here!” He raised his head with a howl. Cautious growls and wolf warbles from the others rose with him.
Catori paced, circling Shard, watching her father.
“I have been king on Star Island for longer than your father was alive, and I will not run.”
“You’re too proud,” Shard rasped, breathless with disbelief. Anger roiled under his skin. He opened his wings. “You’re no different than Sverin. I only wanted to help you—”
“Take him,” Helaku growled.
Shard spun, flashing his wings out in warning as Ahote and Ahanu leaped forward with twin growls.
“Hold him!”
Shard ramped to meet the first wolf, slapping his wings together to knock Ahote away.
“I won’t have him telling of our trap to the Red King!”
A snarling red blur whipped past Shard to meet Ahanu. Catori fought her own brothers for him.
From Caj, Shard had learned to fight two wolves at once. Or three. But at Helaku’s snarling commands more wolves came forward, taking his wings in their jaws, snapping for his ankles. Helaku himself leaped forward and clamped his jaws on Catori’s scruff to drag her from the fight.
In the midst of the fight a raven winged down and Shard shrieked for help. The black bird gabbled and laughed and lighted on a branch near the wolf king.
“Stop! Stop! Greatest Hunter, Helaku, I have news! I have news of the gryfon king’s plans!”
The wolf king whirled, flashing teeth, and the raven leaped up in surprise.
Shard slashed talons at the face of the nearest wolf, Ahote, he thought, and the wolf dodged back. He continued his retreat, ducking and whirling against the empty air. Shard stared at him. Then he saw the tiny sparrow.
More flew down. Sparrows, starlings, two small owls.
“Go, Prince,” chattered a starling. Birds clouded down from the trees, hundreds, swirling around and filling the air to confound the wolves and drive them back. They cleared a path for Shard to escape. “Go!”
What does the raven know? Shard wanted to ask. But now the air was clear around him. He caught Catori’s worried gaze over the roil of wolves and birds, then turned to run free of the great rowan and leap into the air.
He winged to Sun Isle.
I failed.
He would say he’d been hunting. Patrolling. The sun sat high enough now that he could easily say he hadn’t been flying at night. Exhaustion gnawed at the edge of his thoughts.
Commotion perked his ears. He circled once around the nesting cliffs, staring. Below, gryfess hunters and the newly initiated all gathered near the Copper Cliff, sparring, sharpening their talons against the wet rock. Unease closed dark wings on his heart.
On the rocks, Sverin himself stood with a half circle of young, proud-standing males. Shard glided lower and landed in a loping run. He saw Halvden hop down from the king’s rocks, looking as proud as he had after the initation hunt. A pair of golden, emerald-crusted gauntlets decorated his forelegs. A gift from the king. Shard trotted up to him.
“Halvden! What’s happening?”
The green warrior paused, eyeing Shard with the same expression he might give a yattering gull. “Where have you been? We’re preparing for battle.”
“But it won’t be for days.”
Halvden ruffled, swinging his tail. “Apparently,” he purred, “being wingbrother to the prince doesn’t mean you’re up on the latest news.” His eyes narrowed. Shard wondered, suddenly, if Halvden felt any remorse at all about his mother’s banishment.
No, he realized. It’s a black mark against him. All he regrets is his father’s death.
“The prince believes there might be a spy among us. Maybe an old Vanir. Or birds.”
The raven, Shard thought, his fear growing. The raven who called to Helaku …
Halvden seemed to enjoy dragging out his news.
“Or perhaps some wolf witchery in the wind. Whatever the case, he and the king have changed plans.”
But I had three days! Casting around, he saw Kjorn up on the rocks. The golden prince glanced his way, met his gaze, then laid back his ears and looked away.
He doesn’t trust me. Maybe I don’t even deserve it. Ice lumped in Shard’s belly. It had all been show. Sverin didn’t trust him. Kjorn didn’t trust him.
He would never, ever be a true member of the Red King’s pride.
He will be like his father, Stigr had tried to warn him. More than you know.
We will never have peace as long as a Red King rules.
“Halvden, just tell me, how many days—”
“There are no more days,” Halvden snarled. “We fly tomorrow. Tomorrow, we attack at Tyr’s first light.”
~ 26 ~
Ambush
“Only in stillness the wind
Only from ice the flame.
When all was nameless, the wise will tell
That only by knowing the other
Did they come to know themselves.”
“Do not leave the Sun Isle today, Shard.”
Shard lunged awake and heard only waves. Gryfon wings flashed behind his eyes, vision of a long, grassy, rock-strewn plain of reddish earth that he didn’t remember from any dreams before.
All the gryfons had slept on the Sun Isle, leaving Windwater abandoned for the night. The dream slipped from him as if he held sand in his talons.
Three times during the night he had tried to escape to warn the wolves, only to see that sentries sat atop the cliff, ears swiveling, gazes nervous in the dark but alert. He had never seen night sentries before. He guessed they watched for rebel Vanir. Or for me. He could only hope that the news the raven carried yesterday was of the attack, and that Helaku had at least gotten the young ones to safety.
“Do not leave the Sun Isle today, my prince.”
Shard blinked and turned, peering around in the gray light. Who would address him that way? A raven perched at the mouth of the cave. “Which one are you?” Shard asked, cautious. The raven bobbed his head and mantled.
“The only one I have ever been, honored Vanir.”
Shard heard no mockery in his tone, though he would’ve preferred a straight answer. “I know now there are two of you. Two who bother to speak with anyone. I never learned your names, and that was foolish. Please, tell me your name.”
The raven looked bright-eyed and pleased. “I am Hugin. My brother Munin has no sense of honor and fair play, and he has arranged trouble this day. Do not leave the Sun Isle.”
“Why?”
“Shard.” Kjorn landed hard in the entrance, nearly squashing the raven Hugin, who squalled and flapped off into the morning. The golden prince ruffled and snapped at him. “Witless thing. Wanting to follow us to take food from the battle, I’ll wager.” The prince stared firmly at Shard, who stared back, not speaking the words that clawed his heart.
You lied to me. You never trusted me. Not the trust of a wingbrother. Your father never trusted me and he never will. And he was blind, Shard saw. Dismissing the raven. Not realizing that Shard had been changing before his eyes all summer. Into what? He had asked Stigr.
Now he knew.
Prince of the Vanir.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Kjorn whispered. “I had to. This is war. Whether it’s by your choice or if you’re under some wolf or exile’s spell that makes you change sides again and again, I can’t
risk the pride.”
“I know,” Shard murmured, and his voice sounded oddly deep, even to himself. It sounded like the phantom in his memory. His father. And Kjorn, Shard heard sharply now, sounded like Sverin, who sounded like Per, who had killed Baldr the Nightwing.
Even if he could have been a Summer King, Shard thought, he’s let himself be blinded. Resentment crawled forward. He’d put so much faith in Kjorn. He put faith in me too, but I see now that the way of the Aesir isn’t all right. Shard wondered if it would have made any difference if he’d been honest with Kjorn from the beginning.
It hardly mattered now.
“I understand,” Shard said quietly, when it seemed Kjorn expected more of an answer.
Kjorn took it the wrong way, and looked relieved. “Then let’s go. Battle is on us, brother, and we can prove ourselves. To my father. To each other. You’ll fight by my side?”
“Yes,” Shard murmured as he stepped to the front of the cave. “I’ll fight.”
We can prove ourselves.
Sverin made no speeches and no promises and no great battle cries into the dawn. Heavy with a dully gleaming bronze collar and gauntlets for battle, he stood at the edge of the Copper Cliff as his warriors gathered, counting heads, looking on with silent pride. Some, adorned with gifts of gold and bronze and silver, stood out as his chosen finest. Halvden and Kenna stood among them, Caj, and others of Shard’s age and older.
Shard, plain and gray, stood at Kjorn’s golden side. Some were not called to fight. Sigrun stood farther off, ready for the injuries, her apprentices staring in awe. Never in their time, and perhaps never again, would they see such an assembly.
Shard tried to catch Sigrun’s eye. He hadn’t had the chance to confront her about what she and Ragna had done in raising him. After today, Shard had a feeling many things would be different, and he might never get the chance for closure that he wanted.
Ragna stood closer to the warriors, but was not to join. Sverin didn’t force any of the warriors older than a certain age to fight. Shard shifted, hesitantly seeking the Widow Queen’s gaze across the last of the gathering warriors. He expected to find anger there, disappointment to see him heading off to war under Sverin’s command.
But her pale green eyes, eyes that matched his own, shone only with unwavering surety. What does she look so sure of? Shard tried to discern whether it was faith in him to do something, or pride—but it was neither. Something else filled her as she met his gaze, and Shard couldn’t name it. Whatever it was, he didn’t deserve it. Shame consumed him for all he’d done in those last days, back and forth between gryfon and wolf and Vanir and Aesir, and he had to look away.
All the warriors who planned to fight had arrived.
In silence the king raised his head, flashed his wings for attention, and leaped from the cliff into the air. Clouds delayed the dawn, hanging tendrils to brush the sea with rain.
Even the sky is uneasy, Shard thought, thinking of the storms that wouldn’t clear.
Kjorn jumped into the sky. Thyra, Halvden and Kenna leaped, copper Einarr and all the others, the entire throng of grown, tested warriors. And some young, untested but eager. Shard wanted to scream at them to stay. But they left behind only the fledges, old females and older males and the fluffed kits from the spring whelping.
Shard crouched, hesitated, his gaze flicking through those remaining. Sigrun had already turned away. Ragna gazed on, as if she would watch him fly all the way to Star Isle. Has she always watched me so, and I never saw?
Grass whipped in the wind, stinging Shard’s face, and he shoved into the sky.
They flew high over the Star Isle and the whole forest looked crouched, hunched under dark dawn clouds and tight, like a cornered creature waiting for attack.
The cornered creature is most dangerous, Shard thought wildly, staring down. The king put him on point, to lead the way to the ancient rowan tree. He thought of the birds, coming to his aid. He thought of wild boar. Shard feared what would happen if all of Star Isle tired of the presence of plodding, greedy Aesir. Would other creatures fight?
The raven Hugin had warned him to stay away from the Star Isle. No. He told me not to leave Sun Isle. Unease made his flight seem longer.
Seeing the clump of rowan leaf that dominated the pine wood, Shard banked and began to descend a good league out. They had to approach low, on foot.
Not one warrior spoke a word. As they landed in rough formation, they fanned out like the broad inner curve of a wing to surround the den, and stalked forward. Shard moved at Kjorn and Thyra’s side. So different a feeling now than it had been on the boar hunt. Shard ruffled, shoving regret from his mind. The raven had flown in to give the wolf king news. Shard hoped it had been warning of the gryfons’ change of plans. Maybe Catori had convinced some of her pack to flee. Maybe even proud Helaku would’ve seen sense and gotten to safety.
The birds sat silent in the trees, wary of the gryfon intruders. The scuttle of small animals fell quiet. The entire forest loomed dark and the smell of rain filtered in. No wolf smell came fresh with it. Shard laid his ears back, tight unease cramping his muscles. Ahead, he could see the cliff that broke up out of the ground, clenched together by rowan root and riddled with holes that were wolf dens.
The breeze brushed them and Shard lifted for scent. Stale. No fresh wolf scent. No movement. No sound.
The dens stood empty and black.
Relief stroked uneasily into Shard’s breath. But something still felt wrong. Beside him, Thyra tensed. He felt tension and movement through the trees, then stillness and silence as the whole flight of warriors stopped where they stood. Kjorn swiveled to stare at Shard as if the empty dens were his fault, then strode forward into the clear, rocky space between trees and the den entrances.
“Cowards,” he roared at the dens. “Show yourselves! I, Kjorn son-of-Sverin, prince of the Aesir, Summer King, future king of the Silver Isles, challenge you!”
Red Sverin stalked out of the trees. More colors drifted into Shard’s view as gryfons milled forward, unsure. Above him, a raven screed and laughed, his mockery echoing long into the woods. It wasn’t Hugin, that Shard knew. It was the other.
“No one is home to hear you, golden prince. Strut and fight the flying sparrows!” He laughed madly but Shard knew most of the gryfons only heard cackling shrieks.
Kjorn wasn’t listening. A scent familiar to Shard drifted on the little breeze and all looked up for its source. Catori appeared at the top of the cliff that formed the wolf den, out of gryfon range but within their sight and hearing.
“They aren’t here,” she called.
“They ran?” Halvden’s voice rang with contempt. Shard glanced over to see Sverin’s face and found the gold eyes piercing him. Not Catori.
“They knew.” The king took a step toward Shard. “Somehow.”
“No!” Kjorn moved between them. “Shard remained on Sun Isle all through the night, Father. I saw sure of that. This is some other treachery. They couldn’t have known. They—”
“They aren’t here,” Catori called, more firmly, the only wolf to face the entire front of gryfon warriors, though, in confusion, none moved to attack her. “Because they traveled through the night. Through the caves. I thought I could convince my father against it, but I failed.” Her mournful, bright gaze and voice focused on Shard. “They left, not to go into hiding, but—”
“To Sun Isle,” Shard breathed, whirling to face Sverin. “Sire, the wolves will attack the nesting cliffs!”
“Impossible,” snapped the king.
“They will, my Lord, an ambush! There are caves under the Isles! We must fly!”
Sverin stared at Shard, saw the truth in him, and crouched.
“I tried to warn you,” Catori cried. “I sent a raven to Stigr, and Hugin to you to—”
“Fly!” roared the Red King, and shoved from the ground. “Fly! Back to the Sun Isle! We’ve been tricked! Ambush!”
Others milled, trapped tight in the trees
and against the cliff face, only able to lift off two or three at a time. Shard crouched, waiting for a clear space. No one spared him a glance.
Soon he was the only gryfon remaining. And he saw that Catori wasn’t the only wolf. One, tawny gold who seemed vaguely familiar, and one of her brothers stepped up beside her. Shard stared hard at him, thinking how they were the same, and not. One twin was always the aggressor. One always followed. But not this time.
“Ahanu,” he called, and the wolf dipped his head. Shard looked to the tawny wolf beside him. “I’m sorry. I don’t know you.”
“I am Tocho, windbrother. You saved me from Hallr, this spring past. I will not attack your family.”
Shard’s mind reeled. He mantled to the wolves. “Ahanu. Tocho. Catori. I will always remember that you didn’t follow your father and king to attack my pride.”
Ahanu raised his head again. “And we will remember always that you came to us, warned us, and tried to make peace.”
“Tried,” Shard whispered, then leaped back into the sky.
~ 27 ~
The Fall of the King
There was no time to assess injury, death, or to truly hear the furious keening of new gryfon mothers, only pick a target and dive. Scanning from high, Shard saw a wolf chasing down a stumbling fledge and hurtled toward it. His eagle scream crashed in with the rest. Roars, snarls, shrieks. Feathers, fur and blood scattered the ground.
In trying to make everything right, Shard had created a horror beyond reckoning. Betrayed by my own weak plans and indecision.
At falcon speed he slammed into the big wolf, smashing against the ground. They flipped and rolled, tearing grass. Fury lanced up every muscle.
The wolf lunged up and Shard whirled away, his legs and sinew trained and moving on instinct from long days with Caj and Stigr. They circled each other and Shard saw an opening. Then he recognized his opponent.
“Ahote,” he choked out the name. “I would have been your friend.”