by Jess E. Owen
“Your Highness!” Caj called. Kjorn leaned toward the trees, then Thyra called his name, and he turned away.
If there had been a wolf it was gone again, or had never really been there at all.
5
Autumn Song
The caribou waited for Shard to answer. Shard glanced back at the owl, who opened her wings encouragingly and tilted her head.
“I am Shard, son-of-Baldr. I’m honored to meet you…”
“Aodh. Leader of the Low Hill Clan.” His voice lilted in a strong brogue, rolling and rising like a river. His long velvet ears swung back and forth, listening. “I speak for all the hoofed creatures from the foot of the White Mountains to the seaward end of the Nightrun, and I have the ear of the hoofed clans of the Star Isle and the horses of distant Crow Wing, if I should have news for them.”
Shard bowed low again. He barely had the ear of his uncle, two ravens and two exiled gryfons who had left the isles.
“What brings you here?” asked Aodh again, looking hopeful, Shard thought, for news to send to the other hoofed creatures of the islands. Shard wished he had better to tell.
“I sought a vision, as the wolves do, of how I can bring peace to the Silver Isles. And…” Somehow he couldn’t finish. The next part still didn’t ring true in his mind.
“And how you may reclaim your birthright as king?” A breeze stirred the caribou’s silvering coat and he shook his antlers. “I hear much, for in listening, is survival. The winds have told me much, and the wee birds. How deeply the Red King hates you, and hates the wolves, and indeed, the Silver Isles and perhaps even himself. How you love his son as your brother and will not fight again. Is this your dilemma, young prince?”
The musty, warm meat scent of the rest of the herd filtered through the trees. Shard ground his beak and didn’t answer. Claiming his birthright would mean overthrowing Sverin, the king. Worse, it would mean betraying his own wingbrother, Kjorn. Again. He had already sabotaged the king’s war on the wolves and challenged the king himself to battle. That had ended with no clear victor. The king fled to his nest, and Shard dove into the sea, letting them think he was dead. He couldn’t declare full on war against Sverin and Kjorn. So he’d waited.
He was done waiting.
When Shard didn’t answer, Aodh strode forward and lowered his head until his dark, soft nose almost touched Shard’s feathered brow. Shard held very still. The caribou’s breath stirred the small feathers between Shard’s ears and Shard breathed slowly, wary of antlers and cloven hooves.
Aodh’s eyes slid half shut, and he might’ve been dozing if he hadn’t started to speak.
“The Silver Wind stirs about you.” His voice drifted, for Shard’s ears alone. “I have heard a new song in the autumn air, and birds whisper it now. I have waited for you to come, to tell it to you. And indeed I knew if it was for you, that you would come.”
Shard shivered as Aodh’s voice dropped deeper, quieter, echoing his secret from the wind.
“The Song has been sung, the first battle won
And summoned a prince of summer.
The Silver Wind speaks
And the king it seeks
will be son, and brother, and father.”
For a moment, Shard, Aodh, the white owl and the forest stood in impossible silence.
Then Aodh flung his massive head up and shook his antlers as if waking out of a dream. Shard startled back, frustrated.
“What does that mean? The king it seeks will be son, and brother, and father? Is it the Summer King? Is it for me? I’m not a father.”
Aodh stamped and Shard flinched. “It is only mine to listen. It is yours to see and know. I cannot know your fate. I can only tell you what I hear.”
He must have sensed Shard’s restlessness, for he lowered his head, speaking patiently again. “The time of red rowan is on us, young prince. The time of storing up strength, of waiting, of change. The gryfon pride in the low land waits. But you, son of the Nightwing, must find the summer in yourself and you must act. Your strength must be greater than all others. The song has been sung. You have answered. You are the Summer King.”
Shard stared up into Aodh’s endlessly black eyes. Though the new riddle maddened him, he couldn’t take it out on this wise beast. Huddled away in Sverin’s pride, there was so much he’d been blind to. When we hunted from the sea, did my father speak to caribou? To all Named souls?
“How do you hear these things?”
Aodh tossed his massive head, amused. “It is for gryfons to see. To hunt, to chase, to catch. It is for us, the hoofed, to listen, to stand, to hearken to the wind and earth. I listen. I hear the Silver Wind itself in my dreams. You must see, and fly.”
“What must I see?” Shard asked. “I don’t understand, how do I see?”
“You look,” Aodh said simply, and his large ears twitched, hearing the breeze. “I must tend to my family now. Danger draws close.”
Shard stifled a growl, not heeding the warning of danger. Aodh was worse than Catori. It did little more than warn Shard something was to be done, but what or where he had no idea. The owl had promised him more information, and he’d gotten more riddles instead.
Still, he couldn’t beg the creature to stay and tell him everything, like a kit pestering its mother. Surely if Aodh knew something clearer, he would have said it.
“Thank you, honorable Aodh.”
Aodh tilted his head, long ears swinging back and forth once. “The time is long passed when my herd treated with gryfons. The red kings turned from the bounty of the sea to hunt us, but I see the old Vanir in you, and know that none will hunt my family under your reign. When you rise, son of Baldr, I will be there to honor you.”
The caribou lowered his crowned head and turned to stride again into the pines. Mist prowled in behind him.
Shard blinked and began to turn also, when a new scent flickered to him. He tensed. Movement drew his gaze. Shard dropped to a crouch, peering through the brush.
A flick of movement. A feathered tail.
Shard’s heart tightened and his wings clenched.
There, hidden in the ferns and trees, blind to Shard’s presence, a gryfon stalked Aodh.
6
Einarr’s Secret
Shard shrieked a warning just as the other gryfon leaped—a streak of copper feathers, then heard Aodh’s whistle of surprise. Shard sprang forward, talons splayed, to crash into the other gryfon. His coloring was familiar. His scent. Then his shocked face.
“Einarr!”
They hit the needled forest floor and rolled. Aodh pivoted to charge, bellowing a challenge.
Shard twisted and shoved to throw the younger gryfon to the ground, shouting at Aodh. “No!”
At his word Aodh reared up, flashed his hooves and belled again. Einarr dropped low and rolled away. Shard stood his ground between them, words flowing from his chest that were the caribou’s language, the words of the earth. “Honorable Aodh, spare my friend!”
Aodh snorted, stamped fore-hooves to the earth, and cantered back to his herd, whistling warning through the trees. The pounding of hooves vibrated the ground under them, and Shard faced Einarr.
They had gone on the same initiation hunt. Einarr had been a friend.
What would Stigr tell me to do? Now Einarr is only another member of Sverin’s pride. I can’t think of him as a friend.
“How dare you hunt a Named creature on the Sun Isle! How.…” Shard stopped, his gaze flicking over Einarr again as the younger gryfon stared at him, beak open in a panicked pant. His feathers and coat looked too dull. His ribs showed against his pelt at a time when he should’ve worn a sheath of fat for winter. Shard had seen great herds of lazy deer wandering the Star Isle. So he couldn’t figure out why Einarr was so lean, or what would drive him so far up the Sun Isle, seeking such dangerous prey.
“Sh–Shard?”
Cold crept down Shard’s veins. No gryfon of Sverin’s pride could know he lived. Now Sverin would hunt him, or take
his anger out on Shard’s family, who still lived with the pride.
Unless he never found out.
“The pride is starving,” Einarr said when Shard just stared at him. “We had to hunt here.”
“I didn’t know how desperate you were,” Shard said slowly.
Einarr pushed to his feet, ruffling pine needles from his wings, and ignored the question. “I can’t believe you’re alive! We saw you. We saw you fall into the sea!”
“I didn’t fall,” Shard said, distracted by other sounds. Einarr wasn’t alone. There would be others hunting with him, but he hadn’t raised an alarm. Maybe there was a chance that Shard could keep Einarr’s silence, if he said the right things.
“But…”
“I dove,” he clarified when Einarr didn’t catch on to why he wasn’t dead. “I dove on purpose. Vanir don’t fear the sea.”
Einarr’s beak fell open. “You—”
“Don’t tell Sverin you’ve seen me,” Shard said firmly.
He expected Einarr to argue, but something hardened in the younger gryfon’s lean, hungry face. “He already leads us on a mad hunt for the wolves. The pride is hungry. I shouldn’t give him a reason to hunt something else.”
Shard let his breath out.
“But.…” Einarr’s eyes lit. The wind brought scent of other gryfons, calling for Einarr through the trees. He ignored them, staring at Shard with narrowed eyes. “If I brought news of you, it would mean honor for my nest. My mate. Maybe even more food.”
“Einarr—” Shard checked himself as a growl built in his throat. Violence was not his way. And surely that, selling Shard to the king, was not Einarr’s way. He was only desperate.
Shard straightened, standing tall among the ferns, letting the scent of the river and the feel of the White Mountains at his back give him strength. He thought of a hundred different things to say—to remind Einarr he was the true prince of the Vanir, that he planned to reclaim the islands, that it was his right. Promises and threats swirled into his head, and he tried to think what Stigr would recommend, or what his own father might have done.
But, gazing at Einarr’s desperate, frightened face, all Shard could utter was, “Einarr, your brother and your father live.”
Einarr’s ears turned forward, and his expression softened.
“I’ve met with them,” Shard continued. “They’re well.” He took a deep breath. “And they follow me…as I welcome any to follow me. Even now Dagr has flown to find your father and the other Vanir, to return to the Silver Isles. I mean to find a peaceful, just end to all of this. Do what you have to, and fair winds, Einarr.”
Shard turned and dodged into the trees before Einarr could respond. He remained on the ground to make sure the other gryfons didn’t see him. Einarr didn’t call after him or give any kind of attack cry or, as far as Shard could tell, any indication at all that they had spoken.
But there was no telling how long that would last.
Shard sprinted through the forests of the low slopes as fast as a wolf, faster than any gryfon on foot for he ran more often than any gryfon. A small black shadow swooped on his left.
“Hugin,” he panted, glancing over at the raven, who gave a clattering call. “My friend. Watch him for me.”
The raven tilted his head in acknowledgement and veered back the way he’d come. Shard ran, and when he reached the foot of the mountain again, leaped into the sky and turned toward the Star Isle.
“The herd scented us, my prince.” Einarr stood with his head bowed, wings splayed down from his back in a respectful mantle. “I didn’t plan well. We failed. We brought hare, quail, and other small game from the forests…”
Kjorn stood tall over the copper gryfon, feeling cold. He could hardly be angry with Einarr, after his own hunting band had failed to find wolves and given in to hunger instead. They divided the meat as he spoke to Einarr, based on family rank, age, and who had helped the most in the field.
Sverin watched from the top of his rocks with a surprisingly patient expression.
Good, thought Kjorn. His father could hardly argue with feeding the pride, and Kjorn suspected he was hungry too. Still, when Kjorn had landed with a deer haunch in his talons and no word of wolves, the Red King turned from him, climbed his rocks, and didn’t speak again.
The light faded toward evening and long golden shadows stretched across the Sun Isle. Each day grew shorter than the last. Kjorn focused back on Einarr.
“You tried.” He forced his voice to sound calm and forgiving. “It was a chance thing, hunting them. They’re too wily. Too large.”
Einarr nodded once but didn’t lift his face. “My lord—” his voice cracked. Kjorn perked his ears. The evening wind had fallen still and the scent of gathering frost pricked the chilly air.
“Yes, what else?”
Distantly, in the woods by the Nightrun, a raven called. Einarr lifted his head and fear gleamed in his eyes.
Am I that frightening? Kjorn thought in dismay. As frightening as my father?
Surely he wasn’t. Surely Einarr knew Kjorn wouldn’t punish him for a failed hunt.
“Nothing,” Einarr whispered after a moment of thought, staring at him with huge eyes. “Everything is fine. I saw nothing else in the mountains.”
Kjorn flicked his tail. “Go see that your mate gets a meal from our hunt.”
“Thank you, my lord.” He bowed again and trotted away.
Kjorn narrowed his eyes. He walked through the golden grass until he found Caj, who watched the division of meat with a sharp eye. A raven called again and that time Kjorn saw it, winging toward the deer meat to try stealing a meal.
“Caj,” Kjorn said.
Caj turned an ear his way and left the group to walk to Kjorn’s side. Clouds drifted across the lowering sun and the golden shadows deepened to violet.
Kjorn recited wisdom Caj had once given Shard and him when they were kits. “When does a gryfon answer a question that wasn’t asked?”
Caj eyed Kjorn for a moment and rumbled, “When he’s lying.”
7
Halfnight
Night pricked the sky with stars and the wind blew frosty, signaling that the true, final days of summer had faded to autumn. Shard dropped lower in the sky, scanning the forest for any indication of gryfons before he landed.
From overhead, the former wolf den looked like an enormous rowan grove. Only by flying lower, landing in the forest and walking up to the den itself had Shard learned that the branches all sprung from a single, ancient, massive tree. As the leaves died off, red berries glittered like tiny flames.
Shard landed many leaps off from the guardian rowan tree and trotted through the ferns and pines, scenting cautiously in case there were gryfons near. Sverin hunted the wolves, and he knew the den’s location, but mostly he had given up hunting there. It was too obvious. Though cautious, Shard doubted Sverin would leave scouts at night, even out of desperation.
Above all things, Sverin feared the night.
Shard perked his ears as he stepped out into the clearing. A short cliff jutted up from the forest floor, a crumbling mass of stone clenched together by the curling roots of the giant tree, the crags and holes once forming wolf dens.
Now the wolves lived under the Silver Isles, in a network of caves formed by water, wind and earthfire in the First Age. But every night they came out to hunt.
The cold wind combed Shard’s feathers the wrong way and he lifted his beak with a shiver, uttering a low, raspy imitation of a wolf howl. Delighted yips and yowls answered him and before he could twitch his tail the wolves flooded from the den to surround him.
“Windbrother!” called a male wolf from the top of the cliff. The largest of the pack, his reddish fur darkened to black along his back and into autumn gold along the slabs of muscle on his shoulders.
“Ahanu.” Shard bowed before the young wolf king. Before he could continue, summer pups swarmed him, still soft and lanky, and a red she-wolf trotted up, her ears and head high.
As the light faded he just caught the bright amber of her eyes. Night was for the wolves. Shard could barely see in the dark, but his other senses helped, if he paid attention.
He dipped his head to the she-wolf. “Catori.”
“My friend.” Her eyes shone. “I see some success in you. What did you see?”
“There’s a lot to tell—”
“Shard!” cried one of the summer pups. Wolves whelped in spring, as gryfons did, but they grew faster and these pups had become taller and lanky over the summer. Shard reeled. When these pups, now his small friends and admirers, had been born, Shard had still considered wolves a vile enemy.
“Play songs! Play riddles!”
Catori nipped at them fondly. “Away with you. To your mothers!”
Shard laughed and opened his wings as the cubs yawned and rolled under him.
“I want to fly!” whined the littlest.
“You’re getting too big,” Shard laughed. Once or twice he had gripped a young wolf in his talons and took them soaring over the woods and sea. Now they grew large, their bones sturdy and heavy and their bodies plump for winter.
Shard wondered what Kjorn might have said, to see him giving wolf pups joy flights over the water.
Ahanu loped down to them while the rest of the pack milled and warbled, excited and waiting for news of Shard’s vision quest.
“Brother,” Ahanu greeted, lifting his nose. Shard touched his beak to the young wolf king’s nose and they shared a breath. Ahanu smelled warmly familiar, his wolf scent tangy and comforting to Shard now. They’d had a successful hunt, for he also smelled blood and shreds of meat. “Were you successful?”
A gray feather, woven into the fur of Ahanu’s neck by clever raven claws, swiveled in the breeze. Like his sister who wore two of Stigr’s black feathers in her fur, he wore one of Shard’s fallen feathers to show he was a friend to gryfons.