Skyfire

by Jess E. Owen

  “Yes,” Ahanu said, his brow crinkling. His muzzle twitched, showing fang, as if he, too, struggled to control anger. “That wolf your father killed. I should have known you wouldn’t…very well, son-of-Sverin. Be blind, and deaf, son of the glorious Aesir. I told my sister you wouldn’t see reason. I wouldn’t let her come alone. She had a message for you from Shard, but I see you don’t want it.”

  He stretched his forelegs and bowed his head while Kjorn stood in shock. He rose, a mocking glint in his eye, and sprinted into the woods.

  Anger drove caution from Kjorn’s mind. He dove into the woods after Ahanu, tripping and sliding on patches of mud and snow, barely able to keep pace. The ground rose steadily and the trees fell back to reveal patches of bare rock.

  Boulders scattered the area ahead, and a short cliff jutted up from the forest floor. Stacks of snow-covered rock loomed in the falling snow. Ahanu darted around the boulders and under a fallen tree. Kjorn, excited with the rush of a hunt, squeezed between the rocks and under the tree—and faced the dark entrance of a narrow hole in the ground.

  He stood a moment, panting as the snow thickened to a blizzard around him. A laughing howl mocked him from deeper down the tunnel.

  Anger dissolved his last shred of doubt and he gave a final jay’s call into the trees before he plunged into the dark.

  They’ll track me, he thought, wedging himself down the narrow tunnel, his wings scraping rocks and mud. He’d forgotten Ahanu’s warning, that his family led the others on another hunt. He could think only of the chase, of catching the wolf who dared to use Shard against him. I’ll kill their new king and end this, my hunters will track me and we’ll rid ourselves of wolves at last.

  Kjorn followed Ahanu under the earth as a blizzard smote from above, burying his scent, burying his tracks, cloaking the entire Star Isle with white.

  31

  Winter Strikes the Sun Isle

  Raven wings carried Shard visions of heavy snows. In the dreamland of Munin’s creation, he saw visions of what happened in the Silver Isles. He called to Catori to confirm if the dreams were true, but she never came, or didn’t hear. Shadows darted through his dreams, wolf or gryfon, he couldn’t tell.

  The days of hunting wore Shard down, for his dreams gave him no rest.

  He turned restlessly at night in the warm red rock of his Winderost den and dreamed of winter in the Silver Isles.

  Sverin’s fear showed itself in earlier and earlier curfews. Gryfons had to be in their dens by twilight, not dark, and Sverin banned the pride from venturing at all near the sea shore.

  Wolves ran tirelessly through the frosty white pine forests of the Star Isle, leaving fresh trails to drive Halvden and his wolf-hunters mad. Shard’s nest-sister Thyra and her hunters grew too heavy and round with kits to hunt. Young Einarr led bands of hunting males into the woods, seeking deer that had gone to ground, then hare, then birds. Then anything. Desperate for food, they even followed boar tracks into the deep dark of Star Island, but all the animals disappeared like shadows.

  As the days passed, his dreams followed the days, though what happened as he watched and what had already happened or what might yet be changed was unclear to Shard.

  He begged for Catori to come to him, but he couldn’t find her in his dreams, and so he followed ravens through the dark.

  “The isles themselves turn on the War King,” whispered the old Vanir to each other, and fell silent as others walked by. But the old songs rose.

  “The Long Night is coming,” Sverin boomed from his rocks, while gryfons who should have been hunting and females who should have been nesting huddled against each other in the cold. “The Long Night is coming, and the sea rises against us.”

  Trapped by raven wings that held him aloft over the king’s rocks, Shard watched all the happenings of the Silver Isles with the eyes of a thousand birds, over the course of days he couldn’t catch his breath to count. It stretched into a single long nightmare.

  “Where is Kjorn?” Shard shouted in silence, in the dark.

  Voices that might have been birds echoed back, “Where is the Summer King?”

  “No gryfon will hunt alone,” Sverin announced. “Not even on our own isle. No female with kit will travel without a member of the King’s Guard, even to the river for water. The wolves will be upon us, they will take us alone.”

  Shard heard whispers as if he sat next to each gryfon. The War King. The Mad King. With Kjorn missing, Sverin’s fear ruled him now.

  Young males wove in and out of the assembled, snapping them to silence. The King’s Guard. There had never been a King’s Guard in the Silver Isles but there was one now. Haughty young males, eager to prove themselves by killing wolves, could find no wolves to kill, and so they proved their strength by bullying their own.

  To his relief, Shard saw that Caj was head of the Guard. He cowed any young gryfon who got too big for his wings, and escorted the young, harassed females himself. He took them to the river, or on walks when their restlessness or aches got the better of them. But he couldn’t be everywhere.

  Shard watched, appalled, as any gryfons with Vanir blood were harassed by the King’s Guard and the full-blood Aesir. He watched, infuriated, as the pregnant females began to feel safer alone than with a member of the King’s Guard, unless it was Caj.

  Except for Thyra. His nest-sister, tall, proud, pearly lavender against the winter snows, showed no fear, and kept the other females close to her when she could. Future queen, Shard thought proudly.

  “But where is Kjorn?”

  A raven laughed at him. “The wolves, the wolves have taken the prince alive.”

  Shard called again for Catori, but again she didn’t come. “Has this happened yet, or is it something to be?”

  Munin laughed. “Who could say, my lord? Time is not a line, but falling leaves…here, catch these.” He flung a wing, and his black feathers exploded into blustering leaves, more visions, flashes, moments, and Shard grasped for them.

  Hunts split between searching for food and wolves and searching for the missing prince. Thyra remained unusually calm despite her missing mate.

  “I’m sure he is hunting wolves,” she would repeat to anyone who asked, as if they were pestering kits. “Why would he return unless he found them?”

  Rather than feel grateful for her calm, Shard feared his sister was slipping to madness. With Kjorn missing, the king’s suspicions wheeled and stooped on every Vanir and half Vanir in the pride, including Thyra.

  “Why would I dispose of my own mate?” she demanded when the King’s Guard milled around to question and spy. Half the time Caj ran them off, though he flew himself to exhaustion most days, searching for Kjorn.

  “Any gryfon found hunting near the shore, or after twilight, or before dawn will be in defiance of my law,” Sverin proclaimed. The words, the king’s voice and the visions of huddled gryfons, hunting gryfons, frightened, hiding gryfons overlapped in Shard’s mind until it was a blur of Sverin’s voice and blowing snow, a blur of days and nights and evening rants.

  The days passed, and with them, more laws. Falling leaves. Falling flakes of snow.

  “Any gryfon seen alone on the Star Isle will be considered in defiance…”

  “…any gryfon seen consorting with lesser creatures will be considered a spy…”

  “Any gryfon suspected of…”

  The words rolled on but now it was Halvden, strutting on the top of the king’s rocks.

  Once, twice, Sverin made as if to leave the Sun Isle to search for Kjorn himself and it was Halvden who stopped him, Halvden who begged him not to leave the pride, who swore they would find Kjorn or at least his body.

  Now while the king brooded, Halvden spoke to the assembled pride.

  “For your own safety,” he called, green wings stretched wide in imitation of the king. “Now is the time for real action. Real hunting. Real work. Not songs. Any gryfon heard uttering strange incantations or rhymes considered dark magic or Vanir witchery wil
l be considered a traitor in defiance of the king, and Tyr’s law.”

  “Tyr’s law?” a shocked voice echoed.

  When Halvden’s bright, hungry gaze swept the assembled for the speaker, no one spoke again.

  “Hunters to me!” he keened.

  “Bring us meat!” begged a female.

  “We’ll bring you a wolf pelt!” replied a member of the Guard.

  “I’ll skin you myself!” snarled a brilliantly violet gryfess, but two females leaped in front to hold her back. Vaguely Shard knew her, but couldn’t bring a name in the dream. The laughter that followed from the males swept rage under Shard’s skin.

  “They’re starving!” he shrieked, and clattering ravens called over the assembled gryfons. “Your own mates!”

  He struggled against the invisible wall that silenced his voice, stayed his talons, struggled against the thousands of leagues of sea and wind between him and these crimes. Even Caj stood cowed, in shock over Kjorn’s disappearance and unwilling to stand against Sverin when the prince was missing. There was no one.

  “Help them!” he pleaded to the raven, Munin. “This can’t be real!”

  Munin’s eyes shone dark as a sky without stars. Staring into them, Shard realized he was seeing things that had already passed. There was nothing he could do. There was nothing anyone could do. Catori didn’t answer because she wasn’t really there.

  The caribou Aodh’s hooves thundered across the sky. “Winter stalks us. Find the summer in yourself.” Hooves rang, echoing, “find the summer, find the summer…the son, brother, father…”

  “I waited too long,” Shard whispered. “What of Einarr? He knows I live.”

  “He hunts,” Munin said. “He survives. He watches the War King and weighs him against the memory of you.”

  Munin turned so that Shard could see through his eyes again, could see the heavy snow and Sverin on his rocks.

  “The Long Night is coming,” the king warned again, on a new day. It was silent. Gloomy afternoon. Clouds crouched low over the Silver Isles and fat, silent flakes of snow fell.

  “These laws are for your own safety.”

  The King’s Guard wandered among the silent, shivering, huddled gryfons, and now, no one spoke or questioned.

  “For your own safety!” the Red King boomed. “All I do, I do to protect you. In these dark times it is easy to turn to suspicion, to superstition and fear. Some of you,” his gaze landed on Einarr, Sigrun, others, “come from families who have betrayed me. Some of you have betrayed me yourselves. But the cold winter is on us, and I know that none of you would put the pride at risk in this time. My laws are in place to remind you of the law of bright Tyr. Those loyal will be rewarded and protected.”

  The pride held its breath, staring up at the king, harsh red against white snow.

  “Anyone in defiance of even one of my laws will be considered a traitor.” The king lowered his head, his gaze searching hearts and eyes.

  “Any traitors,” he said quietly, “will be exiled.”

  Shard found himself standing next to a beautiful, older, snowy gryfon.

  “Mother,” he whispered. An ear tuned his way. Shard realized that he didn’t actually stand next to her, but a raven did, and he could speak to Ragna through his strange friend. Even if it was only a dream, he had to say, “Help them.”

  “All I do is for the pride,” murmured the widow queen, in a way so different than Sverin. “There are strengths in the Vanir Sverin does not know.” She looked at the raven, at Shard. “Stay on your wind, my son. Do what you left us to do.”

  Then Munin had to take wing or be seen, and Ragna be seen speaking with a “lesser creature.”

  “Where is Kjorn?” Shard shouted at the dead, pale sky.

  “He hunts for the king’s heart,” the raven said, though now it sounded like wind on the rocks, and he smelled the sage of Winderost and the smoke of a thousand fires.

  “Where is the prince?” demanded Shard.

  “Where is the Summer King?” cried all the birds of the Isles.

  Stigr’s voice called and Shard knew he was waking. Grateful, he plunged away from Munin and the nightmare. But he was stuck. Again he saw Sverin on the rocks, then he saw blood, saw Caj still and bloody in the snow.

  “Munin, let me wake!”

  The raven laughed and laughed, holding Shard in the dream. “You didn’t follow Kajar’s starfire far enough, little graywing! Your father never dreamed of the Dawn Spire. Is it a pretty gryfess who holds you captive there?”

  Whirling in the black dream sky, Shard slashed talons at the dark feathers tangling his thoughts.

  Raven wings flung apart to reveal twin suns that became serpent’s eyes, staring at him.

  Shard did not have time to put together the creature’s face before he heard a familiar voice. The voice of the storm, of the unknown song, the voice he’d heard over the sea.

  It was female, and wisped, “I wait for the Summer King.”

  “Where?” Shard breathed.

  “You know.”

  Wake up.

  “Shard.” Stigr cuffed his ear. “Wake! Something’s happening and you should probably look alert.”

  Shard lunged up, wings flaring to smack against the rock walls. His heart lanced about like a sparrow, and he stared at his uncle, dusty black in the early morning.

  Stigr’s feathers sleeked down with tension. “What is it?”

  Slowly, Shard closed his wings, tried to smooth his feathers. “A dream.”

  “Another dream,” Stigr growled. “All these nights, you dream, I hear you.”

  “Raven dreams,” Shard breathed. “I think—I don’t know. There’s nothing I can do now.”

  Stigr’s eyes widened. “Tell me what you saw.”

  Before Shard could, a commotion outside drew their attention, wild shouts and the rustle of many wings. “I will,” Shard had to promise before Stigr would lead them both out of the den.

  32

  The Wild Hunt

  “What’s all this?” Stigr demanded of a young fledge bounding by. She stopped, blinked at him, then ran toward a mottle of other fledges, who screeched and laughed when she said Stigr had spoken to her.

  A familiar faced winged by above and Shard called to her. “Brynja! What’s happening?” The red huntress didn’t hear, and flew on. Another gryfess glided by, and deigned to land in front of them.

  “Valdis,” Stigr greeted. “What’s all this?”

  “Come and see. The Wild Hunt. The chance for you to prove yourself to the king.” She tensed to fly again but Stigr lifted his wings.

  “We have proven ourselves. Tell us what this hunt’s all about, what manner of beast, and what’s expected of us. No more speaking to us like fledges. No more secrets.”

  Valdis checked, flexing her wings, then laughed. The husky sound surprised Shard, and, he saw, Stigr. “Oh, a proud member of the King’s Guard now and he thinks he has the wind of things? Think of it as a surprise, instead of a secret.” Her stern gaze traveled down the length of him and up to his eyes again. “Don’t you like surprises, Stigr?”

  With that she shoved off, keening for them to follow.

  Stigr flattened his ears. “Belligerent fish-hawk.”

  “Actually,” Shard said, “I’m becoming fond of her.”

  Stigr swiveled to glare at him.

  Shard gave him the most innocent look he could manage. He had few chances to run his uncle’s feathers the wrong way. “I just mean that she reminds me of you.” Stigr’s feathers pricked up and he peered at Shard suspiciously. “As a matter of fact, I think she likes you. A mysterious foreigner turned prestigious member of the guard. It’s dashing, like a song.”

  “A song indeed,” Stigr muttered, just as Shard began to warm to his idea of how Valdis must see him. He’d never thought of his uncle as a target for admiring females, but surely there was plenty to admire.

  From the right angle, Shard thought wryly. And if Shard could encourage Stigr to respo
nd with affection to even one Aesir, it might change him for the better and help Shard in the long run.

  “There’s a reason that one’s not mated, I’ll tell you that.” Stigr began to walk, muttering, and Shard followed him. A stream of gryfons and fledges walked the same way, through the rock maze toward the perimeter of the Dawn Spire.

  Stigr’s gaze tracked Valdis’s flight through the sky. “And as if I would fly with an Aesir. As if it would do either of us any good, too old for kits.” He shook himself. “As if I weren’t old enough already, and needing a female to harry me.”

  Shard chirruped, stifling a laugh. “But she is a fine huntress. Besides, you would hate a meek, submissive female, I know that much—”

  “Stay on your wind, nephew,” Stigr warned. “Everything I do here is to make you look good. And when are you planning to get on with…all this?”

  Stay on your wind. His mother had said the same thing in his dream. In his vision. It couldn’t be real. It had felt so hopeless, but Shard felt a sliver of suspicion that Munin toyed with him. A raven dream.

  Not even Sverin would fly to such wild heights. Banning all those things. All that suspicion and fear. Barely hunting for game in winter. If it was real, Shard feared what the king would do next if he couldn’t calm himself. Vividly and with a stroke of fear, Shard recalled that nowhere in his dream had he seen golden Kjorn.

  He hunts for the king’s heart, Munin had said, and remembering that, Shard feared all he had seen was too real.

  Shard pulled himself back from his thoughts, back from the cold sinking into his belly to answer Stigr quietly. “After this hunt,” he promised, eyeing the gryfons walking around them. “Brynja and Dagny told me this is our chance for winter initiation into the pride. I’ll have a voice with Orn, we’ll be free to travel the Winderost and seek…”

  The large golden eyes from the dream came back to him.

  The single, snow-covered peak.

  I wait for the Summer King.

  “And seek what you came for,” Stigr finished for him, also wary of speaking too much with others around. “Good. You have my support. I’m weary of everyone thinking we’re pitiful exiles from some mud-water crack in the ground. It’s a waste of time playing their tier-climbing game. Time to move on.” His gaze skirted upward though, and Shard suspected he might be looking for Valdis.