by Jess E. Owen
But he hadn’t taught Halvden everything he knew. Some fighting moves, Caj had been wise to reserve for himself. He and Sverin had practiced them. All wingbrothers and sisters had a few. Defenses and fighting moves and hunting tricks they shared only with each other, just in case. Now, Halvden was in perfect position for Caj to use one.
“Give up, Halvden, and I won’t tell the king of this.”
When Halvden lunged, Caj dropped to his belly and rolled to one side, leaving his flank open. Halvden shot in, beak slashing toward Caj’s belly. Caj locked his hind legs around Halvden’s neck and twisted hard, throwing him down. Caj rolled and pinned Halvden, hindquarters crushing Halvden’s hind legs against the ground, grabbing Halvden’s forelegs in his talons. A move and pin that he and Sverin perfected, and there was only one way to break it—also a secret.
Halvden tossed his head, writhing against Caj and the ground.
“Give up,” Caj growled, clenching Halvden’s forelegs in his talons.
Halvden met his eyes—and laughed.
Before Caj could move, Halvden thrust his wing up and around, knocking the bent joint against Caj’s skull.
Light flashed, his talons loosened, Halvden’s talons caught under his wings and he shoved Caj up hard before slamming him to the ground.
“I learned something new over the Long Night,” Halvden growled, talons braced on Caj’s shoulder, standing on one blue wing.
He stamped a hind paw. Caj’s shriek of pain hid the crack of breaking bone.
Sverin! Caj thought wildly. How could he…Warm blood oozed somewhere. His foreleg. Or his chest. Halvden loomed over him, wings hunched above his head, and ground his talons into Caj’s broken wing, drawing a cry of pain.
“It was clear to the king that you no longer protect his back, and so he helped me prepare to defend myself. Sad,” he murmured. “When wingbrothers can’t trust each other.”
Agony soared up Caj’s wing to his shoulder and back. “Halvden,” he gasped. If only he could stand upright. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I do.” He knocked his gauntlet against Caj’s head. Claws tore at his shoulder, another blow—Caj struggled to block, to fight, swinging talons and trying to roll away.
His weakness from fasting finally fogged across his muscles. All he could do was keep Halvden from biting his throat, or delivering a killing slash to his belly. At last he forced Halvden back by slashing at his eyes, and staggered to his feet.
Halvden darted forward again, and again as Caj limped back, blocking attacks on pure, blind instinct.
He heard a ringing. Blinking, he swung out of Halvden’s way again and tried to break from the trees before remembering that he could not fly.
Not a ringing.
A low, mournful sound. Howls.
Wolves.
“Perfect.” Halvden smashed into him, knocking him down again. Bright pain danced up Caj’s wing and Halvden crushed him down with he tried to rise.
“Farewell, Noble Caj,” Halvden said, flicking his ears to the wolf howls that grew closer. “Everyone will remember you well.”
Gryfon voices, desperate and frightened of the wolves and storm, drifted to them on the wind. Halvden crouched, eyes widening when he heard the voices.
“Do it before they see,” Caj snarled, panting. He searched desperately for an opening but Halvden’s bright feathers and armor swam before his eyes.
But at the prospect of the killing bite, fear gleamed wild in Halvden’s face. “The wolves will finish you,” he rasped, stamping once on his hind leg for good measure.
“Coward!” Caj coughed and tried to move. Halvden fled, disappearing into the gray. He called the others, called alarm, warning of boar, of wolves, shouting that Caj had fallen.
Caj tried to shout. His gorge rose at the effort to move. Wolfsong. Hungry, hunting song filled the woods around him. Snow fell, settling over him as the afternoon shifted to dark.
All I wanted, Caj thought, a flicker of clarity amidst swimming nausea and pain, was to live in peace with my mate.
Sigrun. Thyra. They were all in danger. Sverin son-of-Per, the once powerful Red King, was truly lost to them. Caj’s own wingbrother, and he had been too afraid to stop him, to bring his friend back to reason and clarity. And now Halvden would cultivate those fears with more lies.
Oh, Sverin.
Hot fear lanced through Caj’s muscles. He braced talons under himself and managed to stand. He’d lied to Sverin for ten years about Shard. Too worried about his own secrets, Caj hadn’t trusted Sverin as he should have.
He mourns his dead mate still, and I didn’t see. He mourns his father and our homeland and now his son, and I wasn’t there for him. And now I won’t even be there to stand in his way.
He realized he had no plan. He couldn’t fly. He couldn’t swim to the Sun Isle.
The caves. The caves that run under the islands. Shadows moved in the forest around him. Wolves. Or snow. Trees. He limped, half blind from dizziness in the dimming light and swirling snow, toward the scent of earth. The sour scent of boar. A hole in the ground. That’s what he needed. To get into the earth. To go underground.
A snort drew him around. A hulking form stood in the trees five leaps away. Caj shook his head, trying to slow his reeling vision.
A boar. A young boar. Caj coughed, disbelieving. Bright Tyr was surely angry with him. Maybe he truly had fallen under dark magic, and ignored his wingbrother, and bright Tyr would now show his wrath.
“I challenge,” Caj whispered, lifting his good wing. The boar squealed in mad delight. Stupid beast. Caj tilted his head when the squeal twisted into laughing words.
“You will die. The wolves will hide in their holes. And I will be king of the Star Isle.”
“You’ll be the most foul-smelling king I’ve ever heard of.” Caj chuckled to himself, drunk on pain and dizziness. Boars didn’t speak. The blow to the head had ruined some part of his mind. “And the ugliest.” He might as well enjoy a few insults before he died.
The young monster bellowed rage, stamped and charged.
“King of the sty!” Caj shrieked, and pain clawed his head at the shouting. But he wouldn’t die whimpering and drooling on the ground.
The boar pounded forward. Caj crouched. It was almost too dark to see. He would die. Die in those mad little red eyes, by those tusks. A warrior’s death.
No! Sigrun, Thyra!
It was too late to recall he didn’t want a warrior’s death. That was for young gryfons with honor to gain and nothing to lose. He had to protect his mate, his daughter. He had to fly home.
Caj braced for his final stand. “Great Tyr—”
The boar smashed into him just as Caj flung up his talons, but he couldn’t throw the boar as he’d thrown Halvden. The boar drove him down and they rolled, Caj trying desperately to ward him away with a shove of his wing or talons. Tusks sliced his shoulder, squealing filled his ears and hooves pounded his ribs.
A huge, scuffling, snarling mass of fur and bodies slammed into them.
Caj screamed in eagle fury and agony. Nausea blinded him, his wing tangled to a broken knot of pain and the stench of wolf and boar rolled together around him. A heavy force shoved him, blunt paws drove against his ribs and fangs locked on the back of his neck, crunching feathers. Dragging him away.
Then it was still. The snarling and the scuffle stopped. The wolf dropped Caj and he fell with a grunt, exhausted, and waited to die.
After a moment, he realized that he was still alive.
The grim warbling and snarling sounded far away. The wolves had not attacked him. They had attacked the boar, and now, killed it.
I’ll be next. Maybe bright Tyr will still accept me into his ranks in the Sunlit Land…
Caj tried to rise, wanting to die on his feet, and a furry body pressed him back down. A bloody muzzle sniffed his face. Jaws opened in a pant. A howl broke through the snow.
Paws pushed him to the ground. Caj fell from his pain into black,
snowy dark, and didn’t rise again.
45
The War King’s Mercy
The hunters returned just before evening on the wings of a snowstorm, bearing little meat in their talons. Sigrun roused at their cries, ears flickering for one among them. A slow flush seeped under her feathers when she keened into the flurry and did not hear Caj’s call in return.
The other females, weary of being locked in their dens, had remained outside in the brighter air, despite the cold. They trickled forward into a group near Sigrun to seek out their mates and see if they’d found game. Through the whirling snow, Sigrun peered desperately for any flash of cobalt blue.
Warmth pressed to her wing. Ragna.
“He isn’t there,” murmured the Widow Queen.
“He’s there,” Sigrun said firmly. “He’s behind. See…”
But it was green Halvden who flew in last, not Caj.
“My hunters!” Sverin’s voice filled the storm. He trotted forward to greet them, and then stopped. “Where is Caj?
Einarr loped up to Sigrun and Ragna, his ears flat, eyes huge and worried. Astri trotted forward behind him, her face grim.
“Caj has fallen!” Halvden’s voice rang through the snow.
Every gryfon fell still. The breath left Sigrun’s chest. A tremble slid up her legs. I shouldn’t have let him go. I shouldn’t…this can’t be happening.
Mutters rose. Even the king huffed, “Impossible. Speak carefully, Halvden.”
Halvden turned and mantled low.
Only Ragna, her wing pressed firmly to Sigrun’s, kept her from leaping into the sky to fly to the Star Isle.
“We scented boar in the woods,” Halvden said. “Caj told me we shouldn’t hunt it, but I was so foolish and hungry.” His voice dipped low, afraid.
Fake, Sigrun thought, the strange sound of blood rushing her ears. He’s faking everything. Sigrun turned her gaze slowly to see if anyone else believed.
Ragna made a low noise. “Stay by me, sister.”
“We met the boar in the woods. I…it almost killed me. If not for Caj, it would have.”
A soft, low keen drifted through the falling snow.
Thyra.
She walked up on Sigrun’s other side and dipped her head against Sigrun’s wing. Absently, Sigrun crooned to comfort her, feeling hollow as a dried birch trunk.
“Caj saved my life,” Halvden said loudly, “at the cost of his. And your Majesty,” he turned back to Sverin. “Another thing.”
Sverin’s head hung low, but he lifted eyes to Halvden. The pride stared, amazed that Halvden could add another thing to such a loss.
He dug two golden feathers from his gold collar.
Heads lifted. Ears perked, murmurs rose, Kjorn’s name drifted among them even as the darkness grew. Thyra stepped forward, her eyes locked on the golden feathers of her mate.
Halvden didn’t meet her eyes, or anyone else’s. “I found these near the boar’s den. I fear—”
“Enough,” Sverin whispered. “That’s enough. Halvden, thank you.”
Halvden dipped his head. The pride mumbled listlessly, staring at the feathers, heads lowering.
Then a clear voice asked, “Did you find a body?”
Sigrun switched her gaze to Thyra. Beside her, Ragna tensed, and Einarr lifted his wings uneasily. Halvden looked slowly to Thyra.
“No. But a boar that could defeat Caj--”
“Any bones? Any flesh? A fresh scent?” Thyra stepped forward, head high. “Any sign at all that our prince did other than pass by that place?”
“No,” Halvden growled, and Sigrun watched as he closed talons tight, crushing Kjorn’s feathers.
“Then he is alive!” Thyra declared to the falling snow, to the pride, then to the king. “My lord, he’s alive. He must be. Lost, somehow, or injured, but alive.”
Instead of looking just as hopeful, Sverin raised a slow, heated look to Thyra. Sigrun stepped forward beside her daughter.
“Then why doesn’t he return to us? My son is dead,” the king said quietly. “My wingbrother, your father, is dead. Accept that you have no place now.”
That proclamation laid an even deeper, shocked silence over the pride.
“I carry your son’s kit,” Thyra whispered. “I carry your blood, your wingbrother’s blood, next in line—”
“I will not see any trace of Vanir blood follow my rule.”
Distantly, wind rattled the trees around the Nightrun like falling bones.
“Kjorn chose me,” Thyra said at last, and still Sigrun heard no trace of doubt or fear in her voice.
“You witched him.” Sverin’s voice cut the air. “Both of you. All of you!” He raised his wings, addressing all three, Ragna, Sigrun and Thyra. “You witched him so that you and your mother and the white widow could control me once you’d gotten rid of Caj, and my son!”
Thyra growled, opening her wings in challenge. Sigrun laid talons over her hind paw but Thyra stepped forward. The fearless daughter-of-Caj.
“No witchery made your son love me, and I him. No witchery made me the daughter of your wingbrother, and we had nothing to do with his death, or with Kjorn’s disappearance.” She met Sverin’s cold gaze firmly. “I am the most loyal left to you here, my king.” Her gaze turned to Halvden. “I wouldn’t feed you poison or lies just to gain your ear.”
“Lies?” hissed Halvden, backing up to stand by the king, as close as if they were wingbrothers.
At the sight of that, at last Sigrun understood.
I should have seen it. He avenges his father’s memory by doing what Hallr wished. By trying to become wingbrother to a king.
“I will serve you,” Thyra said, ignoring Halvden now, addressing Sverin. Sigrun fought to restrain herself from clawing her daughter, pulling her back. “But not at the expense of my life or the life of Kjorn’s unborn kit. I’ve been silent too long. Your grief maddens you, blinds you.”
Sigrun could hear Caj’s steady upbringing in her voice, and she was sure Sverin could too. For a moment, she hoped it would bring the king around.
But Sverin’s eyes only narrowed, and Sigrun knew what he saw. Thyra’s face—Sigrun’s face, the soft face and coloring and eyes of a Vanir.
“My lord,” Thyra said again, as if to summon him back from the brink. “My king, father of my mate. Hear reason.”
“Poison and lies!” Sverin ramped up and closer gryfons scattered back, some toward Sverin to stand behind him, some toward Ragna, Sigrun, and Thyra. “First my mate, and now everything that I had left. Your Vanir ways drove my wingbrother and my son to their deaths! “
“Your fear and distrust drove them to death!”
Thyra’s accusation left the king stunned for a moment.
“Daughter,” Sigrun breathed, then realized she had no protection if Sverin’s wrath turned on her again. Caj was gone. She was a proven traitor. She had nothing. If Sverin no longer wanted Vanir in the pride, she had nothing, not even protecting the pregnant females, to offer him. Most of them were half Vanir. He would drive his pride to death.
“In honor of my son’s memory,” Sverin said over the gusting snow, “I offer you mercy, Thyra. Leave, and live out your days in exile. Or remain and die. If you meet my family in the Sunlit Land, never say I didn’t offer you mercy.”
Thyra did not move. Gryfons ruffled uncomfortably, standing in the falling snow, some milling. Some drifted toward Thyra, as if to protect her. Sigrun wanted to grab Thyra and flee, but the king’s Guard had surrounded the gathering.
“You, witches,” Sverin rounded at last on Sigrun and Ragna. “Don’t think I don’t understand Vanir powers. You’ve brought this heavy winter on us, to ruin us, to ruin me.”
Ragna’s wings lifted slowly, but she stood solid by Sigrun. Grief and fear climbed steadily up Sigrun’s back, threatening to steal her sense. She realized she was still waiting, dumbly, for Caj to appear, to speak, to protect her and the pride from his ranting wingbrother. She couldn’t accept that he would not co
me.
Ragna spoke, firm and clear against the snow and Sverin’s anger. “I can no more bring the snow than you can bring the sun, my lord.”
“Leave this pride! You have blighted it long enough! You drove my mate to her death in the sea!”
At last, Ragna’s expression chilled. “Is that how you remember it, my lord?”
For a moment Sverin looked breathless, as if Ragna had struck an actual blow. His beak opened in a wild pant, his gaze darting around the pride. “Leave this island!” He roared the command at all of them, at any of them who stood near Sigrun and Ragna. “You have no choice.”
“That’s not true!” A male voice rang through the snowy gloom.
All blinked terrified eyes at Einarr. He seemed to stand taller, wings open, head high. Terror seized Sigrun at his sudden need to speak.
“Son of an exile,” Halvden sneered. “Brother to an exile. What would you say?”
“There is another choice,” Einarr chimed in his bright singer’s voice. “Another way.” When he had everyone’s attention, including Sverin, he spoke on.
“Shard is alive. Rashard, son-of-Baldr, true prince of the Silver Isles. Friend and brother to all of us. Vanir. Aesir. The pride.”
A rumble swept the gryfons and Sverin’s eyes widened to disbelieving, hunting rage.
Einarr turned his back on the king to face Sigrun and the others. Sigrun wanted to slap him to silence, but she also hungered for someone to stand against the Red King, and she didn’t have the strength. No one else spoke out to stop Einarr, either.
“I met him on a hunt in autumn in the foothills of the White Mountain. He lives, he’s well.” A good speaker, Einarr met all the gazes that he could. “He survived the storm and the sea. He’s going to return, to reclaim this island, and he said we could follow him. So there is a choice, you see.”
He faced Sverin again, ears flattening against his skull.
“You can’t banish the Vanir from this land. It belongs to them.” He opened his wings and they flashed copper in the dim light. “I, Einarr, son-of-Vidar, follow Shard. I follow the Vanir, true lords of the Silver Isles, until my last breath!”