By the Silver Wind (14 page)

Ragna glided down to land on the King’s Rocks, where Ollar stood fuming, with Caj ready to leap on him. Green caught her eye and she saw Halvden, trotting up the cliff trail from his own den.

“What is your complaint, Ollar?” Ragna asked, as if everyone hadn’t heard him from the rocks.

“You know it, white witch.” Silver feathers had never looked so ugly, Ragna thought. Somehow his gleaming feathers, unnaturally metallic and bright, made him look spiteful, dangerous and wild, rather than handsome. “I demand red meat as well, or I’ll starve myself.”

“Good riddance,” Ragna said, her skin heating with anger. It was not the first time the Aesir had called her a witch, accused her of bringing poor weather on them, blighting the pride, cursing all with her quiet presence. “Stand down. You embarrass yourself and undermine the peace we have gained here. No one else is complaining.”

“Because they don’t know.” Ollar climbed the rocks, stalking her. Caj shadowed him, and his steady, rumbling growl warned the silver gryfon to go no farther. He ignored Caj. “I will tell everyone and we will force you to let us hunt decent food.”

“Ollar. Stop this.” Caj’s feathers stood on end, his broken wing clamped to his side in a mud cast, his good wing arched high, tail lashing.

Perhaps Ollar, in his anger, forgot that Caj had beaten Halvden soundly even with a broken wing, and almost Sverin himself, for he whirled and hissed. “Or
what
? I can’t believe your cursed mate has you so pressed under her talon you can’t see what’s happening. Go on and take that step, you limp-winged—”

Ragna surged forward, smashing into the Aesir who was nearly twice her size. If anger and violence was all he could comprehend, then she would act in a way he understood. Sheer surprise helped her land a few powerful swipes to his chest, and blood splattered his bright feathers and Ragna’s.

“Stand down,” she shouted as she slapped talons toward his face. He caught her swipe and she dropped, shoving forward to fling open her wings and push him back. “Or I will drive you myself into the sea!”

He roared, rearing back to his hind feet and tossing her away. Ragna rolled through the snow. Blue and green blurred past her, then coppery feathers like flame—Caj, Halvden, and Eyvin rushing in to defend her.

The shrieks and snarls drew onlookers from the cliffs, sea, and sky. Gryfons circled, calling to each other, trying to figure out what had happened.

Ragna lunged toward the fray and it was Halvden who whirled and gnashed his beak. “Stay back!”

“What’s all this?” Thyra’s ringing voice silenced all others. Caj and Eyvin subdued Ollar and pinned him to the ground as Thyra trundled forward. With a steady diet of good fresh food, her belly swelled and her eyes looked bright and clear.

“Son of Lar, how have you shamed yourself today?”

“This is none of your affair,” Ollar snapped.

“You will answer your queen,” Halvden said coldly.

“She’s no queen of mine!” he said shrilly, and Caj ground his face into the snow with one foot.

“I see,” Thyra said, and looked at Ragna. Her brown eyes registered surprise, and Ragna remembered Ollar’s blood had splashed her feathers. Stigr had always warned Ragna of how grimly awful her pale feathers looked after fighting.

“He discovered we offered Sverin red meat,” Ragna said, shuddering with nerves and with frustration as more gryfons gathered and began to mutter among themselves.

“And that is so Kjorn may see his father again,” Thyra explained coolly to Ollar, who snarled inarticulately under Caj’s foot. “Not out of pity for the War King.”

“You are weak,” grumbled Ollar. “All of you!”

“Will you respect my mate better, when he returns?” Thyra inquired, her voice steadily colder.

Ollar barked a laugh. “No. No I will not. Their whole line is cursed and broken, and look what following them has brought us. I have a weakling mate, and a weaker daughter who mated to a weakling who’s now dead. The cursed kit will be born
weak.
”

Thyra’s eyes flashed and she stalked forward, a formidable sight despite her burgeoning belly. “You will not speak of Asfrid, Astri, or Einarr like that in my presence ever again.”

“I’ll do as I please.”

Caj pressed down, Eyvin crushed against him with her weight, and Ragna watched him sputter and growl, then laugh hoarsely.

“I’ll do as I please, because none of you have the courage to stop me!”

“If by stop, you mean kill, then you are right.” Thyra’s voice chilled Ragna to the bone. “None of us will kill you—”

“I might,” growled Halvden, and Thyra snapped her beak, raising her head.

“None of us will kill you, because we are heartsick from war, and still we try to heal. But I won’t tolerate this in my pride.”

“Ha,” rumbled Ollar. “What will you do, half-breed?”

“My daughter,” Caj reminded him, his words nearly lost in a snarl.

“Ollar, son-of-Lar,” Thyra said, opening her lavender wings, “your warmongering and discontent are not welcome in the new pride. You have until nightfall to leave the Silver Isles.”

All fell quiet, stunned. Ragna looked slowly from Thyra to Ollar, then Caj, who gazed at his daughter with a mix of pride and shock. Ragna hadn’t thought, after all the grief that exiling gryfons had brought to the pride, that Thyra would have it in her to do so. But it was that or kill him, or imprison him, and why should they spend their time feeding and caring for someone who bore them no love?

Even Ollar had gone silent for a moment. But not for long. “You can’t—”

“I can, I am. Since you’re unhappy with my rule, my mate, and the new pride, you’re better off leaving us. I wish you fair winds wherever they take you.”

Without another word, Thyra turned and strode away. Gryfons—Aesir, Vanir, and half-bloods alike—fell in behind her, asking questions, demanding to know about the red meat, and if she planned to exile anyone else. Ragna saw unfortunate lines of division forming again. Vanir walked together, and Aesir walked together, each eyeing each other suspiciously. Any trust they’d slowly built was gone, as each wondered if the other was getting special treatment, or special discrimination.

Ragna stood there, watching them depart. Caj stepped back and Eyvin let Ollar stand. “Say goodbye to your mate and daughter,” the coppery gryfess said quietly. “Though I know you have no love for them. You owe them that.”

At the edge of Ragna’s vision she saw Astri and her mother, Asfrid, staring from the edge of the cliff.

“I owe them nothing,” Ollar growled, backing away, his tail lashing. “They are weak excuses for gryfon kind. Poor huntresses, and embarrassing. You’re all weak, and you will rue this cursed new pride and the pathetic princes you wait for.”

With those words, he shoved past Ragna and leaped from the cliff. Caj strode up beside Ragna to watch him fly, making sure he navigated across the ocean, and not toward another island.

Halvden trotted up, hackle-feathers standing high. “Where does he think he’ll go?”

For a moment only the wind answered, stirring the air. A light drizzle misted down. Caj shook himself, staring across the water, and said, “Home.”

“Good riddance,” Halvden hissed.

Caj eyed him sidelong, then met Ragna’s gaze over Halvden’s emerald back. It wasn’t so long ago Halvden had displayed the same insufferable, dangerous arrogance. Ragna was pleased to see changes in him, subtle as they were.

“Thank you,” she said to all of them, breaking the silence. The she added in particular, “Halvden, thank you for intervening.”

He glanced at her, then turned his head away. “I should go back to Kenna now.”

“Yes. Go. Caj, will you help Thyra and me to talk everyone down? They do deserve an explanation. We should have done it before, instead of skulking back and forth like thieves.”

“Yes, my lady. Let me fetch Sigrun as well. Both sides have respect for her.”

Feeling relief at the thought of her wingsister by her side, Ragna reminded herself not to try and do everything alone. “Of course, yes. Thank you. I’ll just follow the mob and you can find us.”

She stretched a wing to indicate the group of gryfons who still followed Thyra as the young queen walked along the cliff, calmly answering their questions.

Caj dipped his head, left her, and Eyvin followed him, leaving Ragna alone on the King’s Rocks. For a moment she stood, looking back across the sea. She spied Ollar flying. Standing in the cold spring wind, she watched until he disappeared from sight, to make sure he didn’t turn around.

A
BLACK SERPENT’S EYE REGARDED
him, scouring him for more dreams.

“Rhydda. Did you hunt well? Did you feed your brood?”

A dream formed for him of a night hunt, wyrms soaring across a ragged moonlit plain and coming upon a herd of pronghorn.

Shard, aware at once of his body by the cold ashes of their fire, Kjorn’s warmth at his back, and of the sharpness of the dream, kept his breathing slow, trying not to wake.

“You are mighty hunters,” he acknowledged. “Did you thank them for their lives?” He felt she had returned to her den, was sleeping, was listening to him more clearly because she was dreaming of him. He remembered the pain across his flank, the whip of flame. “What was that?”

Her hard, rumbling growl seemed to shake his body although they were lands apart. Stones jutted up before him. She didn’t want to remember that pain.

“Why do you hunt us?” He showed her herself, winging after gryfons in the night, ravaging the Dawn Spire. With it he tried to impart the feeling of sorrow, but wasn’t sure how to show her.

A tiny flame flicked in her. A tiny spark of understanding, or memory.

Then he saw a gleaming sheet of gold, inlaid with carved ruby. It was the sharpest, clearest thing in her mind, as if she’d seen it the day before.

It took Shard a dumbfounded moment to realize the ruby inlay formed the image of a gryfon. A tall, sleek, gryfon rampant, carved in ruby with eyes of gold. Recognition shot down Shard’s spine.

It was not Sverin or Per, though . . .

“Dragon craft,”
he told Rhydda.
“That is dragon-made, and the gryfon is—”

“
Bright with dragon’s blood
,” hissed a voice he didn’t know. It was the same as the one who’d whipped her. “
. . . hear me, beast!
”

Pain lanced across Shard’s wings, then his face, and he lunged up snapping. He was himself, and Rhydda, and together they roared, rage consuming them at another slash of pain.

“Stop it!”
he shrieked, spinning around to see his attacker—

~

“Shard. Shard!”

He came to his feet with a sharp cry, gasping hard in the quiet morning light. His chest burned. His neck and feet ached as if he’d battled a foe, and he glanced furtively at his talons, half expecting to see blood. But they were clean, gray, clenching at the dusty earth.

Kjorn stood before him, wings open as if he’d mantled over Shard protectively, the early sun sparkling on his golden feathers. Shard backed away from him, tail lashing as he scavenged his memory for the end of the dream. It slid away like wet sand and he snapped his beak in frustration.

“Mudding, windblown—why did you wake me?” he demanded, snarling at Kjorn. “She heard me! All winds, Kjorn, she was showing me! I almost . . .” He trailed off at Kjorn’s expression.

The gold prince stepped back, bemused, ears perked. “Shard,” he murmured. “Calm down. I had to.”

“Why?” Then Shard paused. All around him, the rest of their company was awake, some standing, some still laying down, or stopped in mid-stretch.

All stared at him with wide eyes and open beaks.

Kjorn lowered his head, regarding Shard warily. “You were screaming. I’ve never heard such a sound.”

Shard gathered a breath, looking away from the staring group. “I’m fine. It was a dream.”

“Shard—”

“It was a dream. I said the dreams couldn’t hurt me.” He looked around sharply at the rest. They broke their stares, looking away, then leaned in to each other to whisper. Every nerve along his spine prickled, and he took another ragged breath.

“Are you sure?” Kjorn asked sharply. “You don’t know that. You didn’t hear yourself. You sounded in true pain—”

Shard steadied his breath and met his wingbrother’s gaze. “It was a dream, Kjorn.”

Kjorn remained quiet, watching him with a hard look. Shard sought some sight of Brynja, and found her nearby, wings up, one foot half raised. She watched him with steady but calm concern. Unlike Kjorn, she seemed aware that his scream was from the nightmare.
Not a nightmare, a memory. Rhydda’s memory.

Shard glanced to the other Vanir, Ketil, her eyes wide as eggs. Another day of flying had seen them to the edge of the Dawn Reach, and this was the first time he’d managed to dream of Rhydda again.

He ducked his head, refusing to feel embarrassed, and addressed Kjorn. “You have to let me fight through the dreams for any hope of speaking to Rhydda.”

Kjorn narrowed his eyes and ruffled his feathers, looking toward the dawn sky. “Very well. But you might have warned us what to expect.”

Shard looked again at his talons, then shook his head. “I didn’t know.”

Asvander loped up to them. “The Lakelanders are ready to depart. All well, Shard? Bad dreams eh?”

“Yes,” Shard said with feigned curtness. “I dreamed I had to serve you as a sentinel of the Dawn Spire. It was horrible.”

Asvander’s tail twitched, then he laughed, and even Kjorn managed a chuckle, though he watched Shard sideways. Brynja and Dagny approached.

“All stand ready,” Dagny reported, glancing at Shard with concern.

“All well?” Brynja murmured, stepping up beside him.

“Yes.” Shard touched his beak behind her ear, grounding himself in her scent. She fluffed her feathers and he promised, “I’ll tell you on the way.”

Kjorn nodded to Dagny. “Then let’s fly. I’m anxious to reach the Vanheim Shore.”

Soon they were airborne, and Shard’s thoughts cleared in the bright wind, tinged with the faintest hint of rain. He spied the shadow of clouds on their horizon.

“Now tell me,” Brynja said, pumping her wings and settling into a glide alongside him.