Secret of the Gargoyles (Gargoyle Guardian Chronicles Book 3) (2 page)

The first time she’d shown up, I’d thought she’d come to help. Every gargoyle I’d asked about the dormancy sickness had refused to talk to me about it except for Oliver and his four siblings, and they were as perplexed as I was—by the disease and by the other gargoyles’ silence. But the gryphon was different. She’d helped me in the past: When Oliver had been a baby, he and his siblings had been kidnapped and imprisoned by Walter, a mercenary earth elemental who had tortured them to steal their magic for himself—and for the highest bidders in his black market scheme. While I’d been desperately trying to rescue the hatchlings, the gryphon had convinced the city guards to investigate my wild tale. Without her timely arrival, I wouldn’t be alive, and neither would Oliver or his siblings.

I’d been wrong about her intentions now, though. The gryphon refused to let me or Oliver get close enough to talk, and I’d grown to resent her judgmental presence. It was bad enough that I hadn’t found a cure after months of research and experimentation; having an audience made it ten times worse.

I ground my teeth and used a soft push of air to sweep the quartz powder into a pile. With Oliver’s help, I packed up my supplies, the weight of the gryphon’s censure boring into my back the entire time. Irritation made my movements clumsy. I didn’t need the gryphon to point out my deplorable incompetence; I lived it every day, watching the dormant gargoyles slowly fade while I tried useless spells. My frustration with today’s failure was made worse by the fact that I’d never really expected the spell to work; I simply hadn’t had anything better to try—and I hadn’t for weeks. But the gryphon’s silent condemnation was the final straw.

“I’ve had enough of this.” I spun and locked gazes with the gryphon. She lurked closer than normal, and I could easily make out her glowing lavender eyes, despite her location in the dappled shadows fifty yards away.

“Do you need help?” I called, my tone conveying the
butt out
meaning of my words. I projected my voice through a cone of air to direct it toward the gryphon and away from the cleanup crew. I didn’t need them sticking their noses into this, too.

The gryphon’s neck feathers ruffled, and sunlight ghosted across the ripple of onyx. Her hard eyes remained expressionless.

“Look, I’m doing my best here.” I shrugged off Oliver’s placating gesture and stomped up the incline toward the gryphon. “I’m trying everything I can think of, so unless you have any suggestions—”

The gryphon surged forward, leaping into the air on stone eagle wings and hurtling straight for me. I dropped to all fours to avoid being clipped by her massive eagle talons, my heart lifting into my throat. The backdraft of her wings whipped my hair into my eyes as she shot past us. She banked, spinning through the air as if she’d anchored one wingtip in the ether, and swooped back toward us. Her enormous body temporarily blocked the sun before she landed on silent stone feet close enough to snap my head off. Oliver reared up protectively in front of me, but even with his wings flared, his slender body looked fragile next to the gryphon. She ignored him, folding her enormous amethyst-striated onyx wings against her body and glaring at me.

“Stop shouting.” The gryphon’s voice was that of a lion’s, soft and rumbling, despite forming in a rock throat and emerging through an eagle’s beak.

“Uh, of course.” I straightened on shaky legs and squared my shoulders.

Dismissing me and Oliver, she stalked around us to stare into the marmot’s blank eyes. I released a quiet breath and patted Oliver. He dropped to all fours, keeping his wings partially cupped to give himself extra bulk. I shuffled in a wide arc around the gryphon until I could see her face again, and Oliver twined beside me, moving slower than normal. I think it was his version of being tough, and I appreciated the effort.

“I’ve been watching you,” she said.

“I know—”

She turned the full weight of her stare on me, and my mouth clicked shut.

“I have talked with the gargoyles you’ve healed,” she continued, “and I have talked with the gargoyles this cub has been spreading tales to.”

Oliver bristled, the orange-red ruff around his face flaring. I crossed my arms over my chest. Was this where she accused me of being an unfit healer? If so, she was wrong. I’d been an exemplary healer—at least until I’d encountered the comatose gargoyles. She was welcome to point me in the direction of a more practiced healer or even a book that might provide an answer to the dormancy sickness, but otherwise I wasn’t in the mood to listen to her recriminations.

“You risked much to save the hatchlings when they were so foolishly caught. You risked more to save Rourke.”

My indignation faltered. She knew the sick gargoyle’s name.

“I’m still trying to save him—to save Rourke,” I said. “But you know that. You’ve watched me every day.”

The gryphon acted as if I hadn’t spoken, observing without speaking as the cleanup crew broke off another pillar of granite, spun it through the air, and crumbled it into the deep pit on the other side of the park.

I tried to read her expression. She didn’t look ready to chase me out of town for being a miserable healer. She looked more torn than angry.

Had I misjudged her? Was it possible she wasn’t here to berate me? Something had made her approach me today, and I bit my lip to hold in a babble of questions and demands that might scare her off.

“You have proven yourself twice, Healer, and perhaps you’ve even earned the honorific this pup has been claiming. It’s been centuries since we’ve known a true guardian.”

I twitched as if she’d poked me. Oliver had started calling me
guardian
after I’d saved the marmot and a half dozen other gargoyles Elsa’s invention had ensnared while it’d been tearing up the park. I hadn’t put much stock in it. He was young and worshipful, and working with
Guardian Mika
sounded more impressive than
Healer Mika
. I hadn’t realized the title meant anything, but the gryphon implied it did.

“If I’m going to trust you . . .” She pivoted on a hind foot and paced away from me and back, tail lashing. “If I’m going to save you . . .” She paused to peer into Rourke’s faded eyes. With a choked roar, she spun away and thrust her beak so close to Oliver’s snout that their breaths mingled. My brave companion didn’t flinch.

The gryphon’s voice rumbled with anguish when she asked, “Is she really a guardian? Is she worthy?”

“My life is hers,” Oliver said.

“You are too young to know what you say.”

Oliver quivered, wings flaring in anger. “I’ve held her spirit inside me. My age doesn’t matter. I felt her in my heart. I know Mika is a guardian.”

I shuddered at the reminder. I’d once transplanted pieces of my spirit into Oliver and his four siblings in a colossally stupid maneuver that would have shredded my brain if it hadn’t worked. At the time, it’d been the only option I could use to save the gargoyles from being ripped apart by Elsa’s invention, and I hadn’t fully considered the ramifications. Nor had I realized Oliver had been able to glean anything from that piece of me, let alone that it was what convinced him I was a guardian.

I was beginning to suspect the title of
guardian
was more than an honorific, too.

The gryphon broke off her staring match with Oliver and straightened to turn her piercing regard upon me. I did my best not to fidget, but my bubbling hope made it difficult. If I guessed correctly, she knew what could save the marmot—what could save all the dormant gargoyles—and she seemed to be talking herself into telling me. I hunted for the right words to convince her I deserved her trust, but the longer I looked into her glowing amethyst eyes, the more certain I became that nothing I could say would be enough. Either she believed me worthy or she didn’t.

I crossed my fingers behind my back.

“Guardian.” The gryphon paused as if testing the word. “My name is Celeste, and I place the lives of all gargoyles into your hands with what I am about to tell you.”

2

Celeste scanned the park and I found myself checking our surroundings, too. The cleanup crew was too far away to hear and no other creatures were close. Nevertheless, when she spoke again, it was barely above a whisper, the rumble of her words mixing with the cracks and groans of pulverized granite.

“Rourke’s cynosure baetyl was gravely injured.”

Oliver reared back, every spike and feather on his body standing on end as he shook his head. I glanced between him and the hunched gryphon, alarm quickening my pulse.

“His what?” Baetyls were stones believed to be of divine origin, but what did that have to do with gargoyles, and how did a rock serve as a guide?

“That’s not possible. Nothing can harm a . . . a baetyl.” Oliver barely mouthed the last word and his wide eyes darted in every direction.

“What is a cynosure baetyl?” I hissed.

“Home,” Oliver whispered with a shiver. “We shouldn’t talk about it.”

“A baetyl is where we hatch,” Celeste said.

“On a stone?” I pictured a rock nest high atop a mountain where tiny baby gargoyles were born and took their first flight.

“Inside, not on. Baetyls are underground. They’re sacred, secret places without which no hatchling would survive. We need our baetyl’s magic to be born, and we need it again throughout our lives to rejuvenate our bodies.”

“We do?” Oliver asked.

Celeste lowered herself until she lay on the ground to get closer to the young gargoyle’s eye level. “It is a compulsion you’ll feel when you’re older. Your body knows when it needs to return. You’re far too young to have experienced it, but if you are too long away from your cynosure baetyl, you will eventually weaken and become unbalanced.”

I crouched to hear her whispered words. Baetyls hadn’t been hinted at in any book or journal I’d read. For centuries, scholars and healers had speculated on the birthing rituals of gargoyles, but the few who had broached the subject with gargoyles had been rebuffed. I understood their need for secrecy. If unscrupulous people like Walter and Elsa knew where they could find weak gargoyles and helpless newborns, the gargoyles would never be safe.

“Wait! Walter! Did he defile your baetyl, Oliver?” The man still lived, imprisoned, but if even a chance existed that he could get his hands on more baby gargoyles . . .

Oliver shook his head. “No. We were outside the . . . outside home when he captured us.”

I relaxed my white-knuckle grip on his shoulder with a sigh of relief. Celeste watched us with unblinking eyes, waiting until we’d focused on her again before continuing.

“Rourke is over a half century overdue to return to his baetyl. The only reason he’s survived this long is because of his location.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was not the first of his baetyl to sicken. We watched others fade into comas, and some died fast. Some didn’t. Survival depended on seclusion; those in public places fared better and lived longer. We hunted out the location with the most concentrated number of humans actively using magic. The park used to be that place before it was destroyed.”

“That’s why he boosts everyone in the area,” I said, the answer to the mystery clicking into place. Gargoyles fed off the magic they enhanced. It was why they gravitated toward busy public buildings and the homes of powerful full-spectrum pentacle potentials. FSPPs could wield all the elements with a strength I could only come close to with quartz, and when a gargoyle enhanced an FSPP, they fed off a wealth of magic. By passively enhancing everyone who came close enough, Rourke and the other dormant gargoyles had been able to continue to feed even as their bodies shut down. I’d been afraid I had missed some dormant gargoyles hidden in less populated areas, but she just confirmed I hadn’t. Sadly, any who had fallen comatose somewhere out of the way would already be dead.

Celeste’s eyes tracked the cleanup crew as she spoke. “Even if they finish fixing the park tomorrow, I fear that if Rourke goes much longer without contact with his baetyl, he’ll die. So many have already wasted away. I may have doomed us all, but I cannot abandon my mate to that horrid death.”

“Rourke is your mate?”

Celeste nodded.

“And he’s been like this”—I gestured to the frozen gargoyle trapped in his own body—“for over fifty years?”

“He and all the rest from his baetyl. There used to be twenty-three. There’s no one left to speak for them, none to judge you for themselves, so I am acting on their behalf.”

My heart broke for Celeste. She’d watched her mate’s life wither away for decades, unable to do anything to help him without risking the lives of every gargoyle.

“Thank you for trusting me, Celeste. I’ll make sure he and the others get home to their baetyl.” It couldn’t be that simple, could it?

Celeste shook her head as if answering my unspoken question. “They tried to go back years ago. Rourke said his baetyl had been injured and he came back sicker than before. I took him to my baetyl, but it pained him too much to stay.”

“A baetyl can’t be injured,” Oliver said, his voice small and uncertain. He’d huddled into a tight bundle, and for the first time in months, I thought my six-foot-long companion looked little.

“Anything can be hurt, even baetyls,” Celeste said.