By the Silver Wind (19 page)

By silent agreement they split, and Ragna knew that she was to flush the prey toward Catori, who was more likely to catch it in the trees. She suspected a snow shoe hare, and a light scent on the wind confirmed it. She caught movement and leaped, crashing forward on purpose. The hare sprang away. A muddy blur was Catori, flashing through the moon in the trees, then suddenly the hare was dodging back toward Ragna. Without thinking she hurled herself sideways, talons flinging out as if the hare were a leaping salmon, and caught it.

“Ah,” she gasped, shocked that she’d been fast enough, then yanked the hare to her and dispatched it swiftly, by the throat.

Catori padded up, panting with hunt-excitement. “Well done, my lady. You are a huntress born.”

“You should take it,” Ragna said, looking at the blood on the snow.

Catori considered the hare, licking her muzzle, then ducked her head. With a mischievous air in her voice she said, “No. You may give it to the War King, with my regards.”

Cold closed over Ragna’s chest. “I will.”

Catori tilted her head. “What troubles you? Helping your enemy?
Wood grows from bone.
We are all one. If we wolves can forgive Sverin, surely you can.”

“It isn’t that I can’t forgive him. I’ve done that.” Ragna tightened her grip on the dead hare. “It’s that I fear I’m beginning to understand him.”

Catori lifted her nose in a gesture of comprehension, then watched Ragna in silence, as if she understood how much more frightening that was. “Do you know how I met Shard?”

Ragna shook herself, certain Catori was leading up to something. “Only that it was during the hunt for the great boar. Sigrun thought as much, but he never told us anything else.”

Catori walked in a circle around her, her voice low and sweet, like a song. “I met him first, before Stigr, though we had both been watching him for some time.”

“Stigr would wait,” Ragna murmured. “He was always more patient than I.” Except for the one time it had counted, the one time when she should have barreled ahead, a War Queen, and driven out the conquering Aesir.

Catori stopped in front of her, her paws delicate in the snow. “Your son was afraid of understanding me once, too.”

“He knew nothing true about wolves.” Ragna looked to the moon for strength. “I know what the Aesir have done, I have seen it, lived it.”

“And why?” Catori asked. “When we harried gryfon hunts, and fought, and harmed you, why?”

“Because . . .” Ragna ducked her head in assent. “Because you were under attack, first.”

Catori lifted her nose to the wind, her gaze scanning the stars, and Ragna craved the peace and confidence the wolf appeared to feel. “So too, were the Aesir in pain. They fled their homeland, and it was Baldr who first perceived that, Baldr who asked that his heir be raised among them. But like my brother Ahote, the Aesir were not ready to accept peace, and attacked.”

“Well I remember,” Ragna murmured, and shut her eyes, as if it would block Baldr’s death from her memory.

“Shard had a chance to kill Sverin,” Catori said softly, and the wind flitted across the snow and through the clawing branches of the trees. “And he did not. If he does not fear understanding his former enemies, why should we do any less?”

“Thank you,” Ragna said, turmoil still darting about her chest, but somehow she felt more accepting of it. “Thank you for the steady wisdom of the earth, dear one. I will think on it.”

“Fair winds,” Catori said. “Thank you for listening to my dream.”

“Good hunting,” Ragna said quietly, though she wasn’t sure how much good either of them had done for the other.

With the hare in her beak, she trotted back to the nesting cliffs. Alert for other Vanir, or any other witness, Ragna slipped across the white snow, grateful for her plumage, and rather than fly, she climbed down the cliff face, feeling oddly like a thief, with the hare. One wing pressed to the stone wall, she trailed down to the massive cave mouth that led to Sverin’s nest.

Vald barked from the entrance. “Who goes—oh. My lady?” He sounded uncertain, and Ragna remembered it was the middle of the night, she had a dead hare in her beak, and it was utterly foolish to be there. But she said nothing, letting the sight of the hare in the moonlight speak for her, and Vald and the other sentry stood aside.

She realized Sverin would be asleep, and felt even more foolish, not sure what she hoped to gain by being there, except that if she had to suffer restless nights, so did he. She began to turn around.

“I’m awake,” he murmured from the nest. “What are you doing here?”

Ragna dropped the hare, ears perking. “How did you know who I was?”

“I know your step.”

Taken aback, Ragna picked up the hare again, standing on her hind legs to toss the hare to him. She rested her talons on the edge of the nest, tail twitching. “There. With regards from Catori. The daughter of Helaku.”

“I know who she is.” He shifted. Ragna heard chains scraping, metal tumbling, and twigs snapping under deer hide. “Why does everyone think I had no idea what was going on in my own kingdom?”

“Not your kingdom,” Ragna said harshly, defending herself against her own sense of empathy. “And you’ll understand that I didn’t think the names of wolves were important to you to remember.”

“They became so.”

“Well by any wind, here, more red meat.” She tossed the hare up to the nest.

In the murky dark his feathers didn’t show the way hers did, didn’t pick up a trace of light, but when he moved, she saw the chains that bound his feet and his wings.

“I’ve only just finished the deer. Are you afraid I’ll go mad from hunger in a day?” He was eating the rabbit. No false sense of pride there—he bolted it down and ducked his head. She didn’t answer, and told herself he was right, and that was why she’d done it.

After a moment, he asked, “Why did you let me live?”

“I don’t consider death a punishment,” Ragna growled. “I want you to live, to face what you’ve done. I want you look into my son’s eyes when he returns, and bow to him.”

He seemed to have no answer for that, and somewhere in the cave, a small rodent scuffled about. The sound of the ocean came to them, and she wondered if it was soothing or troublesome to him. The sound of the waves had always rocked her to sleep. She wondered if it made him think of his mate, if there was a sound in his homeland that he preferred, that he’d missed hearing all these years. She remembered what Catori had said. He was not at first a conqueror, but an exile.

“Do you like the sound of the ocean?” she asked, unable to stop herself from breaking the silence.

“No.”

“Because of Elena?”

“I never did. But Baldr died in the waves. Do they not trouble you?”

Ragna’s heart quickened and she growled. “Baldr died at your father’s talons. The waves have never troubled me and they never will.”

He made a soft, derisive noise.

Ragna felt reluctant to leave, to go back to the whirlwind of her own head. Sverin said no more, didn’t ask her a question, didn’t move, didn’t speak. The sentries remained silent at the entrance. Ragna stood there, and Sverin remained in his nest.

“I wonder.” His soft words were so loud in the quiet it sounded like distant, echoing thunder. “If—”

Wings stirred the wind outside. Ragna’s mind seemed to fly apart like a cloud of irritated starlings.

“What?” she asked him, burning with sudden curiosity. What was he thinking, while she stood in silence?

“Ragna!”

“Sigrun?”

Ragna turned and watched her wingsister swoop into the den, past the surprised sentries, suddenly embarrassed that Sigrun would even look for her here. “What is it?”

“A messenger!” Sigrun paused, eyeing the nest as Sverin’s head appeared over the top. Then she huffed and looked solely at Ragna. “A sea bird! He said he that he’s traveled all winter, over the starward corner of the world, and met Vanir there!” The healer spun in a circle, giddy as a fledge, and laughed. “He spoke with Maja herself, and even now, they’re making their way home!”

“Halvden’s mother?” Sverin mused. “Maja, who left a fish in my den before fleeing?”

“The very same,” Sigrun said brusquely. “But you didn’t know she also left the Isles last summer, seeking exiled Vanir.”

Ragna remembered all of it. After wolves killed Halvden’s father, Maja declared her freedom and self-exile by leaving a fish for Sverin and fleeing. Then she vowed to fly for Shard, to find any lost Vanir who’d flown starward. And now, at last, word that she was well and had found others. Sunlight flooded Ragna’s heart. Vanir. Her Vanir, at last, flying home.

“This seabird,” she began, “Is he still here? I’ll hunt fish myself to fill his gullet.”

Sigrun laughed and nudged Ragna toward the entrance. “Yes, come, we must meet him, and then tell everyone.”

Ragna trotted with her to the entrance, then, as if tugged, found herself looking back at Sverin. In the faint moonlight, she saw his face, grim, silent.

“Fair winds,” he murmured, averting his gaze.

“Fair winds—”

“Come!” Sigrun said, nipping her neck feathers lightly. Ragna shook herself, and without another look back they jumped from the ledge and flew down to the shore. There she spied the sea bird, bright under the moon, and a scatter of the other Vanir who’d apparently also grown restless in the moonlight and came down at Sigrun’s shouting.

Ragna landed on the pebbly beach and trotted to the group. Not just any sea bird, but a great albatross from the farthest seas stood there, looking slightly uncomfortable at being surrounded by several gryfons, and standing on dry land.

“Hail, great wind rider!” Ragna said, bowing her head. “My wingsister tells me you were kind enough to stop here on your journey, and bring us news.”

“Windwalker,” replied the great, white bird, watching Ragna with placid eyes.

Ragna opened her beak, thought a moment, and closed it.

“Not Wind Rider,” he said, as if that clarified things.

Ragna tilted her head. “Pardon?”

“Great queen of gryfons,” he said in a voice like an ocean breeze, “my name is Windwalker. You may call me by it.”

“Forgive me. I . . . thought that birds had no names.”

“I was given one.”

Surprised, Ragna actually took a step back from this strange bird. “By whom?”

He opened his long beak in what she thought was a gleeful expression, and extended his impossible wings. “By the Stormwing, by Shard, Rashard, the Summer King. Last autumn, after the starfire flew, I led him from a storm, and he named me over the sea.”

Ragna sank to her belly on the sand, placing her eyes level with his, and tried to keep her voice from shaking. “Then, fair Windwalker, we’ll be honored to give you a feast before you depart, if only you’ll tell of the Vanir you met, and all you know of my son.”

He folded his wings again, and began his tale.

W
ANDERING CLOUDS CREATED RACING
moon shadows along the shore, as if the light and dark were blown by an otherworldly wind. Shard trotted down the beach just before the middlemark, when bright Tor flew at her highest point. After supper the others had left him to nap, and now the chilly wind and silver sky brought him fully awake.

The priestess stood in the water already, her beak tilted toward the moon, a sliver of shining talon in the dark. Shard waded out to join her, sucking a breath against the icy waves. Tide was out, revealing long planes of stone that reached out into the water, strands of kelp, and bones.

“My lady,” Shard greeted.

Tilting her head slightly to acknowledge him, the priestess closed her eyes. “Do you feel the strength of the waves?”

The water swelled up to his chest and he gasped as it slithered under his oiled feathers, then it tugged away, leaving him breathless. “Yes.”

“Good. Let it keep you grounded here as you seek the dream. Do you feel the strength of Tor?”

Shard looked up at the moon, which commanded the rocking sea. Feeling tiny, he closed his eyes. “Yes.”

“Good. She will guide you.”

They stood in silence then as four waves washed up and retreated, and Shard grew accustomed to the cold. Down the shoreline, some Vanhar and others remained awake, but their voices faded into a pleasant background along with splashes and the turning of gravel under the waves.

“Tor,” whispered the priestess, and Shard held a breath. “We seek your high sight. We seek your path along the stars. We, the Named, we your beloved, ask your strength.”

A wave coursed up, splashing over Shard’s wings. He clenched rocks and gravel, holding firm. The combination of majesty and fear sent a strange, exhilarating power through him.

“Rashard.” The priestess intoned his name like a summon. “Rashard, see the star path, the dream net, as you have seen it before.”

Rather than argue that he could only see it when asleep, Shard remained silent, and imagined it instead.

“Every detail,” the priestess breathed, and for a distracted moment, Shard wondered if it was safe for such an ancient gryfess to be standing out in the freezing ocean.

“Breathe as if you sleep,” she commanded. “I will not let you float away. See your dream net. Every detail. See how it is also the star dragon, the shell, the leaf. See how it is our own heart, unfolding forever into the world.”

Shard’s breath caught. No longer simply imagining, he saw the net as it appeared in his dreams, an endless spiral that wove and touched every living thing. Dreams sprinkled along it like stars—dreaming gryfons, distant lions, pronghorn, and birds.

He almost laughed, but instead he let the net carry him under the moon to the Outlands. Climbing and flying as if through a vast forest, just as in a dream, he traveled while his body remained there in the ocean.

“Be mindful,” said a warm female voice, and he remembered the priestess. “She may not understand.”

Shard dug his talons and hind claws deeper into the sand at the bottom, and let the waves rock him. Thinking of Groa, he let his mind slip into the water, down to the sand around his toes, the pull of sea. Down into himself. From there, he found the net again, and her.