“I’ll go speak to Asvander,” Brynja said, standing as cheers and calls and stamping feet announced the pride’s pleasure in the song. Even the Vanir had been swept away, Shard saw, and that made him feel a little better. Anything that could make the gryfons of the Winderost seem less of an enemy to his Vanir, anything that would encourage them toward the idea of lasting peace, was good.
Still. He looked around the fire and caught sight of Asrik again, now watching Brynja. Shard’s feathers prickled and he stood, stepping in front of her to stare down Asrik himself. Brynja made a low noise. “Shard, don’t.”
“No, I’ve had enough of this. He insults you, he insults me, and he insults his own son. We are grown gryfons and can choose our own mates. They act as if I stole you, as if you’re a pelt to be won, and Asvander let me steal you. This is foolish.”
Bustling feathers and bodies filled the silent space after the song as gryfons rose to find their dens. Stigr pushed himself up, tilting slightly to one side as he adjusted his balance to his missing wing. Resisting the urge to help him, Shard watched instead as Valdis slid up beside the black gryfon and pressed to him in an apparent show of affection, but one that helped to steady the old Vanir.
“Nephew,” Stigr said warily, for they both knew Shard had a habit of impulsiveness. “What are you going to do?”
Kjorn stood as well. “Shard, I agree with you, but I ask you not to risk our new alliance.”
Shard looked at him sharply. “They disrespect their own, and me. How strong can our alliance be with Asrik making petty nips at his son all the while? I’m going to settle this.”
“Shard,” Brynja began, but before any could argue further, he dipped his head to all of them and trotted away toward the rise where they’d met with the clan leaders.
Kjorn followed him. “How do you plan to settle it? Shard, don’t risk their allegiance for your mating. I can’t afford it. We can settle everything after, and we will, I promise.”
“No, Kjorn.” He negotiated through departing gryfons to the slope leading up to the bluff and began to walk up it. “They’ll have no respect for me, and they’ll keep whispering about Brynja and Asvander. The only reason he’s not doing anything is because he’s my friend. I’m settling this, and I’m doing it now. Support me, brother.”
Kjorn’s feathers ruffed. Once, he had not just been Shard’s wingbrother, but his lord and prince. Now they were equals, and Shard saw how, despite their friendship, Kjorn was not used to the idea. Shard still wasn’t, either, and he didn’t meet Kjorn’s gaze.
“How?” Kjorn demanded again, stopping halfway up the rise while Shard continued on. “You don’t even know what they want you to do.”
Shard opened his wings, looking down at the gathering. He could see everyone, and all would be able to see him. He glanced over his wing at Kjorn, dim gold in the last of the firelight.
“You forget, I was raised by a Lakelander.” Shard returned his gaze to the scene below him. “I have a decent idea what they want, and I’ll get at least one clan of gryfons to stop whispering behind our backs and shaming their own.”
“Shard, I beg you—”
“Let it be known!” Shard bellowed, flaring his wings. Departing gryfons stopped, looking for the source of the shout. Shard waited until they found him, staring up, eyes wide and surprised in the firelight. No one spoke. He caught sight of Asvander and Brynja, their gazes bewildered. “I, Rashard, son-of-Baldr, prince of the Silver Isles in the Starland Sea, challenge Asvander, son-of-Asrik, for his claim on Brynja, daughter-of-Mar. He will choose the ground, and the day.”
Fire popped somewhere.
The gathered gryfons gazed at him, bemused, then bent their heads to whisper, or hurried on, perhaps thinking a fight was about to break out right then. Shard discerned a muffled sound of rage from somewhere, most likely Brynja. He didn’t want to do it, of course he didn’t. But for the sake of Asvander’s honor in the eyes of his family, his own, and Brynja’s, he would.
A gryfon moved in the gathering, Asvander, striding forward. His expression had hardened from bewilderment to determination. “I accept your challenge, son of Baldr. We fight at dawn.”
Shard dipped his head, eyes locked on his friend, in whose eyes shone the tiniest spark of gratitude. With that, not even looking at the leaders of the clan or particularly at Asrik himself, Shard strode down past Kjorn and left the gathering, walking proudly into the dark. He didn’t want to insult his wingbrother, but he couldn’t show hesitation. Kjorn grimly wished him good luck in passing.
Brynja and Stigr were not far behind.
“That was foolish,” Brynja admonished. “Shard, it was unnecessary.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Shard kept walking, toward the scent of water and the lake. “When you and I are happily away in the Silver Isles, Asvander will be here, with his family, enduring their remarks and their judgment for me
stealing
you from him.”
“Barbaric,” Stigr muttered, and Shard stopped at last when his feet touched pebbly shoreline. “Trading gryfons about like rabbit pelts. It’s Brynja’s decision, not theirs.”
“It is,” Shard said, looking not at Stigr, but Brynja. “But this is their way. I’ll respect it, because we’re in their home. If we were in the Silver Isles, everything would be different.”
Brynja growled low in her throat. “I should have challenged him myself.”
Shard chuckled despite himself, and Brynja gave him a half-hearted glare. He smoothed his expression. “Maybe, but you were too slow.”
“I can hardly keep up with you,” she said, with tart fondness. “If you aren’t flying across the world then you’re picking fights with marauding wyrms and gryfons near twice your size.” She butted her head against his shoulder, then glanced toward the fires and the gryfons who had stayed to gossip. “And Shard, they’ll know if he lets you win. It will be a real fight. Not a spar, a fight.”
“To the death, I suppose,” Stigr said wryly.
“To yield,” said Valdis, coming up on them. “Only to yield. But he won’t yield easily, or what’s the point?”
“Well that’s encouraging,” Stigr said, eyeing Valdis fondly.
“We can’t afford to be killing princes over things like this,” she said. “Even these big rock-heads know that.”
Stigr paced around in front of Shard, tail lashing. “I’d like to remind you, my prince, that we’re on the verge of battle with the wyrms, and you could be injured. This was no small thing you’ve done.”
Shard’s feathers prickled with irritation as he looked around at the faces of his friends. “Asvander could be seriously injured too, you know.”
Stigr inclined his head, but, ever blunt, added, “The last time you fought Asvander, you lost, and not by a near thing.”
“Thank you,” Shard muttered, ears slicking back. “But you didn’t lose.” He lifted his gaze, watching Asvander walk down from the fire to speak with his father, who looked entirely too pleased. “And you have until dawn to advise me.”
Stigr huffed, then tilted his head. “Walk with me.”
“Good luck,” Brynja said, and she and Valdis stood aside to let them pass.
They left the fire together, and Stigr began. “Now, Asvander doesn’t have any great tells to show you when he’s going to make a move, but I noticed he’ll
look
where he’s planning to strike . . .”
D
USK BROUGHT A DRY
, cold wind from the starward quarter to buffet the nesting cliffs of the Sun Isle.
Ragna had taken to her den early after the day’s fishing and she pulled at her nesting material, fluffing it up to prepare for what would be another freezing night. Spring would be long in coming, she feared, as if it held off, holding its warm breath in wait for the return of their king.
“Shard,” she whispered as a draft bustled into her den, chilling it. “Rashard, my son. We wait for you.” Perhaps, on the wind, it might reach him, and he would know she thought of him.
With a huff, she settled, then re-settled, then growled and shifted, kicking against the deer furs that usually warmed her. They had been a gift, long ago, from the wolves of the Star Isle, a mating gift when she and Baldr made their vow. Now, their scent only reminded her of the long years of living under the talons of the Red Kings, the long, hungry winters and being forced to hunt on land and eat red meat.
Still damp from fishing and not at all sleepy, Ragna sat up to preen, and considered throwing the deer hides into the sea. But that would be foolish and leave her with a cold nest.
“Rashard,” she whispered, closing her eyes briefly. No sooner had she at last been able to finally gaze upon her son and have him know she was his mother, know that he was a prince, than he’d spirited away to foreign lands on some greater purpose.
I know it’s what you wanted, Baldr. I know he is the Summer King. But we need him home.
Her wings ached from the day’s fishing, her muscles chilled and cramped. Ten years ago she wouldn’t have felt it at all, would have stayed up late under the moonlight, laughing with Sigrun, her brother Stigr, and Baldr, watching the frost collect on the grass until dawn. Now, like an old thing, she burrowed into her den each night and pretended, in the morning, that the cold and the work only made her stronger.
She must be a queen. She must show them what it was to be Vanir.
With a sigh, she settled her feathers and crawled back into the nest. The wind sang against the rocks and grass on the cliff tops high above.
Her tail ticked back and forth.
The scent of the deer hides hung thick, heavy, smothering.
“White Tor,” she growled, and sank her talons into the leather of one hide, flinging it from the nest.
It smacked into a young Aesir gryfon who landed just inside her den at the same moment. Ragna flattened her ears at his surprised noise, chagrined. His feathers blazed the wild orange of sunset, wings flaring awkwardly as he grasped at the hide to keep it from falling out of the den.
“My lady,” he stammered, twisting the fur in his talons. “Forgive my intrusion.”
“Vald,” she said evenly. “What can I do for you?”
“Forgive me. They said to fetch you.” Looking uncertain, he tucked the deer hide against the stone wall. “He won’t eat.”
Ragna perked her ears, then shook her head and forced her feathers to sleek down, calm. “I’ll go. Fetch Caj as well.”
“My lady.” He inclined his head, glanced once more from the deer hide to Ragna, then leaped from the den and flapped away.
Grudgingly grateful to have something to do other than not fall asleep, Ragna trotted to the entryway, tossed the hide back onto her nest, and leaped into the frosty wind, opening her wings in the last light of evening.
The den of the fallen king stretched the widest of all those in the nesting cliffs, a yawning maw of rock in the cliff face, large enough for a fully-grown Aesir to flare broad wings and land inside. Ragna swooped to land easily, being much shorter and narrower of frame than even the smallest Aesir, with streamlined, angled wings besides.
She made a stark contrast to the two hulking warriors who guarded the entrance, they being half-bloods—one vivid green, the other near black, flashing blue like a crow. Sons of the Conquering. Ragna noticed since Sverin’s penitent return that all but the most stubborn of pure-blooded Aesir had ceased wearing their dragon treasures, chains, collars, gauntlets of gold and gems, and other ornaments. It satisfied her, probably more than it should have.
“My lady,” they murmured.
The green warrior stepped forward, though he didn’t mantle to her. Ragna was used to it. He recognized Thyra as his queen, not her. “Vald told you?”
“Yes. Stand aside, Halvden, let me speak to him.”
Halvden complied, looking doubtful. Ragna stood two full heads shorter than he and her feathers were quiet, pale white like sea foam, like a gull, with no outlandish hues from some mysterious ancestral curse.
She walked between Halvden and the other sentry, Andor, drawing herself up, imagining shining white Tor to cool her heat.
I am queen of the Vanir. My son lives, and he will be king. I have strength. Strength as unending as the sea.
The king’s nest sat near the back of the cave, a huge, compact construction of stick and stone atop a rock platform that overflowed with dragon treasure. The stone cave glowed with odd warmth.
“My lord,” she said firmly to the nest.
Golden baubles tumbled loose, bracers of bronze, jeweled collars and bands that caught the fading light and cast the entire rock den in sunrise colors.
A mound of red feathers stirred within the nest. Ragna twitched her tail, eyeing the fish that lay untouched near the foot of the nest platform, and moved forward three more paces.
“Sverin. Stand and address me. They tell me you will not eat?”
The great mound of feathers shifted, becoming red wings, broad shoulders, a severe, weary eagle head rising from the gold. Seeing Ragna, he pushed to his feet and climbed out. The largest of the pride, the son of Per strode down, head low, until he stood a respectful distance from her, and inclined his head. She pressed her talons hard to the rock to keep from backing away from him, and forced her feathers to remain sleek. She was a huntress herself, a warrior, a queen. Two young, healthy warriors stood at her back. She had nothing to fear and she would not back down.
Forcing her ears forward, she watched him expectantly. She would not repeat her question.
“At least,” he said at length, “I will not eat
that
.”
“Our fish isn’t good enough for you?”
“I am sorry for the trouble, only I cannot bear the taste of the sea. You know why.”
She did know. It reminded him of his mate, who had drowned ten years before. “What am I to do, then, with your little rebellion?”
A strange, pained look flickered across his face. “It isn’t rebellion. Allow me to hunt.”
Ragna could have laughed, but realized he was in earnest. “No.”
He watched her, as if deciding what to say. His wicked, black talons also flexed against the rock, though what urge he suppressed, Ragna didn’t know. Once, he’d been magnificent. Even in her anger and imprisonment, she had to admire that the Aesir were impressive examples of gryfon kind. Tall, strapping and muscular, decked in golden collars and dragon jewels, Sverin had once been a sight to behold, fearless and proud.