At last, as dawn whispered in the sky, he saw a hard coastline of ice cliffs plunging into the sea. Inland, the cliffs surged into a jagged jaw of dark mountains, their snow swept peaks so high he couldn’t see over the top of them, and Shard flew over their foothills.
The constellation of Midragur dove down beyond the mountains, looking as if it plunged into their heart.
Talons tucked up under his downy chest feathers, wings straight out to soar, Shard peered forward, looking for any sign of the mountain range’s inhabitants.
Sign of them was obvious, and startling.
Uniform, precise shapes formed the face of the mountain and as Shard flew closer, he realized they were ornate pillars and arches carved into the faces of stone. Only dragon claws could have done the work.
Spilling air from his wings, Shard dipped lower, coming upon the mountains at mid-level as he sought an entry. The foot of the mountains looked as any do—rough hills of rock, ice, snow and straggling trees—but about halfway up, long balconies were carved into the sheerest section of the faces, supported by towering columns, and each appeared to lead into a hall carved into the mountain. The dragons had shaped roofs over each balcony, pointed at the top and sweeping down like the bows of a pine tree.
Just as Shard spied what looked like a main entryway, a flash of unnatural blue caught his eye.
A dragon.
Amazement glowed through him. He’d almost expected not to see them, that Amaratsu was a dream, that Hikaru was a dream.
But he watched as a fully grown dragon of the Sunland slithered out of one of the stone tunnels and whipped out pearlescent, feathered wings, undulating through the air toward Shard in quick, graceful movements. Its scales glittered rich blue, reminding Shard of the sky at midnight.
“Greetings, great one!” Shard called, attempting a mid-air bow. “I am—”
A rush of wind bowled him forward and he kicked out a hind leg, flaring to a hard stop as another dragon, this one flame-orange, shot overhead from behind him.
Shard flapped back, trying to take in their size and majesty. The blue was smaller than the orange, but still enormous. Every scale gleamed like polished sapphire, and gold jewelry glittered from its ears, branching silver horns and nimble fore claws. A long silver mane flickered like flame around its face and in a stiffer ridge down its back.
He tried again to greet them. “I am Shard, the son of Baldr, prince of the Silver Isles! I seek Hikaru, and…”
“You will come with us,” boomed the blue dragon Shard could only assume was a sentry.
“This way,” said the orange dragoness—Shard knew once she spoke that she was female—and every bit of her also dripped with gold and adornments of polished stone.
“Thank you.”
They fell in on either side of him, dwarfing Shard as a gryfon dwarfed a hare. “Is Hikaru here, and safe? I know some of your number recovered him from the sea—”
“You will come with us,” said the orange again, her voice like crackling flame, “and be silent.”
Feeling small, Shard closed his beak and stared down the length of both dragons, trying to determine how many gryfons would be able to stand along their backs. Muscled, enormous serpents, they glided straight alongside Shard as gracefully as eels in water. Shard thought of how different the wyrms of the Winderost were, with their thicker bodies more like enormous boar than reptiles, though had had long necks and tails. Their broad wings were bat-like and veined, not feathered, their heads horned and square, their colors dull, earthy. The wyrms had their own kind of majesty, but they were nothing like the winged serpents of the Sunland.
He noticed the orange dragoness returning his curious stare, and he flicked his ears forward in a friendly gesture. She looked away. Disheartened, Shard looked toward the mountain again. Up close, the stone pillars and sweeping roofs spread dizzyingly high and wide around him. Of course, it was built to a scale that would be comfortable to dragons.
The dragons dipped under Shard to fly ahead, leading the way across one large, main balcony of stone. Shard had to bob and glide in swift, falcon-like swoops to keep up. Upon entering the mountain, darkness swallowed up the sunlight and huge torches mounted on the pillars lit their way. The floor was so distant, Shard couldn’t see it in the dark, for they flew into the middle of the mountain. It reminded him immediately of the Horn of Midragur, and he saw where tunnels on different levels led from outside, and all into the main, hollow expanse.
Far, far away, the distant, twinkling of torches told him the entire mountain was carved and hollowed into dragon dwellings.
Whispers of wind and the
shush
ing rush of wings that sent the torches dancing told him of other dragons, but he didn’t have time to look around and see all of them.
His escorts soared across the great, central cavern and Shard followed, trying to take in as much as he could and remember which way they’d come. Looking up, he saw that little daylight leaked in from outside, but the cavern was so vast the light was swallowed up without brightening the interior, and firelight alone lit the dark hall.
He’d never seen anything like it before.
“Are those dens?” he asked the dragoness, pointing toward archways carved into various tiers of the cavern, and forgetting that he was supposed to remain silent.
The orange flicked a look to him, then the blue dragon, who rumbled an answer. “Some. Some are exits. Or workshops. Some are treasure rooms.”
“It won’t matter to you,” said the orange.
“Oh, but it does,” Shard said. “I think it’s incredible. I want to learn all I can about you.”
They exchanged another look. “You don’t understand,” the dragoness began, but the blue male interrupted her.
“Be silent now. We are already getting too much attention.”
“Are we?” Shard looked around and behind them. Then he saw the blue was correct. Silent, curious eyes glittered in the firelight from all levels, dragons peering out from behind various pillars, from archways and even crawling in from outside.
A thrill shivered through Shard’s chest. “Hello!”
The blue dragon snapped his jaws in warning.
“Sorry,” Shard mumbled. “But I’m so honored and excited to meet you. I never dreamed your home would be like this.” He paused. “I
would
like to know where we’re going.”
“To the empress,” answered the blue. “She will know what to do with you.”
At that, his twinge of misgiving deepened. Recalling both versions of Kajar’s venture in the Sunland, he realized that the dragons might not be pleased to see him at all, despite his having helped Hikaru. Amaratsu had spoken of them as closing themselves off, disheartened at the greed and shallowness of others.
But if Groa’s version of the story is true, t
hen they might very well see me as a threat, or worse, an outright enemy
.
Shard folded his talons together and followed his escorts in silence, taking in the lay of the hollow mountain and trying to make out the rest of the dragons who watched them in the dark. If Hikaru was among them, Shard could not see him, and he didn’t come forward.
After a flight across the mountain cavern, they reached the far side, where only torches lit the stone halls. The blue dragon turned up and slipped under an archway that led into a longer tunnel lined with torches. The orange followed, and instructed Shard to fly just beneath her. He thought the tunnel must be cramped for them, but he could’ve fit a whole hunting party of gryfons side by side and as many above and below him. The floor below them was polished smooth by ages of dragon feet walking, and the ceiling fanged with stalactites.
Ahead, the torches ended, and a strange, blue light took their place, an eerie, cool glow around the next bend in the tunnel.
Nervous, Shard held his breath as they banked and flew around a long curve.
They emerged into a cavern of ice, and Shard gasped with delight.
The faraway sun reached faintly through a mountain of ice to the new cavern, smaller but similar in structure to the first stone hall. Archways and pillars and polished tunnels glowed—translucent white at the top and deepening to turquoise and blue toward the bottom. Fresh, frosty air filled Shard’s senses and he fought the urge to shoot ahead of his escorts and dive and play in the strange, magical place.
The ice columns boasted intricate reliefs of dragons and foreign, decorative patterns. Shard imagined the stone pillars of the first cave also had such carvings, but he hadn’t been close enough to see them in the dimmer light.
Upon entering the hall of ice, the dragons turned and glided down, and down to the floor, so far below that Shard’s ears crackled as they descended. They must’ve been flying near the top of the mountain.
“Land,” instructed the blue dragon, touching down himself. The flame dragon landed beside him, and Shard between them. He tilted his head back to see the open stretch of ice and air above, as tall as a mountain. The scale of the place nearly sent him reeling, and made him feel the size of a cricket in a gryfon den.
Jewel-toned dragon heads poked out of various archways and around pillars, either new observers or having followed them from the first cavern. The blue and orange ignored them and walked across the oblong ice floor toward the far end. Shard followed, staring ahead, placing his feet gingerly so as not to slip on the slick ground. His broken leg presented a challenge, forcing him to hobble slowly, with as much dignity as he could muster.
The great, towering wall of ice at the far end of the cavern was carved into massive reliefs of dragons, eagles and other creatures in a precise pattern that Shard recognized, after a moment, as the layout of the constellations. Twined above all was the great form of a dragon, arching over every beast like a massive rainbow. Midragur.
Shard, with the sentries now at his back, walked down the hall of ice, breathing the dry, cold air, and staring.
At the far end of the hall, framed by pillars and a sweeping roof, was a giant dais of hard packed, crystalline snow and ice.
On that dais, coiled in layer upon layer of radiant golden scales, waited a dragoness who could only be the empress. Shard couldn’t tell where her scales ended and her gold adornments began. Colorful jewels glimmered on each of her five toes, her horns, in rings that pierced her soft deer-like ears, and even in delicate chains and bands on the end of her tail. Parts of her silken, white mane flared free, and in other places, was braided into tight plaits, woven here and there with more jewels, bright feathers and polished gold. A large, liquid red cabochon ruby the size of Shard’s head winked and shone from a collar at her throat.
The blue dragon nudged Shard with a talon and he realized he was staring like a witless magpie. He mantled as low as he ever had, beak tapping the frozen floor, wingtips pressed to the ice. Beside him, both sentries did the same.
“Rise.” Her voice slipped through the cavern, deep and rich.
Shard stood, leaving his wings open if only to feel slightly larger. “I’m so honored to be in your presence, my lady. I am Rashard, son-of-Baldr, prince of the Silver Isles in the Starland Sea.”
“Welcome, Rashard, to the dragon dwelling of Ryujan, the Mountains of the Sea.” An almost imperceptible twitch of her claws sent Shard’s sentries away. They slipped around themselves, long bodies leaving and re-coiling near an entrance there on the ground level, though they never turned their faces fully from the empress. Shard looked back to the golden dragoness before him.
“I am Empress Ai, the Radiant. The two-thousand-and-tenth daughter of the First Emperor of Ryujan. Ruler of the Sunland and all the Windward Sea.”
Shard bowed again.
“You are he,” the empress began incredulously, “who Amaratsu’s son calls the Shard of Sun?”
“I am.” Shard could imagine her thoughts.
Shard of Sun indeed, with my dull gray feathers? I must be nothing to them, unimpressive. What will Hikaru think of me now, too, now that he’s seen his own kind?
As if reading his thoughts, the empress asked, “Why does he call you this?”
Shard felt the burning of her eyes, all their eyes, all their listening ears. He was the first gryfon they had seen in a hundred years.
No,
he thought.
The first gryfon any of them had seen.
They would’ve all been born within the last year.
To them, everything he did would be what gryfons did. Everything he said, everything he was, would be the very definition of gryfon, to them.
He inclined his head, mustering more respect. “He calls me that, because Amaratsu called me that.” Shard put every ounce of strength in his voice that he could, despite growing apprehension. “She said I was like a shard of sunlight in the darkness of the cave where we met. Please, is Hikaru well? We encountered blackfish, in the sea, and he—”
“He is well.” The empress shifted, leaning back against her own coils and toying with a long chain that sparkled with at least one thousand cut diamonds. “It is good you thought to bring him home. If that is your business, you may leave with our blessing. My sentries will show you out, and the best way back across the sea.”
Shard tapped his beak closed for a moment, speechless. “Thank you. But that isn’t the only reason I’ve come. And I would like to see Hikaru, to speak to him.”
Her ears flicked, and her black, slit pupils contracted. “What other reason could you possibly have for coming here? We have nothing for you. And you, I’m quite certain, have nothing for us. You must go. Hikaru, you must know, is quite happy here. Seeing you again will only confuse what he is learning now.”
Shard met her suspicious look with narrowed eyes. “Will it? What is he learning now, exactly, my lady?”
With a soft rumble, the empress unfolded layer upon layer of shining coils, opened her long swan wings and loomed above Shard with a huge, piercing stare. “Our ways.”
Though anger began to heat his skin, it would not do to show her disrespect, or temper. “Please, you must let me speak to him. We’re friends. And I have come for other reasons. I think you can help me.” In trying to sum up all of the reasons he’d come, it was all Shard could say. No wings rustled, not one spying dragon moved. The vast, frigid hall of ice felt like sudden, crushing weight.