A Shard of Sun (31 page)

As Shard spoke his heart at last, Hikaru backed down further from Kagu, who stared, unblinking. Uncertainly, both young dragons looked at the training master.

“All this,” rumbled the great, blue serpent, “we know you have done in order to further your own ends.”

A hollow, burning heat filled Shard’s chest, for a small part of that was true. Hikaru looked at him with huge eyes.

Shard shook his head. “I won’t deny that I hoped Hikaru could help me here, help me to work with you and get to know you. But everything else, I did because I love him. Everything else, I did for my brother.”

“Brother?” Kagu curled his lip to reveal startlingly long, white and pointed fangs. “That’s ridiculous.” He raised his voice. “It’s obscene.”

“It’s not,” Hikaru snarled. “Shard has been a better family to me than any of you. At least he is
trying
to be friends.”

“Be silent,” said Isora. “Your heart must be stronger. Right now, it shifts like water.” His great, pearly wings beat a constant, cold wind on them. “And you, Kagu. You have too much fire. Learn to temper it.”

Kagu’s gaze darted from Isora to Shard, and he latched onto his opportunity of shared prejudice. “But how can I, Master Isora, in the face of this lying, bragging—”

“Bragging?” Shard demanded. The same restless, indignant energy that sent him after the starfire, that sent him to speak with the wyrms, that drew him to take Hikaru across the sea, kindled under his skin.

“He’s not bragging,” Hikaru said, bristling, now fully coiled around Shard to shield him even as he defended his strength. “He’s done everything he said.”

Every dragon in the fighting arenas, a dozen at least, had stopped to watch them.

“Enough,” said Isora. “You will leave,” he said to Shard.

Shard’s tail lashed. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Your very presence disrupts our very short time to practice.”

“My presence does nothing. His arrogance caused this.” He lifted his beak to point to Kagu, and couldn’t seem to stop the next words. “If he believes me to be a lying braggart, then let me prove myself. I challenge him to a spar.”

To their credit, none of them laughed, except Hikaru, who exclaimed, “Ha!”

And as soon as he said it, Shard knew both that he couldn’t take it back, and that it was the stupidest thing he’d done since drawing the wyrms to the Dawn Spire. In his brief days there he’d learned that dragon honor was like a vital organ. It spanned their mind, their spirit, their family, all the way to their ancestors since the First Age. He might as well have stabbed an icicle to Kagu’s belly and expected to walk away with no consequence.

“I accept,” the yellow dragon said gravely, showing all his teeth. “And let us fight in the fourth ring, since you claim to be a master.”

“I never claimed that,” Shard said. “But I’ll fight wherever you like.”

“Fifth ring,” declared Isora.

Kagu’s head jerked up, eyes bright with surprise, his soft nose flushing with pleasure. “You think I’m ready? But, he has a clear advantage in size—”

“
I
have an advantage in size?” Shard wondered. Standing, the yellow dragon was eight times the height of a gryfon. From nose to tail Shard could’ve stood twenty gryfons along his length.

“The spar isn’t to blood,” Hikaru reminded him. “It’s form, precision. You have only to drive or throw him from the ring.”

“Ah, good,” Shard said. “I’ll just throw him from the ring.”

Kagu bared his teeth wider. “This will be a pleasure.”

Master Isora spiraled high and his voice rang like iron striking iron across the training valley. “Kagu’s honor has been questioned by the intruder, Rashard.”  No one dared to laugh, as Shard had been laughed at in the Dawn Spire for challenging their First Sentinel, Asvander. The mood here was much more dignified, more serious, curiosity reigned and the training dragons gathered in the tiers to watch. “They will settle this matter now, in the ring of Sky.”

R
EGRET AND CURIOSITY BURNED
through Kjorn for not having taken the chance to see the great wyrms, but he knew it would’ve been a fool’s errand, and put him further behind in his search for Shard.

A day of flying saw them to a long sweeping plain, studded with uneven hills. As the sun sank, so did Brynja and Nilsine’s motivation to keep airborne.

They’d risen above the haze and as the sky darkened and stars twinkled, they dove in a loose formation toward the ground. Kjorn liked to think they would’ve been able to see the great lake from that height, if there were no smoke and ash clouding the air, but such as it was it could have been days and days away.

“Look there,” said Brynja, gliding in neatly on his left, and pointing roughly dawnward. “You can barely make out where the hills turn into the Dawn Spire territory. You can’t quite see the Spire itself, but…”

“I see.” Kjorn tilted his head, staring hard until his eyes smarted against the smoke, and in the dimming light, made out the small, ghostly outline of rock towers on the horizon.

“Do you remember any of it? My father says you were just weeks old when Per and his allies left the Winderost.”

“I don’t,” Kjorn murmured, then raised his voice over the wind of their flight. “Some scents bring a rough familiarity. But that’s all.”

“Did you ever think you would return?”

“No.” Kjorn shifted his wings as the wind picked up, catching scents as they descended. “My father and his father’s story was that we’d left with honor to conquer new lands, and we did. The Silver Isles was my home. It always has been.”

Brynja twined her talons, watching him thoughtfully. She seemed about to say something else, then extended a foreleg to point down. “We could shelter in those hills. No creature claims this part of the land that I know of.”

“Very well.” Kjorn called to Nilsine and together they all glided in to land. The low, bumpy rises gave little shelter from the cooling, constant wind, and only stunted grass grew. The haze, turning gray with evening, covered most scents, though Kjorn thought it caught a faint, old trace of pronghorn.

“Too late for hunting now,” Brynja said, trotting up to him as she tucked her wings.

“From the air,” he agreed, and looked over as Nilsine approached. “Though we might hunt as lions do. I could use a meal.”

A rare look of approval shone on Nilsine’s face, and Brynja dipped her head, chagrined. “Yes, we could do that.”

They gathered the gryfon band, now a hearty two dozen in all.

“We should split up,” said Dagny, Brynja’s wingsister. The younger, quick gryfess nearly disappeared in the near-dark, with her richly sable brown feathers, but she spoke clear and bright. “Range in at least three directions, since we don’t know the land, and converge again if anyone scents prey.”

Brynja and Nilsine nodded at this plan, and Kjorn deferred to the huntresses’ wisdom.

“We can use bird calls,” Brynja said. “Raise a call if you find prey. It will be less conspicuous to them and to anything else.” She didn’t say wyrms, but they all thought it.

Kjorn looked at her. “Shard used bird calls, in the Silver Isles.”

Her ears flicked back, self-aware, and she nodded once. “He worked with the huntresses here. It works well.”

“I know a blue jay call,” Kjorn said.

“I learned a magpie,” Dagny said, excited for the hunt.

“I, a red hawk,” Brynja said, and they looked to Nilsine.

“I suppose a gull would be conspicuous, this far inland.” Brynja looked uncertain and Nilsine tossed her head. “Honestly.” With that they realized she was joking, they laughed, and she dipped her head, seeming more comfortable. “I can make the sound of prairie owl.”

“What shall I do?” Fraenir, sitting too close to Kjorn and quivering with the excitement of all his strange new adventures, seemed to Kjorn to be too excitable just then to go hunting.

Kjorn flicked his tail, and paced to the top of the small hill. “Fraenir, I want you to stay here, to relay calls—”

“
Stay?
” He flared his wings. “But we’re only hunting! We’re so far from the wyrms, from any danger. Why am I being punished?”

“Punished?” Kjorn shook his head. “I need you to stay here. We don’t know these hills. If anyone gets lost, they can’t fly to find this spot again for fear of attracting wyrms. You’re the center point. I’m not punishing you, I’m asking you to do this task, to serve me as you wished to.”

Fraenir’s ears flattened. The other gryfons remained silent, and Kjorn noted a touch of smugness on Nilsine’s face. “But I’m a good hunter. I hunted with Rok.”

“No one doubts you,” Kjorn said evenly, resisting the urge to snap and simply order him. Fraenir served him out of some sense of whimsy, not true duty, and Kjorn had to remember he was not a prince here. He remembered the times Caj and his own father had calmly explained their reasons for asking him to do things, rather than just snapping orders. He walked down the hill to stand tall in front of Fraenir, who stepped back. “This is what I ask of you. If you cannot do
this
, tell me what larger task I should entrust to you?”

Chilly wind buffeted around them, raising an eerie, whistling song from the stunted grass and dead, dry flowers. Fraenir huffed. “What bird sound shall I make?”

Kjorn fluffed in a shrug. “A crow.”

That done, Brynja and Nilsine divided their bands into four groups, and Kjorn went with Brynja, since he had hunted at night and he didn’t know if she had.

She climbed the low hill and looked down at the groups. Kjorn could barely see her now in the murky evening. “Range,” Brynja said. “If you catch a scent, call twice. If you become lost, call three times. Fraenir, if you hear a thrice call, respond. No one is to fly. No one.”

The wind picked up and they set out.

Cold laced Kjorn’s bones. It wasn’t the wet, snowy cold of the Silver Isles, but a dry and constant wedge against his skin and his chest. The smoky air blotted out the scent of prey. Walking seemed to take ages, careful smelling, trotting along hoof trails only to watch them scatter and then fade. They found old scat here and there, but that was all. Kjorn was ready to call the hunt and sleep a little hungry when they came across the day-old scent of a painted wolf, and tracks.

“Odd,” Brynja remarked, setting her talons into a paw print to confirm its size. It had been nearly a full mark of wandering after half dead trails. Kjorn discerned gray moonlight filtering down through the haze. “I didn’t think there was a painted wolf pack in this area.”

“I wonder if—”

A crow croaked faintly in the dark.

Both stood silent. Brynja’s huntresses gathered close, ears perked, and they all heard the crow again. Then a third time. A fourth time, louder and more like a gryfon.

“Come,” Brynja said, “That’s—”

The fifth crow call broke into an eagle’s piercing scream, then Fraenir’s frantic voice, distantly shrieking in panic.

Then, nothing.

The singing wind brought them a faint, sour scent.

Brynja and Kjorn looked at each other, and without speaking, their hunting band broke into a sprint, running hard back to the hills.

I
SORA MADE HIS FORMAL
announcement to the young trainees, and Kagu left them to lope down to the fighting rings.

Shard looked at Hikaru. “I thought you said the rings were named after the elements. The first four are earth, wind, fire, water?”

“Yes,” said Hikaru uncertainly.

“What is sky?”

Hikaru uncoiled from him, ears flattening back into his mane. “I…I don’t know. I haven’t learned yet.”

“Well, it can’t matter,” Shard said, though surely it did. “It’s just about the size, isn’t it? It’s harder because it’s smaller?”

“Oh, no,” Hikaru said, and they turned to walk down from the sitting tiers toward the flat stretch of the valley and the fighting rings. “It’s much more. Each ring has a principle to learn. In the ring of earth, we learn to stand strong and defend. Wind, to move quickly, to evade. Fire teaches us to be aggressive and to attack. Water, to flow around, to use our opponent’s energy against them.”

Shard considered that, and studied the massive, spiraling rings. The snow in the ring of sky was untouched by fighting, but combed by dragon claws into a uniform, spiraling design that echoed the great spiral of the rest of the rings. In the sunlight, for half a breath, Shard saw Groa’s dream net, then a shell, a fern leaf, a great spiraling wing of stars.

Shard blinked hard, looking back to Hikaru. “So each ring has a technique. But you don’t know what it takes to win in the ring of sky?”

Hikaru shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, brother. But you’ll be fine.” He bared his teeth. “You’re a master.”

Shard wished he felt the same. As custom dictated, Shard followed Kagu through each ring, showing a moment of respect. The ground was a mix of mud and snow, churned by dragon claws. He considered what Hikaru said. Defend, evade, attack, flow.

I’ll bet Stigr would’ve known what the last principle was.

Kagu stepped into the fifth ring, his claws breaking the perfect design in the snow. A look of bliss overtook the young dragon’s face. Shard supposed it was a high honor, to be deemed fit for the ring of the masters, even if his opponent was a gryfon.

That must mean it’s a high honor for me, too.

Shard entered the ring. While Kagu reveled in the ring itself, Shard tested the ground with a couple soft pats. The snow within was groomed, smooth-packed but not frozen to ice, soft enough to grip with hind claws and talons for decent footing.

Shard drew a breath, staring up at the dazzling yellow length of his opponent, for the first time truly appreciating the long muscles under his scales, the narrow wings, perfect for precision flying, the articulate, nimble forepaws, perfect for snatching one small gryfon and tossing him from the ring.

They bowed to each other.

I’ve seen him fight, but he’s never seen me. So I do have that advantage.
The challenge would come in remaining aware of the ring, and Shard made a quick note of the diameter. Only five leaps. Worse for Kagu than him, but still a small space to fight a dragon.