By the Silver Wind (18 page)

“There, you have it now?”

“Yes, Elder.” She fluffed and looked happily at their work. “I can finish it now.”

“Good.” Elof stood. “Prince Kjorn of the Aesir will assist you. Fair winds.”

He continued on down the shore, stopping to speak with every Vanhar he saw along the way.

Kjorn and the fledge stared at each other. At last he gathered his wits and inclined his head. “Fair winds. I’m Kjorn, son-of-Sverin.”

The fledge perked her ears, and offered a kind of mantle while still sitting. “Ide, daughter-of-Tyg.” She looked him up and down uncertainly. “Do you know how to tie a net?”

Kjorn drew a long breath, forcing himself not to look down the shoreline after Elder Elof. Perhaps his only riddle for that time had been to test if he knew the Song of Last Light. “I’m afraid I wasn’t paying attention. Will you teach me?”

She brightened like sun coming from behind a cloud, and lifted the tangled seaweed. “Of course.”

Kjorn sat beside her, and for the remainder of the morning, he learned how to tie a firm knot that wouldn’t tangle, and to pattern in a series of diamonds, and how large to make the holes depending on what fish was desired. Vanhar stopped to stare at them. Kjorn tried to greet them all until Ide warned him against distraction, and chided him for inadvertently doubling a knot.

After that Kjorn bent his focus to the task, and when he raised his head again, was almost surprised to see the grand net he and Ide had created, and Nilsine standing before him.

“Decent work,” she noted, and Kjorn felt a little spark of pride, even though the work took him from his purpose. “Come with me.”

“Am I to face my test now? It’s almost middlemark.”

“One of my sentries has fallen ill,” she answered blandly. “I thought it might interest you to take her place, and learn our nightward border.”

Kjorn stared at her. “Truly, Nilsine? Your council wishes me to perform their ritual or test to earn their trust. I cannot leave now.”

“When the council wishes to test you, they will find you.” She lifted her wings in invitation. “Are you so busy you cannot spare a mark of the sun for a patrol with a friend?”

Kjorn scanned the beach once for any of the elders. Seeing none, and all Vanhar happily engaged in fishing and flying, he looked to Nilsine. She would not lead him astray. He trusted her. “Of course not. Lead on.”

Her ruby eyes shone with approval, and together they flew nightward, while she spoke of their borders and their treaties with the lions, and other things she thought he should know.

Other things, everything but the ritual the elders had asked of him. For a mark of the sun he guarded the border with her and asked no more questions, for he knew they wouldn’t be answered.

After that, one of the elders found them and asked if Kjorn would be interested in hearing the great sagas of the first Vanhar, and what they knew of ancestral dealings between the gryfon clans before the first king had risen from the red dust of the Winderost.

At a loss, Kjorn said he would be honored.

So it went the rest of the day, with odd errands and requests until sunset, and Kjorn still had not heard what task he was to perform, what ritual or riddle would win him the council’s favor. He ate his supper in stormy silence, and not even Shard could rouse him from it. Then Shard left to nap in preparation for his meeting with the priestess later that evening, and Kjorn walked to the shoreline.

The broad nesting cliff of the Vanheim left the waves in violet shadow, but a slow sunset glittered gold farther out to sea.

A soft step in the sand made him turn. A Vanhar fledge stood before him, her tail ticking back and forth as if she stalked a mouse, her beak lifted to the evening wind as she sniffed uncertainly. Her wide eyes looked like pearls set in her face, milky and bright. She was blind.

“Son of Sverin?”

“I am.”

When he spoke, her head tilted, ears flicking to focus on him. “I am the only acolyte of the high priestess. She wishes to meet with you tonight, at midnight, where the council gathers.”

“Very well.” Kjorn watched her, bemused.

The pearly eyes gazed at Kjorn, or something slightly beyond him. “Before you meet with her, think on these three things: what bears a gryfon when there is no wind, what treasure can be grasped only by claws open wide, and what is the measure of a king?”

Kjorn lifted a foot uncertainly, and had a feeling she would not repeat the questions if asked. “I will. Thank you. Midnight. Tell the priestess I’ll be honored to meet with her.”

She dipped in a brief mantle, and turned to stride up the beach. Kjorn watched her gait, and how she appeared to keep herself walking a straight line by listening to the roll of the waves on the sand.

He stood there until full darkness fell, then walked back to the fire. Asvander, Brynja, and Dagny sat there, swapping stories of their day. The Vanir sat away at a separate fire, chatting with the Vanhar and the Aesir of the Dawn Reach, and the Lakelanders kept to themselves.

Perhaps seeing his troubled expression, Asvander stood as if preparing for a fight. “Your Highness. What did that whelp say to you earlier? We saw you talking.”

“That whelp is the only chosen acolyte of the high priestess of the Vanheim Shore.” Nilsine’s cool, smooth voice came from the shadows before she did.

“It’s all right,” Kjorn said to Asvander, then looked to Nilsine. “I think she gave me my test at last.”

“Did she indeed?” Nilsine’s ruby eyes were eerie and captivating in the firelight. All Kjorn could think of was how each of his allies in the Winderost embodied some element of his friends at home, and how dearly he missed Thyra.

To distract himself, he repeated the questions, since no one had said he couldn’t ask for help.

“Water,” Dagny said immediately. “For the claws open wide bit. If you squeeze your talons, it’ll spill.”

“Clever,” Asvander said to her, and she fairly glowed.

“Or light,” said Brynja, looking out toward the rumbling ocean and the stars. “If you closed your claws, you create a shadow.”

“Ooh,” Dagny said. “Even more clever, my sister. Yes, maybe it’s light.”

“Strength lifts a gryfon when there is no wind,” said Asvander. “Or courage.” Appearing to realize there could be multiple answers, he fell into unusually thoughtful quiet.

Kjorn listened to their ideas, meeting Nilsine’s silent gaze across the fire. “Do you know the answers?”

“Perhaps. But I don’t wish to be king, so my answers don’t matter.”

“What is the measure of a king?” Kjorn asked idly.

“His honor,” Asvander said.

“His kingdom,” said Dagny.

“His friends,” said Brynja, and Kjorn looked at her, then Nilsine, curious if that was correct. She remained inscrutable, and merely perked her ears at him expectantly.

“Well,” said Kjorn, “I have until midnight to figure it out.”

“The second one is definitely light,” Dagny said, and they dissolved into discussion again, while Kjorn wracked his memories for anything his father, Caj, and others had ever told him about being a king.

R
AGNA PACED IN HER
den, awake, wishing Sigrun was there so she wouldn’t be so alone. At last, restless, she flew out under the moon, asking Tor’s help. Milky white rippled across the molten black sea, and Ragna flew along the trail of moonlight for a time, her head clearing in the frosty night.

She thought of Baldr, bright Baldr, who lived on in Shard. Shard, who had been gone so long but who should be here, should claim his birthright. Shard, who should be her king.

But when Ragna closed her eyes, breathed the winter air and the sea and thought of the King’s Rocks, she saw only huge, blood-red Sverin, his red meat, his collars and bands and eyes of gold.

Ten years he had oppressed them, forbidden their very life style, forbidden the night, the sea. Exiled any who broke his law.

And yet.

And yet, there had never been such disorder among the gryfons in that time.

He’d abused the wolves, the hoofed and thinking creatures of the Silver Isles, disrespected all living there.

And yet . . . the pride, as uncomfortable, tense, and divided as it had been at times, had been stable. It had been stable enough for Caj and Sigrun to fall in love, to bear a kit who grew into a huntress who would mate to Sverin’s son. It had been stable enough for Ragna to keep her promise to Sverin, remain in the pride and watch over Shard. Stable enough, Ragna realized ruefully, to indeed become a single, if troubled, pride.

Before he’d gone mad, before his spiral into Nameless hatred that had been a mask for his fear, Sverin had ruled with a hard talon, but a steady one. He would have cowed a bully like Ollar in less than a heartbeat.

I’m losing my mind.

Ragna shut her eyes, sucking in a cold breath. After all she’d hoped for, that couldn’t be the answer. It couldn’t be the answer that he had, truly, done the best he could with what he’d had.

Is tyranny and oppression the only way to maintain stability?
She thought of Baldr, who was not a tyrant, who had been loving, understanding, and strong as a rowan tree, always fair, never paranoid. But he had not ruled a mixed pride. She thought of Shard, who was all the things his father had been, but more so, for his heart was divided. Baldr had left him a difficult legacy.

Perhaps Sverin really was the best king he could have been, at the time. We are all only, ever, the best we can be.

“Bright Tor,” she pleaded. “Let me see what is true. Let me know forgiveness. Shard,” she breathed into the cold wind, “come home to me, my son, my king.”

The night gave no answer, and she didn’t know if her words would reach Shard. But now they were in the wind, her heart, her truth, and the wind could do what it would. Talons clenching, Ragna banked and soared back over the sea, speeding up with hard, fast wing strokes.

Looking down, Ragna spied a shadow roaming along the nesting cliffs. Her blood skipped, wondering who was out in the night.

“Who goes there?” she called. The shadow stopped, a head flew up, and Ragna saw wolf ears outlined against the snow. A song answered her, a long, low howl that became words.

“
Which rises first, the night wind, or the stars?

Not even the owl could say,

whether first comes the song or the dark.

Which fades last, the birdsong or the day
?”

The song trailed off and Ragna glided down, thumping in the snow, and finished the song. “Not even the sky could tell, Whether last stills the sun or the jay.”  She stopped, leaving it unfinished, for the verse’s lines spoke of death. “Well met, Helaku’s daughter. Thank you again for allowing us to hunt on the Star Isle. What brings you to my island? Why do you sing the Song of Last Light?”

“I have restless dreams,” Catori murmured. “And my own mother is long to run with the Great Hunt, and she cannot answer my questions anymore.”

Ragna felt her heart open with pity for the restless wolf. “And I can? Did you come seeking me?”

“Maybe I did. I ran all night, and my paws brought me here.” Catori wrinkled her nose, showing Ragna the points of her teeth, but ducked her head submissively.

Ragna lifted her wings a bit helplessly. “I often listened to Baldr’s dreams, though I don’t know what help I was. What did you see?”

Catori lifted her nose to the night wind, and the black feathers twisted and danced against her neck. Ragna longed for Stigr, for his gruff, blunt answers. He would know what to do with a restless pride.

Exile them all,
she imagined him saying, and thought of Shard, instead, and his love for Aesir and Vanir. She thought of Caj, who was fair, and Kjorn, who was honorable.

And Sverin . . .

“I heard a new song in the wind,” Catori murmured. “A strange voice, at once young and old, a serpent in the sky.”

Ragna shook her head a little, and wondered if Catori had learned some of her riddling speech from ravens.

“What song did you hear?”

“A song like no other in the islands.” She stopped walking, her tail fluffed out and alert behind her, and looked out over the sea. Her ears perked as if she would see her mysterious dream serpent, or perhaps, like Ragna, she watched for Shard. Then she sang.

“The noble draw wind from the water

The brave will call fire from stone

The foolish seek gold in the mountain

The last know that wood grows from bone.”

Ragna shivered as wind slipped cold claws under her feathers. “It sounds like one of our first songs.”

“It does, and yet not.”

“Wind rises from the water,” Ragna mused. “Fools love gold, I understand. Wood grows from bone, yes. But I wonder how one calls fire from stone.” Ragna laughed, letting another shiver take her. “I wouldn’t mind knowing, on nights like this.”

“Fire comes from Tor,” Catori murmured. “Fire from the storm, and fire from the earth, from the heart of the earth, where it runs like blood. Perhaps it truly dwells in stone, and if you crack it open, it will bleed fire.”

“You sound like a raven, dear one.” Ragna touched Catori lightly with a wingtip, calling her back from the edge of her visions and rhymes. “Why does this dream trouble you so?”

She looked at Ragna, her eyes glowing in the moonlight. “Because it draws closer.”

“Something coming this way?”

“Perhaps.”

Ragna managed not to sigh, for she would be eternally grateful to Catori for helping Shard, for helping the pride, seeking harmony. But riddles grew tedious. “Come, my friend. Let’s clear your head.”

She dropped to a crouch, swinging her tail like a wolf inviting a friend to play. Catori laughed, crouched, then sprang away. They chased each other through the moonlight and across the plain to the birch wood, where Catori stopped. Ragna halted before running into her, but it was a near thing.

“Listen,” the wolf whispered. Ragna perked her ears and closed her eyes since she couldn’t see much anyway. The soft shuffling made its way through the wind that moaned against the tangled, naked tree branches. Catori glanced at Ragna in silence, ears forward, inviting her to hunt. Ragna nodded once, a small thrill squirming up in her. She had sworn, with others, not to hunt red meat on the island. But the wolves had their blessing from Tor, and a wolf invited her now.