A Shard of Sun (30 page)

“Please,” Kjorn said, turning to face her fully.

The ruddy gryfess stood, stretching her broad, flecked wings. “If Shard went as far as the Aslagard Mountains, for whatever reason, and then the Horn erupted, I think he would’ve fled like any other creature. Would he not have sought shelter with possible friends? Not at the Dawn Spire, but somewhere he might have allies who’ve heard of him or his family?”

Kjorn tilted his head at her. “You mean Caj’s kin, at the Ostral Shores.”

Brynja nodded. The eagles listened quietly and Nilsine  examined her talons, looking thoughtful while Brynja continued. “It’s most likely our friend, Asvander, would’ve gone there if he wasn’t taken prisoner, and Shard knew he hailed from there, knew Caj’s family was from there. Might he go there, seeking friends?”

“Are Dawn Spire gryfons not on poor terms with the Ostral Shores?” Nilsine asked.

Brynja shook her head. “Not my family. I’m…I was meant to be pledged to Asvander, to unite our families. They’ve split ties with the Dawn Spire, but we are exiled from there as well now, as far as King Orn is concerned. If nothing else, we may find at least one friend in Asvander, and he may know more of Shard than us.” Her expression darkened, frustrated at being split from her strongest friends, Kjorn knew.

“The Ostral Shores then?” Kjorn glanced at Nilsine. “I’d like to avoid the Dawn Spire, for now.”

The Vanhar remained seated, and contemplative. “I don’t know the way. We could venture windward, pass back through the First Plains and the Vanheim Shore, up to the Dawn Reach and around.”

It sounded like a bleakly long distance to Kjorn, to circle all the way back from where he’d first washed ashore.

“Faster to cut across,” Hildr said, ruffling her feathers. “Across the unclaimed hills and plains twixt here and the Ostral Shores.”

“We don’t know what we might encounter,” Kjorn murmured, thinking.

Brynja raised her head. “As far as you’ve come, it would be much faster to cut a straight path, as she says.” She looked between him and Nilsine. “It’s a solid two days of flying, but faster and less likely to meet rogues, or any gryfon from the Dawn Spire. Of course, we won’t want to be airborne at night, with the wyrms out hunting.”

“We?” Kjorn asked.

Brynja angled her head, ears perking. “I thought I was clear. I’m coming with you. I know the way. I know what routes the scouts of the Dawn Spire fly, and I told you I would help.” She looked around at the eagles, then Nilsine, before her gaze settled on Kjorn again. “We’ve been waiting here for a sign, a call to action, or some sense of hope. You’re it. You also seek Shard,” her voice took on a new, challenging note, “and I have unfinished business with him.”

Kjorn couldn’t argue with her firm statement nor the bright determination in her eyes. “You said we shouldn’t fly at night. Do the wyrms range that far from the Outlands?”

“Yes,” Nilsine answered before Brynja could. “They eat prey beasts just as we do, but they will range, seek the scent of gryfon on the wind and hunt them down at night, kill them, and leave their flesh wasted in the dirt.” Her voice remained quiet, her expression cool, but her red eyes sparked warning in Kjorn’s heart. “The Vanhar learned this at great cost.”

He dipped his head, thinking of his father’s fear of the dark. “Then, we’ll fly with the sun on our backs, and walk at night.” He looked to the eagles, and mantled. “Thank you for sharing your canyons with us for the night. I hope to meet again, in better circumstances, and prove myself to you.”

Hildr appraised him, having listened quietly to their plans. “I will look forward to that day.”

“I thank you also,” Brynja said. “My wingsister and the rest of my huntresses will leave with me. Your hospitality will never be forgotten.”

“Nor your courtesy,” said Hildr, not quite grudgingly. She lifted her wings, then hesitated, looking at Kjorn. “When you find Rashard, let him know he still has my respect, and, should he need it, my friendship.”

Kjorn dipped his head. “I will.”

With a final word of farewell, the eagles lifted from the ground, beating their wings against the haze to lift away into the canyon.

“A common enemy,” Brynja said beside him, “can sometimes make the greatest allies.”

“Or a common friend,” Kjorn said, and her expression quirked in amusement. “I’m glad you’re coming. I’m glad to have both of you,” he looked to Nilsine, “and any you bring with you. This is further than I think you intended to go, and I’ll understand if you don’t come to the Ostral Shores.”

“I’m at your service,” she said, unblinking.

Kjorn nodded, trying not to look surprised, wondering at her motive. Brynja’s was clear, though he’d just met her, but he wondered if perhaps the priestess of the Vanhar had suggested that Nilsine go with Kjorn…

To what end?

He looked at both of them. “Then we leave as soon as your bands are gathered.”

S
UNLIGHT GLANCED WHITE AND
gold off mountain peaks and the broad, flat valley where the young warrior dragons trained. Clear sky, pale with frost in the air, yawned above.

Shard wondered what Stigr would’ve thought of the dragon training grounds, and their method. They prized accuracy and form just as much as winning, if not more. Everything was precise and worked according to a certain order. The dragons kept the valley clear of the deepest snows to make room for their practices.

Ancient black boulders defined five sparring rings, arranged in a spiral and growing smaller with each succession, with the smallest ring at the center. The idea, Shard learned, was to keep the fight within the ring of stones. Breaking out of the line with wing, tail, or other limb, was equal to losing the spar.

Hikaru had explained that each circle represented a state of mastery, for as the circles grew smaller the fighting became more challenging. Very few dragons, he’d said, actually mastered the fifth circle, where it was scarcely possible for a fully grown dragon to move without breaking the circle.

No dragon but Hikaru had expressed an interest in sparring with Shard, and his first day out, when Shard had tried to join Hikaru in the largest circle, one of the masters of fighting had barred him.

“Not this day,” was all she said, and didn’t speak to him again. Rather than dishonor Hikaru by arguing, Shard contented himself with studying dragon fighting. Every day, Hikaru asked if Shard might participate, but every day, no matter who oversaw the training, the answer was, “Not this day.”

So it went, too, when Shard asked anyone about speaking to the empress again. Hikaru was reluctant to pester his elders about it, and Shard assured him he didn’t have to.

Days stretched into a fortnight, and Shard maintained his patience only in the interest of letting his leg heal. Now the bone had knit and the skin formed into smooth, firm scars with magical speed. He would have to learn more about their herbs, to tell Sigrun when he returned home.

Home.
He stretched his leg in the cold, warming the taut muscles and relieved to be free of the splint.

He breathed slowly in the thin, icy air, watching Hikaru spar with a dragoness four months his senior and twice his size, her scales the same pale, shifting rainbow of color as the inner wall of an oyster shell.

Dragon-sized tiers were carved into the foothills of the cliffs and barren rock mountains, into the ice and snow. Shard sat on a low tier of rock nearest the sparring rings. The first three rings were filled with dragons fighting. Shard found it ironic that the older and more skilled they grew, the smaller their circle became. Perhaps that was the point. Other dragons lined the stone tiers, watching, preening, waiting their turn, while the master dragons walked or circled above, calling out corrections or admonishments.

“Kagu, tail out!” barked the hulking blue dragon Shard had met on the first day. He was a training master as well as sentinel, named Isora. Immediately, Shard could think of nothing but Caj, patrolling among the fledges as they sparred.

Kagu, who Shard gauged to be five or six months old, with scales like yellow buttercups, stopped, landed, and bowed to his opponent. Then he slunk from the ring and back toward the sitting tiers.

Thinking of Caj, and home, made Shard restless. He looked anxiously back to Hikaru’s spar, hoping one or the other of them would win quickly and they could resume their search for the dragon Groa had spoken of, a dragon who knew the truth. He reached up to tuck a talon into the silver chain, to reassure himself it had all happened. Once he had the truth, he could take it to the empress.

Hikaru hadn’t been able to speak with his friend, Natsumi, since Shard’s arrival. When Hikaru had sought out her parents, they’d forbidden her from being near Hikaru and Shard, and that was that.

It would be difficult to find anything the dragons wanted to hide, though, even another dragon. The Mountains of the Sea and the dragons’ dwelling within was so vast Shard could easily see that a dragon could be kept away. Secrets could be kept away. And truths.

“Rashard of the Silver Isles.”

Shard turned, then stood up and bowed his head, in the dragon manner, to Kagu. The yellow dragon didn’t return the favor. “Kagu.”

“Still spying, I see?” His large, serpent eyes looked nearly all gold, the pupils slitted against the brilliant day.

Though he was only a few months older than Hikaru, Shard had trouble thinking of him as nearly fully grown. In another three months the dragons would consider him a seasoned adult, so now, Shard thought of him as an initiate, nearly grown but a ways to go, a bit younger than Shard himself.

So Shard would treat him appropriately. “I’m learning,” he corrected, and managed not to flick his tail. A steady, soft wind filtered around the valley, and the brush of it felt good against his leg, for the scars still felt warm. “I love to watch how all of you fly, and fight.”

“I’m sure you do.” Kagu raised his head, looking toward the largest fighting ring where Hikaru spiraled in the air around his opponent, seeking an opening. “Hikaru has suffered from lack of training, both of his body and his mind. That will be fixed.”

Shard ignored the barb. If he’d known anything of dragon ways, he would’ve taught Hikaru. “Why do you train to fight, if Sunlanders remain sheltered, away from war?”

Kagu’s head whipped back to glare at him, then he drew himself together, with fine discipline. “It is a waste of our gifts not to train.”

Shard had wondered, more than once, if he might be able to interest the younger generation in the rest of the world. “Have you ever seen real battle?”

“Are you questioning my honor?”

Shard lifted his wings. “No, I’m asking if you’ve ever seen a real battle.”

“Our spars are real enough.” He reared his head back, sitting up to his full height. Half the size of an adult, he still towered over Shard.

“What have you fought for? Your honor? An insult? I’ve fought battles,” Shard said quietly. “Battles for real things. Protecting my home and family. I’ve fought and killed wyrms your size in the Winderost.” He didn’t mean for it to sound like a threat, but it must have, for Kagu’s ears flattened against his head.

“Those are lies,” he said, then laughed pointedly. “It’s not possible.”

Shard narrowed his eyes. “Courtesy,” he reminded, for that was another of the warrior virtues Hikaru was learning.

“I won’t be courteous to a liar. To a spy. What’s the point of your questions?”

“What I’m asking you,” Shard said quietly, “is if you’ve ever fought when it
mattered.
”

Kagu bared his teeth, shuddering at the implied insult. Instead of attacking, however, he sat up to his full height and opened his pale wings. “Training master!” he bellowed over the training field. Shard flinched as the spars ceased and blue Isora, circling above, glided nearer. “How long will this be allowed to continue?” Kagu gestured to Shard. “He continues to spy and learn our ways. What other reason than to bring honorless, dangerous thieves like himself here once again?”

“I am trying to learn your ways,” Shard said, “out of respect and curiosity. Spy? No. Never. I have no reason.”

From the corner of his eye Shard saw Hikaru leap from his ring and fly toward them, fury lighting his face. The black dragon landed hard between Kagu and Shard. Shard ambled back, his leg still stiff in the cold.

“Leave Shard alone,” Hikaru growled. “He has ten times the honor and skill you ever will.”

Shard eyed the big yellow dragon warily, wishing Hikaru didn’t believe in him quite so much.

“Stand back both of you.” Isora remained aloft, circling, but his tone was sharp and warning. “Stop this snapping like hatchlings.” Hikaru and Kagu glared at each other and backed a pace away, bowing to their training master. “You,” Isora said to Shard. “You will leave. Every day you’re here you disrupt our work and unsettle the younger dragons.”

“They need to be unsettled,” Shard said, and Hikaru lifted his wings in approval. It was dangerous, challenging the master in front of the others, but Shard was no fledge, no training dragon, no dragon at all. He could respect their ways, but he didn’t plan to cower before them. “Why train to fight, if not for some purpose?”

“We are ready to defend. We are ready to keep our homes and families safe—”

“From gryfons?” Shard asked mildly, spreading his wings wide to remind them of his small size. “What threat—”

“You threaten our way of life by coming here, by spreading your lies, spying, who knows what schemes you have to—”

“You know nothing about me!” Shard shouted, since the dragon refused to land and speak on the ground.

“We know enough about your kind,” he rumbled, and a dangerous murmur of agreement wove through the younger onlookers. “Our history tells us so.”

Any plans Shard had to remain civil were dashed in the face of the dragon’s willful ignorance and accusations. “You know nothing, except that in good faith I helped Hikaru to hatch safely and escape the wyrms who would’ve captured or killed him, or maybe even raised him—but raised him Nameless and wild and hateful. You know nothing but that I nearly died trying to bring him home, to
you.
You know only that I searched this wretched land to find him and make sure he was well, and that I sit here, sometimes, to try and learn more about you, and because I’ve been banned from wandering alone. So I stay close to Hikaru.”