The Starward Light_And Other Tales Read online

  Other Books by

  Jess E. Owen

  Song of the Summer King

  Skyfire

  A Shard of Sun

  By the Silver Wind

  Copyright © 2017 by Jess E. Owen

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Five Elements Press

  Suite 305

  500 Depot Street

  Whitefish, MT 59937

  www.fiveelementspress.com

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, or incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental.

  Cover art by Jennifer Miller © 2017

  Cover layout, typography, and interior formatting by Terry Roy

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9967676-4-4

  First eBook Edition

  Table of Contents

  Map of the Silver Isles

  Map of the Winderost

  The Starward Light

  Beneath the Windward Sun

  The Salmon Run

  About the Author

  CRYSTALLINE SPECKS OF SNOW flurried across the white plain that swept away from the gryfon nesting cliffs. White sparkles swirled and dusted the wings of the plump gryfesses who trudged out of the birch woods and along a well-packed trail that led, in the shortest possible course, from the river to the cliffs that overlooked the crashing sea.

  Second in line, Brynja, daughter-of-Mar, kept a lookout to either side. Though any attacks were unlikely, she had learned to expect the unlikely.

  A lone warrior circled above the line, keeping a wary eye. He was mottled gray flashing iridescent lavender in the sun, with a falcon mask and the unmistakably strong, yet sleek build of a half-blood Aesir.

  “Tollak!” Sigrun called to him, walking just ahead of Brynja. The pride’s healer was smaller, slim, and plain dove-brown, and led the line of pregnant gryfesses in their daily trek. Though there were few, if any, enemies left in their isles, no one was willing to drop their guard after the last, brutal year of fighting and fear. “Send word ahead to Pala and Idunn to ready some chamomile for the queen.”

  Tollak cried an affirmative, glad for the task—anything for the healers. He hadn’t chosen a mate on the Daynight, but he watched and fretted over each pregnant gryfess as if they were his own.

  “I’m fine,” Brynja grumbled, knowing they saw not the huntress who had helped Shard in the Winderost, but only a sturdy, ruddy, round gryfess plodding along like the rest.

  “So fine you won’t slow down,” Sigrun said over her wing, casting a critical eye over her—the youngest queen, Sigrun had told her, that the Isles had known in some time.

  Brynja once heard her own mother boast that she was as comely and strong as a gryfess might be, blessed by Tor with a mind sharper than her talons, and a heart as warm as her russet feathers. She got her golden eyes from the line of En, and hadn’t yet met a gryfon with the same splash of red flecks on pale cheek feathers, such as she had.

  Sigrun was still studying her, and Brynja wondered what the healer was thinking. Then she knew, for Sigrun told her, “You should rest more as the days get colder. Shard’s heir sits heavy.”

  “Forming big dreams, no doubt,” Brynja said, unable to keep the spark of pride from her voice. Sigrun looked indulgent—no doubt she’d seen many pregnant gryfesses dreaming big dreams for their kits over the years.

  “Or big wings,” remarked Dagny, the gryfess who insisted on walking alongside Brynja, which meant she must plow through belly-deep snow. “I’m certain it will be a female, a huntress with your strength and his skill in the air.”

  Dagny’s rich brown feathers reminded Brynja of the earth after a rain, but she brushed the thought aside. It was much too early to yearn for spring. She was very glad Dagny had decided to remain through the winter, when most of the Aesir had flown home after the Daynight earlier in the summer. She couldn’t imagine the birth of her first kit without her wingsister at her side.

  “I’ll be happy either way,” Brynja said. “Male or female. It will be Shard’s and mine.”

  They ruminated on about the possibilities for Brynja and Shard’s kit, and Brynja allowed herself a happy ruffle of her wing feathers.

  Behind Brynja, other gryfesses murmured their own excitement and hopes for their kits. They were a small band, only seven that year, for they had suffered many losses. Some gryfesses who might have mated had lost their beloved, and still mourned. The Vanir who had returned to the Silver Isles after ten years of exile were still learning who they were, and the Aesir and half-bloods who lived there all those ten years allowed them space to do so. Though hope and peace were so far the trademarks of Shard’s reign, the Daynight had still seen fewer matings than previous years.

  When Brynja glanced again at the sky, searching for Tollak, she saw instead a slender, pale form gliding toward them to land. Ragna, the delicate color of a winter cloud, or the palest color of foam on the sea, landed neatly a single leap from the line before bounding forward through the snow.

  The Widow Queen’s eyes matched her son’s, the pale green of summer moss. Brynja envied the Vanir and half-blood’s long winter feather and fluffy layer of down. She hoped her kit would be blessed with the extra protection as well.

  “How is everyone?” Ragna called to the line of gryfesses. Respectful assurances greeted her question. Two gryfesses Ragna’s age, Maja and Ketil, called to her from the middle of the line. The wingsisters were too old to bear kits, but helped the gryfesses all the same. They also mantled to Ragna, and Brynja noticed, trying not to take offense, for she herself showed Shard’s mother respect every chance she could. Brynja knew the old Vanir acknowledged Brynja as their queen, but Brynja still wasn’t sure how well they loved her.

  “My lady . . .” Ragna began, approaching Brynja.

  Sigrun lifted a forefoot to make Ragna pause—the only gryfon in the pride who would dare to interrupt her, for she was a healer, and they were wingsisters after all. “Unless you’re here with simple well-wishes, I must insist that you not press Brynja with anymore worries or duties right now.”

  “Oh, do press me,” Brynja said, ears perking toward the pale, older queen. Sigrun eyed her sideways, and Brynja tried to ignore her. She must prove herself as a worthy queen of the Vanir, and a little weariness wouldn’t stop her.

  Ragna looked between them, and appeared to take Brynja’s order over Sigrun’s. “Have you considered what celebrations we’ll hold during the Long Night?”

  Dagny’s ears perked up and she raised her wings. “Oh, is there feasting? In the Winderost, we have the Wild Hunt—”

  “So you’ve told us,” Ragna murmured. “But it won’t do, here.”

  Dagny’s ears flicked back and she looked to Brynja, crestfallen, her long, feathered tail drooping to drag in the snow.

  “I know little of the way the Vanir observe the Long Night here,” Brynja said carefully. She couldn’t believe the Vanir still considered it autumn, with snow on the ground and bitter cold nights and short days. But until the Long Night set, they did. “Shard, of course, hasn’t been able to tell me either.�
�� Shard, who had grown up under the Aesir conquerors, who didn’t yet know all the traditions of his own ancestors.

  “There hasn’t been time,” Sigrun said, as if to reassure her. “We’ll get it all sorted.” She watched Brynja closely, appearing to search for signs of stress. Brynja wasn’t worried. Many a kit had been whelped that spring after a year of extreme duress, and all were healthy. So far as she knew, anyway—those kits whose parents had remained in the Silver Isles.

  For a moment it was silent as Ragna and Sigrun probably thought on the Long Night “tradition” of the Aesir conquerors: cowering in the dark until the sun rose again. Brynja knew it would not do, this year, but the Vanir had not yet told her what they expected of her, if anything.

  Apparently, she was about to find out.

  “We will tell you all you need to know.” Ragna turned to walk with them, just behind Brynja along the trail, to show deference, she thought, and felt grateful. “The question is whether all observances will be made, with the mixed pride.”

  “The Vanir haven’t been allowed a proper Long Night in ten years,” Sigrun said. “Why, by Tyr’s left wing, would we not want to do all of it? Shard is Vanir, after all.”

  Brynja tried not to laugh, for Sigrun sounded so much like her gruff mate, Caj. When Ragna and Brynja merely looked at her quietly, she appeared to understand. The entire pride was not made up of Vanir, but many half-bloods, many exiles, and several Aesir, like Caj, who had come as conquerors but stayed as family even when many chose to return to their homeland. Brynja tried to imagine any gryfon pressing Caj into a moonlight observance, or a starlit flight, or anything involving the dark, strange Vanir traditions, or anything else he might not want to do, and ruffled her feathers uncomfortably. She knew the stubborn souls of Aesir well enough to know that none of them would be happy feeling cut out by a purely Vanir celebration, and the Vanir would certainly be hurt by being ignored, here on their first chance to hold a celebration that was really theirs.

  Ragna and Sigrun were watching her. Dagny glanced uncomfortably over her shoulder at Ketil, Maja, and the half-bloods, then pressed closer to Brynja, offering warmth and reassurance.

  Brynja soaked it up, gladly, and was able to speak. “I think it best,” she began slowly, her gaze sliding between Ragna and Sigrun, “to bring the matter to Shard. He knows the pride best, and he is Vanir. He will make wise and thoughtful decisions befitting the mixed pride.”

  Ragna exchanged a look with Sigrun, ducked her head respectfully, then lifted it, watching Brynja sternly. “We will speak to Shard regarding his preferences. But you should know that we consider Long Night to be Tor’s time. She, the huntress, who guides us, and who brings the thunder, and lights our wings in the dark. It is appropriate, my lady, for you, as queen, as Tor’s talons on earth, to have the final say. Summer is over. Winter, and night, are Tor’s time.”

  Brynja tilted her head, blinking at the blunt statement, then looked to Sigrun, who nodded once. For a moment, Brynja’s heart glowed. What an honor, to oversee such an event!

  Then cold uncertainty stole over heart. What would all those Vanir think about their most sacred time of the season being overseen, not by one of their own, but by an Aesir, a windlander whose own kin had conquered the Isles they had just reclaimed?

  Dagny made a soft, uncomfortable sound, looking between Ragna and Sigrun.

  Brynja met their eyes, clearly saw the doubt they shared, and raised her head. “Tell me what I need to know. I promise we will make this a Long Night to remember.”

  A DOZEN FLEDGES GLEEFULLY dragged fragrant evergreen boughs from the field toward the cliffs, even as Brynja spied Tollak and others flying in from Star Island with more, their talons bursting with prickly branches of fir, spruce, and boughs from the slender, long-trunk pines.

  Fledglings with more advanced flying skills had joined the warriors, filling their talons not with pine, but with what red rowan berries could be found in the winter forests. Ragna hadn’t yet told Brynja their purpose or meaning, saying only that they were for the Third Night.

  Brynja directed those with pine boughs toward the dens of the pregnant gryfesses and the bachelor males, whose nests were to be adorned by the branches for the duration of the Long Night. Ketil and Maja stood near, helping to answer questions and explain to the fledges that the branches were to remind the gryfesses of the life they carried, and the bachelors of summer and life and warm times to come, and their duties to the pride.

  “In two days the sun will set,” Ragna instructed. A teal-tipped, gray half-blood fledge bounded past, bearing a spruce branch she had caused to sparkled by decorating it with crystallized sea salt. “That’s lovely, Mist!” Ragna called.

  Brynja nodded once, drawing Ragna’s attention back to her. “Two days. Will that be enough time for all the preparations, with the days so short?” The sun hovered low on the horizon, leaving only three marks of light each day now. Brynja had never seen such short days, and still couldn’t imagine the Long Night, when the sun wouldn’t rise at all. “We might have to sacrifice a few—”

  “Never fear,” said Ketil briskly, from her left. Brynja managed to keep her neck feathers smooth. Shard had found the Vanir gryfess and her daughter, Keta, in the Outlands of the Winderost. Brynja knew that the older huntress had hoped Shard might fall in love with her own daughter, but Shard had pledged his heart to Brynja long before. Much had mended between them after they reclaimed the Isles, and over the spring and summer, but tension crackled about the Vanir now as Brynja prepared for their festivities.

  “Maja and I have been preparing,” Ketil went on when Ragna and Brynja both looked at her. “Of course,” she said coolly, “we had assumed you would honor the traditions of the Vanir that were ignored and suppressed these long years, so we looked ahead to what would be needed.”

  “Of course,” Brynja echoed quietly. She dared not look to Ragna for shelter from Ketil’s cold voice. She was certain the Widow Queen shared a quiet disappointment that her son did not mate with a Vanir, even if she hid it better. “What have you done so far?”

  “We’ve fermented fruits for the Second Night,” Maja said, stepping forward. The gryfess was pale, but with a subtle and attractive yellow cast to her feathers, like a finch or prairie lark. She was the mother of Halvden, a half-blood who had chosen, with his mate, to take their kit to the Winderost and live under Kjorn’s rule. Her Aesir mate had been killed by wolves two summers ago, and Brynja gathered he was not much missed by anyone in the pride. She denned now with Ketil and Keta, and didn’t seem to miss any of her own absent kin.

  “And gathered salt for the fishing,” Ketil said. The middle-aged wingsisters went on proudly, if not a hair smugly, about their preparations for the Long Night. Brynja wanted to feel only gratitude and relief, but their haughtiness and surety wore on her, and she could only nod, making a mental tally.

  Another fledge darted past with a sweet-smelling branch, laughing, and that eased Brynja’s mood somewhat. Enough that she was able to dip her head in genuine thanks when Ketil finished describing all the work they had done. “Then we’ll be able to observe all your celebrations properly.” She drew a slow, calming breath, and felt her kit shift in her belly.

  She must’ve winced, for Maja eyed her sharply. “Do you need to rest, my lady?”

  Brynja fluffed her wings. Rest, indeed, and let all of you do the preparations well shed of me, saying I didn’t care enough to bother . . . “Oh, no. Shard’s little one is anxious to get flying, is all.”

  “No doubt.” Ragna’s voice warmed considerably, as Brynja thought it might at the mention of her son’s heir.

  “So now that I know we’ll have the expected foods, tell me the days,” Brynja said. “And thank you again, Maja and Ketil. You honor yourselves and the pride with your forethought and work.”

  Surprise flickered in their faces and, to Brynja’s pleasure, both mantled and murmured thanks.

  “There are twelve days of the Long Night,” Ragna sai
d, and Brynja tried to grasp the idea of days of darkness, and nights of darkness, and how they would measure the time. Shard had seemed excited to show her the turning of the stars and had almost convinced her that it would actually be quite easy to tell when the next “day” began, so she’d hid her unease from him.

  “The first sunset is the Mother’s Night,” Ragna explained, “when we feast and we each choose a huntress ancestor or mentor to honor—one who is now passed to the Sunlit Land. We name them under the moon and thank them for whatever sacrifices they made that gave us our lives here.”

  Brynja nodded. The first ancestor who came to mind was En, the beginning of the line which branched and ended not only in Sverin and Kjorn, but herself. “Very good. And we eat fish?”

  “Of course,” Ketil said, sounding surprised, as if to ask, what else?

  “I didn’t know if special hunting provisions might be made,” Brynja said quietly, glancing to her.

  “No,” Ketil said firmly. “We have never eaten red meat on the Long Night.”

  Brynja thought of the Wild Hunt in the Winderost, the grand feast, the fires that were a new tradition within the last nine years. “What of fires?”

  Maja and Ketil looked scandalized. Their ears slicked back, their eyes widened, then narrowed, and feathers fluffed up indignantly. Brynja looked quickly to Ragna, alarmed that she’d offended them so quickly.

  Ragna brushed her talons idly through the snow. “The Long Night is Tor’s time. We honor the darkness, and the winter in which the earth rests and readies for spring, as a pregnant gryfess rests and readies for new life.”

  “I see.” Brynja began to walk again, fighting a cramp that had formed near her ribs from wherever her kit had chosen to settle. She chose her words carefully. “I do want to honor the traditions of the Vanir. But we are a mixed pride, and we should all be acknowledged. In the Winderost, we enjoy fires to keep out the winter cold, and I believe that will be a new pleasure to everyone here.”