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  Copyright © 2013 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

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  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.

  Cover typography and interior formatting by TERyvisions.

  Edited by Joshua Essoe

  LICENSE NOTES

  This ebook is licensed for personal use only and may not be re-distributed. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you.

  My second book is dedicated to everyone who read the first.

  1

  The Highest Peak

  Icy wind lashed along vertical slabs of black mountain rock near the highest peak of the Sun Isle. Few creatures ever ventured there.

  Shard clung to the mountainside, talons caught in tiny crags, hind paws purchased on a feather-thin groove in the rock below. The wind soared past and Shard tightened his wings to his sides, swinging his long feathered tail out for balance. Snow swirled, stinging his eyes, and the wind howled like a wolf close to the kill.

  The mountain was angry.

  One wing stroke, then another. Unbidden, his uncle Stigr’s voice came to him. One foot in front of the other. Even though he wasn’t on the mountainside with Shard, his mentor’s advice stuck, and the words made him groan. He perked his ears and peered down to check his height.

  Surely the peak is close. This is mad, mad, mad. He sought a vision on the mountain, at what felt like the top of the world. The past summer had changed everything he knew. Now it was his responsibility to solve the injustices he’d discovered—but he had no path.

  His idea to seek his vision on the mountain top seemed less and less like a good idea, for at that moment, he saw nothing.

  A whorl of white and gray met his eagle stare. Not even his gaze could pierce the wall of wind and snow. No longer able to see the floor of the canyon between the jagged peaks, Shard turned his face upward and shoved his muscles back into a sluggish, lurching climb.

  The wind shifted again, dry as wood and cold from the top of the world. Shard ground his beak and shoved his talons up higher. One. Foot.

  “In front of the other,” he gasped. Snow soaked even his wings, oiled and resistant to water from his diet of fish. The climb, hours in the wind and snow, had broken down all of his defenses. If Shard tried to open his wings he would meet his end smashed into the cliff face. The wind changed direction and angle every three breaths, made it impossible to fly. The snow made it impossible to see more than two leaps ahead. Everything felt impossible. He dragged himself another notch higher, muscles beginning to lock and quiver.

  He hadn’t eaten in five days.

  The memory of another’s voice drifted into his head, a she-wolf from another, much warmer place, “Only when we are empty as pelt do we know what truly lies under fur or feather and bone.”

  Her words, the wolf song sending him on his way, and his uncle’s advice flickered in and out of his mind like falling feathers. He knew he was still climbing, but it seemed to happen without him. A ledge loomed above. If he could drag over the top of that ledge, he was sure he would be close to the pinnacle, or at least high enough for his challenge.

  One will rise higher.

  Another voice. His father. His dead father. That spirit had spoken to him so clearly once, appeared before him as if in flesh, advised him, and then gone. Shard hadn’t heard another word since then. He’d had no visions, no guidance, no ideas, and there were things he needed to know before winter came. The last time he’d made wrong decisions, too many lives were lost. He couldn’t take that chance again.

  We wolves go on a quest for our life vision, his friend had told him, a wolf seer named Catori. Her fur had burned bright and ruddy in the red autumn woods. In the lowland, it was the quarter of the year the wolves called the time of red rowan, not for the leaves, but for the berries that grew in red bursts. Cold stole the nights and the leaves of red and gold only served as a bright warning of winter.

  The brisk chill of the lowlands was nothing compared to the White Mountain.

  We wear down all that is flesh so the spirit may rise and show us the path.

  Catori had told him her own vision that she’d dreamed as a pup before her eyes even opened. A gryfon nest and a whelping mother, but out of the mother’s belly came wolf pups, and Catori knew by that vision that the future of wolves and gryfons was linked. They must befriend each other again, and she was to be a link between them.

  It was autumn when it became clear to Shard that he didn’t know what to do, and didn’t like the choices he had, so Catori had encouraged him to go on a vision quest as the wolves did, and seek his answers that way.

  He is borne aloft on the Silver Wind

  He alone flies the highest peak…

  Words from a song overlapped the memory of Catori and Shard shook his head, squinting up and around. Fast-flying snow stung his eyes and he ruffled his feathers, shaking it off again. The ledge loomed dark overhead.

  There. That is as high as I can go. The place had to challenge him, to strip him to his essence. Then, as Catori said, a vision should come to him. The wolves didn’t seek their visions on the White Mountain, but Shard had chosen the highest point on the largest island in all the Silver Isles. It felt right that a gryfon seek his vision there. He remembered choosing the point on a warm autumn evening, gazing at the distant peak, surrounded by friends and a warm sunset.

  Shard would have laughed at his stupid choice if he’d had extra breath. A nice glide along the seashore, seeking his vision by sunset light, sounded better every moment.

  One foot in front of the other.

  He slapped talons against a solid-looking outcropping. The ice that had looked like rock cracked and crumbled under his weight. Shard swung down, clawing for purchase, shrieking. His voice fell dead in the wind, dry from thirst. His claws scraped as he slid down on rolling rocks and ice. Wild for balance, he flared one wing.

  The wind swooped in, knocked his wing wide and threw him spiraling off the rock face into the air.

  Shard kicked his hind paws out straight and lashed his tail into a fan to rudder himself, stretching the other wing to try soaring. Sick of climbing, blinded from snow, Shard ducked and curved with the wind. The long canyon between the two white peaks sent winds circling and lunging like caribou, knocking him toward one face, then the other.

  Panicked, aching and blind, Shard forced his thoughts to leave him. He was nothing but wings and air. He knew only that he wanted the pinnacle of the mountain.

  I won’t be defeated by wind!

  He twisted and flapped, testing the air, straining all his skill. At last he found what he needed–a sliver of wind slipped under his wing like a guiding friend. Latching onto it, he curved his wings to follow only that current. It was warmer than the others. The single, tiny, warmer current lifted him higher.

  After wild moments that felt l
ike hours, Shard saw where the mountain slopes met. The canyon between them ended in a solid wall of white snow and black rock. Ice crumbled down its face, chunks falling into the hazy gloom below. Shard, heart slamming, had barely enough strength to react.

  Pull up pull up PULL UP! Even his wings screamed until Shard realized he was shrieking also, wordless, mindless as he flapped his wings against cold air, unable to fight the wind that he rode straight toward a solid face of rock.

  Shard screamed an eagle cry into the wind and shut his eyes—

  —and a warm draft shoved him straight up and over the canyon rim, and higher. Free of the circling winds, Shard angled his wings to catch the draft, soaring, soaring high until he saw a flat, round expanse jutting out from the highest peak. No wider than a gryfon at full stretch, it was large enough to land on.

  The thin air made him gasp. Snow dragged his wings like stones. Happy to be freed from climbing like a wingless beast, Shard shoved through the gray air until he reached the ledge below the peak and landed, tumbling in the snow. Awkward and exhausted as a fledge after its first, miserable flight, Shard lay panting, barely comprehending the blanket of snow under him, and that now the wind was whispering and soft.

  Snow fell gently around him.

  He had landed in the shadow of the great, pointed peak of the mountain, sheltered from the wind. It felt like a calm winter day.

  In the corner of his vision, something moved, like a little hump of snow.

  Shard tried to stand, but his legs quivered and collapsed under him. He lay on his belly, beak resting on the snow, and perked his ears as the hump of snow became an owl.

  “Son-of-Baldr,” sang the owl, and her deep voice perked his ears again. “Son of the Nightwing. Rashard, son-of-Ragna the White.”

  The sounds and words became his name and Shard blinked slowly and raised his head. He had, for a moment, forgotten his name. Forgotten that he had one. With his name, everything else snapped back. Why he had come, his need for guidance, the wolves singing him away with blessings on his vision quest.

  “I know you,” he whispered. “You guided me once before, in the forest. What are you doing here? You can’t live up here.”

  He failed to keep the disappointment from his voice. In that moment he realized keenly that he’d craved to see his father again, and nothing else. Instead, his deadly, awkward flight had attracted the attention of this creature, an old friend. Or at least an acquaintance. He wondered if this flesh and blood owl could answer his questions any better than a sparrow could. She had helped Shard before, when he was lost. Perhaps she meant to again, but he would’ve preferred a vision of his father.

  Still, it was good not to be alone.

  “My prince. I came here for you. “ The white owl stretched her rounded wings in a bow, and blinked large fierce eyes, yellow as the summer moon. “What brings you to the brow of the Sun Isle?”

  “I need help,” Shard whispered. His tongue stuck to his beak. Warmth rushed his head. Then the owl lost focus in front of him, the mountain slanted, ready to tip him back down to the bottom of the world, and he fell from blinding white into blackness.

  2

  A Divided Pride

  On the lowland, windward coast of the Sun Isle, gryfons gathered for a hunt. Autumn reigned on the slopes and in the scattered woods that sprawled around the Nightrun River and cold nights glazed the dying grass and birch in gold. Rowan berries gleamed like clumps of ember in those little forests, and all the animals of the Sun Isle rushed to fatten up for winter.

  All the animals but us, thought Kjorn. Prince of the gryfon pride, a head taller than most and gold from the tips of his ears to his feathered tail, he paced as his father spoke to the gathered hunters.

  “They will be vulnerable now, focused on their autumn hunting.” Sverin, the Red King, now called the War King by some, paced level with his warriors.

  Kjorn stood at the back, watching their faces as Sverin spoke on about their enemy, the wolves, and the importance of the wolf hunts. They must drive the enemy out. They must seek revenge for the wolves’ horrific attack on their nesting cliffs that summer past. Most of the warriors’ eyes were narrowed. They nodded and their wings rustled in agitated agreement.

  Gryfon fledglings and elders and even initiated warriors had died in the wolf attack. Though some believed Sverin’s aggression triggered it, it would not be easily forgiven.

  Kjorn watched his father speak and knew in a sense he was right, but he grew wary of winter closing in on them.

  This isn’t the time for war.

  The pride was growing lean. The females who were newly mated should have been getting plump and soft over autumn, but all still stood sleek with wiry summer muscle, their eyes gleaming with a weary, dangerous edge. They were still early enough in carrying their kits that they could hunt.

  But not for long, Kjorn thought. Over the long, dark winter, it would be up to the males to provide.

  Bright blue flashed above, a gryfon circling. Kjorn watched as the older warrior stooped to land. Caj was the only gryfon in the pride who might talk sense to Kjorn’s father, but so far he’d done nothing. Kjorn wondered if Caj agreed with Sverin and wished only for revenge on the wolves. They had, after all, also turned Shard against the pride.

  Against Caj, Kjorn simmered. His own nest-father. And against me.

  Caj landed and trotted to Kjorn, one ear flicked toward the king’s words. The king’s wingbrother stood tall and broadly muscled, his flanks scarred from countless battles.

  “What news?” Kjorn muttered, unconcerned about missing his father’s speech. Sverin spoke often those days, whether to reassure the pride or himself, Kjorn wasn’t sure.

  “A good herd of red deer on the nightward coast of Star Isle,” Caj said under his breath. A chill breeze swooped between them, ruffling feathers. “Fat and happy from nuts and berries. Even some late summer fawns.”

  “What news of the wolves,” Kjorn amended.

  Sverin paused his speech, ear twitching, and Kjorn lifted his head to make it look as if he’d been paying attention. But he didn’t need to pay attention. The words were always the same.

  Honor. Vengeance.

  Glory.

  War.

  I wonder if he tastes the words anymore, Kjorn thought. If he wants revenge on the wolves, or on Shard, who is already dead.

  Caj shook his head, ears slicking back as he turned his narrowed gaze to the king. “No sign of wolves, my prince. There’s never any sign. The den lies cold. Trails are days old. Tracks lead to cliffs that drop into the sea. They’ve disappeared.”

  Kjorn clicked his beak against angry words. It wouldn’t do to lose Caj’s confidence and support. “They haven’t disappeared. You heard what Shard said this summer. There are caves under the islands. That’s where they’re hiding.” Kjorn looked to the sky, as if bright Tyr might hold an answer. The sun stood at middlemark, but in autumn, middlemark was so low in the sky it was almost evening.

  Caj stretched, scarred flanks twitching. “The shadows grow long. Winter stalks us, my prince. I wouldn’t go into those caves for all the fawns on Star Island. We must be allowed to hunt food.”

  “You can feed on wolf flesh.”

  “Only if we can find wolves.”

  “Can’t you tell him to stop this?” Kjorn whispered fiercely, turning so his father wouldn’t notice them arguing. “We can have our revenge in spring. Can’t you tell him to focus on hunting food? “

  “Can’t you?” Caj asked.

  Kjorn shifted. “He’s your wingbrother.”

  “He’s your father.”

  Kjorn had thought Sverin’s gaze was intimidating, growing up, but staring now into Caj’s even, pale eyes gave him a true taste of what Shard had faced, raised by Caj.

  “You should be the one to speak,” Caj continued, so quietly Kjorn might’ve dreamed the words. “But speak carefully. Winter is not the time to rebel, not the time to split the pride.”

  “Tell that to my
father,” Kjorn muttered. “He would have us go to war.”

  “Your father’s concern is real,” Caj said. “The wolves could very well attack again. Tread softly. Learn to handle situations like this now, if you plan to be a decent king.”

  That he would presume to advise Kjorn on kingship was the last insult he could stand. Kjorn flared his wings out and snapped his beak. Caj backed down and hunched into a respectful mantle, his wings curved up over his back, bowing his head. The gathered hunters parted to see the commotion and the aisle between them led straight to Sverin’s hard gaze. Kjorn backed away, tucking his wings as he stared down the length of peat and grass into his father’s eyes. Kjorn had his mother’s eyes, pale summer blue, but Sverin’s were merciless gold.

  “Did you have something to add, my son?”

  A soft snort drew Kjorn’s ear. In the corner of his eye he saw a smug look on green Halvden’s face. He was an arrogant warrior, younger than Kjorn, who preened for favor every chance he could.

  Kjorn raised his head. Caj’s warning rang bitterly true. He’s my father. If I can’t stand up to him, I’ll be a poor leader.

  Sverin looked huge in the late light, crimson around his face fading to scarlet down his back and wings like flame. He wore golden chains, bands and gleaming jewels his grandfather had stolen from the dragons in a war long ago. The Red King. The War King. He wore the whispered title proudly, though Kjorn wasn’t sure if it was a compliment.

  Kjorn settled his feathers and met his father’s eyes as calmly as he could. He’d done nothing wrong, after all. “Caj has sighted a herd of deer on the Star Isle. Fat and happy with autumn. I think—”

  “Perfect,” said Sverin. Kjorn perked his ears, hopeful as Sverin paced away. “Go to them.” The others lifted their ears, looking refreshed at the thought of easy meat. “But leave them be,” Sverin said, crushing the expressions on every gryfon’s face. “Their presence will draw the wolves out of their cowardly hiding and you may catch them with their guard down.”