Skyfire Read online

  “Father—”

  “Go. Now. The day grows late.” He looked to the fading light. The sons and daughters of Tyr could not see well in the dark like owls, and so it was forbidden to fly at night. Sverin had exiled gryfons from the pride for that crime. Now with winter stalking near, exile meant certain death.

  But Shard flew at night.

  And well it did for him, Kjorn thought back at himself. Words and arguments gathered and stuck in his throat. The others watched Sverin, then Kjorn, waiting for his lead. He felt their tension, felt Caj’s attention and disapproval at his back. He ignored them all and bounded into the air. The others, muttering, followed.

  Caj had been no help at all. He’d practically said that Sverin was right, and not to cause trouble by splitting loyalties. And Kjorn decided he wouldn’t. He would speak to Sverin alone, wouldn’t challenge him in front of the pride. But he would make sure they had something to eat that night.

  When they reached a good height, Kjorn drifted close to a younger gryfon of copper-brown coloring.

  “Einarr,” he said over the wind.

  “My prince.” The young gryfon had a mate to feed and a family so shamed by a number of exiles that he would never speak up against the king. He also wouldn’t betray his prince.

  “Take two hunters with you back to Sun Isle.”

  “My lord?” Einarr’s wide eyes tried to catch Kjorn’s, and his wings tensed. Kjorn glared forward.

  “We need meat. The caribou will be low, feeding in the foothills of the White Mountains. Hunt along the Nightrun and take your kills back to the nesting cliffs.”

  “But your father—”

  “You’re only obeying me.” Kjorn looked firmly at him. “My father’s hunger for vengeance can’t overshadow even his need for meat.”

  Relief tainted by fear filled Einarr’s face. “Yes, my lord.”

  He keened two names into the wind, his own mate and another huntress. They angled in an arrow starward—the direction so named for a star that shone at a fixed point in that quarter of the sky. A bank of low-lying clouds covered the mountain range on the starward edge of the Sun Isle.

  Caj glided in on Kjorn’s side. “That was well done, my lord.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Kjorn muttered.

  “You must still talk to your father.”

  “I know.” He glanced away, staring over the length of the Sun Isle to the mountains that crowned its starward edge. The brief, bleak thought of his wingbrother Shard crowded his mind. Former wingbrother.

  Shard was dead. He had fallen into the sea.

  After betraying me.

  Kjorn keened a warrior cry into the wind and led his hunters to the great, wooded Star Island.

  3

  Autumn Omens

  The vision had a familiar scent to it now, hot wind and strange, tangy plants. Pillars of red rock crowned a sunlit plain. He strained to follow a dark gryfon who soared in a cloudless blue, a bolt of skyfire in his claws.

  “Father!”

  But the gryfon wasn’t his father, and didn’t answer. Beyond the range of the vision he felt disappointment. This had been his father’s vision. It was not his own. It was nothing new.

  Wind like waves surged and pulled him back to stare ahead at what the vision offered him.

  In the distance, a jagged range of mountains beckoned. One peak soared high above the rest, covered in snow, jutting like a fang against the sky.

  Then, to Shard’s amazement, something happened that hadn’t, before.

  A sound.

  A song floated from the snow-covered mountain, in a voice unlike any other creature he’d heard–at the same time like a lark, and a hawk, fierce and beautiful and far away.

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

  Not even the owl could say,

  whether first comes the song or the dark…”

  “Who are you?” Shard cried. The song silenced. The question echoed back to him from the rocks, as if the singer wondered the same about him. “Who are you?” Shard called again. “Where? Did you know my father? Am I supposed to find you?”

  “Which fades last, the birdsong, or the day—”

  A shadow blinded him. A huge, leathery, veined wing knocked him from the sky, and everything fell dark. A deep, instinctive fear grasped Shard’s heart and he twisted violently away from the beast that attacked him.

  Wind woke him, howling against the mountain peak. Shard rolled to all fours and stared around, beak open in a pant. His muscles cramped and locked and he sank back to his belly in the snow.

  The owl, watching, tilted her head around. As if it were a spring day and he’d only taken a nap, she fluffed her spotted feathers. “Did you find what you sought, young prince?”

  Shard switched his tail back and forth. Exhausted, hungry and cold despite his warm autumn down, he grew gloomy at her question. “I don’t know. I sought a vision the way the wolves do.”

  “Yet you are not a wolf.”

  “No, but I thought…I thought it would help.”

  “And did it?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, and she tilted her head around in the opposite direction. “I saw my father’s vision again.” He felt foolish telling her, but she was the only one there, the only one who seemed interested in what he wanted to do. Stigr had his own plans. Catori and her family seemed convinced the gods would show him the way and he had only to wait. He knew he had waited too long.

  “Twice now, then,” the owl chirped. “Once in the summer, and now. Does that not make it your own vision?”

  Shard hadn’t considered that. Wind shivered past, though most of it was blocked by the last bit of mountain rising above them. “Does it? He told me that he died because he’d tried to fulfill his second vision, his vision of peace in the Silver Isles, without following the first.”

  The owl just watched him, yellow eyes deep and waiting, until he answered his own question.

  “Then I must fulfill his vision before I do anything else.”

  “If you think it right,” answered the owl.

  Shard flattened his ears and glared. “That doesn’t help! The last time I did what I thought was right, I was wrong both times and wolves and gryfons died for it. Is the vision sent by Tyr and Tor?”

  “You are a living Vanir,” she said. “Your own ties to the living earth and the sky and the things happening now should tell you what to do. Not a vision of a dead gryfon, great Baldr or no, or any god, or anyone but yourself.”

  “That’s—ridiculous!” Shard’s head reeled and he regretted his long days of fasting. Surely he would think better with some fish in his belly. “Where do the visions come from, if not Tyr and Tor? Ravens? The wind? I want to do the right thing! I want to do as they intend the Summer King to do, but you tell me only do what I think is right?”

  Again she blinked as if surprised, and ashamed heat flushed his face. I’m taking out my anger on her, and she only came to help. He lowered his head, mumbling an apology.

  “Prince of the Vanir. Chosen of Tor. Summer King.” She intoned all the names and with each one Shard first felt smaller, then more determined. “If Tor stood before you now, what do you think she would tell you to do?”

  His talons clenched. Tor herself? How could I know?

  But some part of him did know. A whisper in his own heart suggested, and he answered the owl out loud.

  “To…” he sighed. “To do as I think is right.”

  Her eyes squinted in a kind expression and she fluffed her feathers. “I think so, too. And perhaps visions do not come from the gods. Perhaps they come, indeed, from ravens who hear all to tell great Tyr at world’s end. Perhaps from the wind, and the sky and the sea and the rocks beneath your claws. Heed and weigh and make your choices.”

  “What if it’s the wrong choice?”

  She hooted and opened her wings. “Oh, gray prince, I see that you aren’t afraid, perhaps, to do the right thing, but that you want more information, bef
ore you make a decision?”

  Relief made him fold his wings again. “Yes. More information. Not a vision. Not a riddle. If I tell Stigr of my father’s vision again he’ll only argue that the fight is here. If I have more to add to it—”

  “Then follow.” She hopped up and hovered, wings round and silent over his head. “You try to serve many masters. Your father’s spirit, your uncle, your own heart. I know one who may help, for he hears the word of the wind, and he longs for the peace between gryfons and other great beasts of the land that endured while the Vanir hunted from the sea.”

  That was new to Shard. The only other great beast of the land he knew had been the boar king Lapu of the Star Isle, slain in Shard and Kjorn’s initiation hunt.

  “A storm comes, my prince. Let us go seek my old friend, who should be a friend to you.”

  Shard dragged to his feet, flinching when aches lanced every muscle, bounded twice and jumped roughly into the air. Recalling his last disastrous flight around the mountain, he held his wings tense, alert for rogue gusts and more snow.

  The white owl led him in a low, spiraling flight along the swirling gusts, skirting the canyon between the peaks to sail down the steep, icy face of rock and snow toward the foothills.

  Shard took a breath, feeling easier away from the unpredictable winds of the peak. He tucked his talons into his chest feathers and let his wings relax.

  Slender pines thrust up like splinters below and boulders and barren fields laced the lower slopes. The forests grew thicker the lower they flew. The movement of small animals caught Shard’s eye and his belly clawed, but he followed the ways of the old Vanir. He took his food from the sea, and didn’t hunt on land, unless with the wolves. And he didn’t want to lose the owl, curious where she meant to lead him. He scoffed at himself.

  A fine prince of the Vanir I am, hoping an owl can show me what to do.

  Then again, perhaps she was impressed by his coming there. Perhaps she wouldn’t have come at all if he’d remained, indecisive, in the safe forest of the Star Isle. Twice now the owl had helped him—he wondered what he might owe her in the end.

  The storm she spoke of roiled on top of the mountain. The weather moved so swiftly there. Shard was used to seeing weather for leagues out and having time to take cover.

  Movement in the trees caught his attention again. A herd of caribou stood alert as Shard’s shadow flickered over them, then as one, broke into a run toward the wooded hills. Shard watched them run and his belly snarled again—but even if he hadn’t vowed against hunting on land, taking a fully grown caribou alone would be too dangerous.

  Snow disappeared as they reached the foothills. Mud and dying grass and golden birch sprinkled among the evergreen pines and their scent rose into the wind. The scent of autumn.

  The owl banked to begin a graceful descent and Shard followed. He admired her flight and tried to think how old she must be. She’d once said she was a friend of his father. He didn’t know how long owls lived.

  Shard snapped to attention as they flew lower, careful not to crash into the looming pines. The scent of the Nightrun River wafted to him and he breathed deeply, smelling rich autumn, fermenting leaves, damp earth and frost in the air. Normally the weather wouldn’t trouble him, for he was fit from easy fishing and had the fine, soft winter down of the Vanir growing in for winter. After his quest on the mountain top though, the snow had soaked his feathers and he shivered against the chill.

  The owl dipped down into the trees. Shard looked for a wider opening between the pines and dropped down to land on the cushion of needles and yellowing ferns. He turned to see the owl perched in a tree. She gave a warbling, whistle-call into the forest. First like a bird sound, and then like a word. A-oh…

  “Aodh!”

  A shiver glided down Shard’s spine to his feathered tail.

  It wasn’t a word. It was a name. He was sure of it. Mist drifted through the woods from the river.

  “Behold!” called the owl. Shard turned, lifting his ears.

  A caribou strode forward through the mist, velvet ears angled toward Shard. Instinctively, Shard backed three steps away, intimidated by his sheer size.

  At the shoulder he stood twice as tall as a gryfon and his antlers branched up and swept back in a massive crown like a rowan tree. The long winter coat held no trace of soft brown, only silver and gray.

  Shard didn’t question the owl, only bowed low, mantling his gray wings in a gesture of respect.

  “Prince of the Sun Isle,” greeted the caribou. Shard was accustomed only to the voices of wolves and gryfons and birds. This creature’s voice lilted, light and oddly musical, like the long whistles of young bucks in earlier autumn. At Shard’s look of surprise that the caribou knew him he added, “You have your father’s look about you. It has been many years since a gryfon sought our company.” Eyes as deep and dark as a winter night met Shard’s, and he knew the caribou wasn’t afraid.

  “I’ve waited for you.”

  4

  The Prince Hunts

  Kjorn focused on remaining still, though every nerve vibrated at crouching so close to the herd of fresh, warm, oblivious red deer. His mate crouched in perfect stillness beside him, irritation flooding from her in waves so strong Kjorn could smell it.

  “My mate,” Kjorn chanced, barely above the volume of breath, intending to ask her what was wrong. His belly snarled and he winced when a doe lifted her head, soft ears swinging to and fro. Thyra twitched. Thyra, daughter-of-Caj, Kjorn’s chosen mate and future queen, had a presence that usually made Kjorn feel strong and secure—except when she was angry with him.

  That time, her anger was not at him.

  “Fools,” she breathed after another moment, glaring across the field and through the herd of deer toward where Halvden and other males crouched. Sunlight glanced off their gauntlets, chains and other dragon-made trinkets. Favors from the king. “I told them not to wear those.”

  “They’re only showing off.”

  “And every wolf within a league will smell gold or ruby, or see a flash of light that is not from sun on a stream.” Thyra’s feathers, pale lavender and subtle, blended decently with the forest shadows. It was only in bright sunlight that they showed the faintest iridescent blue. “Do they think the wolves are fools?”

  Kjorn tightened his own bright wings, wishing they’d left hunting to the females, or at least that they’d left Halvden on the Sun Isle.

  Suddenly the herd broke. Whether it was their own whispers, something the males across the field did or another, unknown sense, the deer scattered, bounding toward the tree line.

  Thyra swore. “Mudding—Kenna, Birgit, fly, to me—!”

  She shot forward before Kjorn could move, and two huntresses met her in the field, all targeting the same old stag. In awe, Kjorn watched the other females leap out in well-orchestrated clumps, felling deer as neatly as if it had all been planned. He ran out from his hiding spot, shouting, to at least frighten deer back into the field when they scattered toward the woods.

  His father wouldn’t be pleased, but the trap was ruined anyway. No wolves would come, the deer would flee, and so they might as well have a meal.

  Four deer fell before the rest of the herd escaped. Caj barreled up to Kjorn from a far corner of the field like a thunderhead.

  “What happened?”

  “The honored prince was talking,” drawled Halvden as he trotted up to join them. “I could hear him across the field.”

  “Silence,” Kjorn ordered, lifting his wings and giving Halvden a single hiss of warning. “More likely it was your armor that spooked them. Never wear it on a hunt again.”

  Halvden’s eyes narrowed. “My lord, the king has given me—”

  “You argue with your prince?” Caj demanded, tail slashing through the high grass. “Be still. Know your place. If you can’t hunt properly, I’ll make sure Sverin has you flying patrols over Pebble’s Throw.”

  “Go,” Kjorn said to Halvden, relieved for
Caj’s support. “Help butcher the kills.”

  Halvden’s gaze darted between them, then, without a word or a bow, he spun and shouted orders for dividing he meat. The females gave him cursory looks, all of them more experienced than he.

  “He needs to learn how anyway,” Caj muttered, watching the green gryfon darkly. “If he expects to feed his mate this winter.”

  “And he should,” Kjorn said. “If Kenna gets hungry, I think it’s him she’ll take a bite out of.”

  Caj chuckled and then ruffled his feathers, looking grim. “Your father won’t be pleased.”

  A breeze smelling of sweet, dying grass and the sea brushed Kjorn’s face. He thought he caught another, musty smell, but if it was a wolf, it was far away or old. “I’ll speak to him.”

  Caj appraised him. “Good. I know you think it’s my duty, Kjorn, but it’s not.” The old warrior watched him frankly. “It’s yours. He’s your father. It will be your pride. If there’s a wrong, it’s yours to right.”

  Kjorn inclined his head, not irritated that time. It was true enough, and Caj stood beside him against Halvden.

  But I wonder, whose duty was it to set Shard right, before he got himself killed? Caj, his nest-father? Or mine? Or all of us?

  The smallest and easiest part of him to dismiss wondered, in the end, if Shard had actually been wrong.

  “What about Halvden?” Kjorn asked quietly.

  “He’s just showing off. A braggart.” Caj fluffed his feathers again. “Shamed by his mother leaving and his father’s death. Winter will cool him. I should make sure he’s doing properly over there.”

  He bowed to Kjorn, and turned away to check that Halvden was being fair in the division of meat. Kjorn remained where he was, watching them, standing guard at the tree line. There were more predators than wolves in the forests of Star Isle, though he doubted any would interfere with a gryfon hunt.

  The musky scent came again, then the whisk of movement in the brush.

  Kjorn whirled, his breath catching.

  The bright autumn woods didn’t help him, despite his sharp vision. The forest lay still but alive, tricking him with light and shadow. Leaves became birds and tree trunks became wolves and shadows became ravens, all laughing, silently, as he strained and stared through the trees.