The morning wake-up call came much too early, while it was still dark out and in the form of a housekeeper who was clearly unfamiliar with the stable, struggling to get the door open and then walking in with her elbows in the air, as if trying to avoid getting germs on her clothes.

Erin was so groggy that she only saw the woman as a vaguely human-shaped blob for the brief moments she was able to hold her eyes open against the illumination of the lamp the housekeeper carried, as the one in the stable had burnt out some time during the night. Just that small amount of light felt like toothpicks stabbing her eyes. She buried her face into her arm with a groan.

“Sorry to wake you, but the captain has asked that I pass along his order immediately: For your safety, you’re not to attend the public report in town. You're not to leave the manor at all today.”

That suited Erin just fine. She had no desire to move at all, much less to go stand there on display while Nilvar’s leaders threw her and the others under the bus to appease a busybody like Rittan. She would have slept all day long, had she not been pointlessly interrupted. She curled up a little tighter inside her blankets, already drifting off again.

Phoebe.

Erin jerked halfway up with a loud sniff of air through her nose as she mostly came to. “Waddabou Feeb?” she slurred.

“Pardon?”

“Phoebe. My griffin. I have to feed her.” Already, awareness of a terrible full-body ache was setting in, making it more and more painful to move at all with each passing second. Erin had never worked so hard in her life as she had the day before, and she was definitely feeling it.

“Oh, the keet? Someone will take care of her, in your absence. Zabor too, of course,” she said to Kaleit.

In the middle of scrubbing her itchy, puffy, post-weep eyelids with a palm, Erin froze. She’d completely forgotten that he was there.

She heard the soft, retreating footsteps of the housekeeper, then the scrape of the stable door being closed.

“Yes, you look absolutely grotesque,” Kaleit said. “Not only are your eyelids hideously distended, but your hair looks like four barn rats had a fight in it.”

It was automatic. Erin instantly began combing her fingers through her hair, panicking over her looks in a way that only a girl in her late teens could. When she glanced up, though, she stopped. “You don’t look so great, yourself,” she noted.

If her eyes were “distended,” then his one eye alone was about to earn its own zip code. The dark purple flesh around it had swollen up so badly that he couldn’t even open it. He still sat on the floor about a yard a way, glaring at her as best he could with one eye.

Erin winced. “You should put some ice on that.”

“Ice?” He sneered. “That would be a luxury indeed. I’ve never even seen it before.”

“What?” Bracing an elbow on the rolled-up saddle blanket that served as her pillow, Erin struggled to clear the traces of drowsiness from her brain and figure out where she’d gone wrong. “Do you mean there’s no winter here?”

“No. There isn’t.” His good eye narrowed. “What far-distant place do you come from, where it gets cold enough that one can go out and gather ice on a whim?”

“Landonville,” she blurted, sure she had it right. A moment later, a twinge of doubt convinced her that it wasn’t the same made-up town name she’d given Koben, once upon a time on his ship, and then again, more than a week later in Wrath’s apartment.

Oh… Kaleit was there that time. She hoped that he didn’t remem—

“You’re lying.” He got up and proceeded to look down on her, crossing his arms. “You said you came from Lutendel. You’ve been lying ever since you got here. That means Leslyn must be, too. I knew it.”

“No he’s not!” Erin jumped up, feet scattering a mess of straw from her rumpled bed and startling the horses to fidgeting in their stalls. “And I’m not! Look, maybe my memory’s a little fuzzy—”

“Clearly, you’re conniving together. You cling to him even in public, as if you’re a married couple.” His nostril took on a judgmental wrinkle. “I’ve suspected as much for some time, now.”

“What—ew!” Erin jerked backward in pure, scandalized horror. “He’s my uncle!” She realized her mistake instantly, and waved her palms at Kaleit. “I mean, no, he’s not. But I thought he was.” She pressed a hand over her mouth, then moved it up to her forehead, trying to ward off a sudden headache. “Can we please end this conversation?”

Kaleit’s mouth was frozen in a twist of impatience and confusion, but at her one-hundred-percent-done-with-this request, it melted into a vexatious smirk. “Oh, no. This little revelation absolutely requires an explanation.”

If half of his face wasn’t completely uglified by that black eye, Erin might have been moved by that utterly uncivil smile, which had exactly zero right to be as pretty as it was, but luckily for her, any power it might have had was sapped. “So, we’ve established that I’m new to Flood season,” she said, head and shoulders sagging as the pain and exhaustion suddenly returned in full again. “Are we going to have very many days like yesterday?”

The corners of the smirk dropped sharply downward. “Probably not. Wyverns have a very large territory, so it might be years, if not generations before another one moves in. The dracats, on the other hand, are numerous and come from many different islands. We’re like to see them at least once or twice a week until the waters recede and their natural prey repopulate sufficiently.”

Erin groaned, cupping her still-burning eyes. “This is not what I signed up for.”

“You signed up for it the moment you accepted Wrath’s invitation and gift,” Kaleit said, tone suddenly cold as that ice they’d talked about earlier. He’d put his hands on his hips and was glaring with his one normal-looking eye. “By the way, while I’m graciously letting it be for now due to your clearly tender sensibilities, you’ll still owe me that explanation.”

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“Whatever you say, Captain,” Erin retorted, in too much pain to filter just then.

The slam of the stable door made both the girl and the horses flinch.

----------------------------------------

Five weeks and as many dracat attacks later, Erin and the other recruits finally had a day off to truly kick back and relax. In the afternoon, she sat on a bench in a hedged garden she'd found while mindlessly wandering Tannoran’s manor grounds, delving into the information contained on her apparently-magic tablet and munching on an apple that came with the late lunch the housekeeper had given her—all the while complaining that “ward-sitting” wasn't part of her job.

The details of Phoebe's profile on the Emerrane wiki were fascinating. Not only did they include a list of the visible genetics that would determine the griffin’s adult color and markings, but also percentages that determined how likely she would be to pass them on to her future keets.

Her blue "base" color was very rare, and was a "dilution" of the black base coat. The color had a three percent chance of passing if Phoebe's mate was black, or ten percent if he was blue, like she was. It could not pass at all with a brown- or tan-based mate.

That meant Phoebe's father, Wrath's last mate while she nested on the distant forest island, was most likely a common black griffin.

Wrath had just recently chosen the Aeriemaster's griffin, white Sythe, to father her next clutch, which consisted of twelve chocolate-box eggs. Having no idea where white lay on the griffin color spectrum, Erin couldn’t guess what might come out of their pairing. She decided she'd take both of their photos next chance she got, and see if their profiles would appear on the wiki.

The research had been a nice escape from the aches and pains and the constantly-revolving memories from the battles Erin had survived thus far, but of course it didn’t last. At least she was beginning to get used to it, and her body was growing noticeably stronger with each beating it took on dracat days. The nightmares were still a huge pain, though.

Thankfully, Tannoran had let her back into her own room a few days after the initial banishment from the house to the stable. She took no small amount of pleasure in the fact that it took him two whole weeks to do the same for Kaleit. He also still had to use a guest room when he was finally allowed back in the house. So much for that “rightful citizenship” he was so proud of.

A deep, eagle-like screech and what sounded like a small flock’s worth of wingbeats heralded Tannoran’s return to the manor, obviously with some friends in tow. Erin got up to see who’d come, and was surprised to see Prince Koben on red Romo touching down in the courtyard alongside the captain and his black griffin. There was also a soldier on another black griffin coming in to land behind them.

When Koben leaned over to adjust something on his saddle, Arlis was there, seated behind him. From where she stood, Erin could see a knee poking out from behind the boy, belonging to someone obviously smaller than him. Arlis, too, leaned to see what his cousin was doing, revealing the third person who sat upon Romo. As she’d expected, it was Leslyn.

Erin naturally gravitated toward them, giving both the captain and the prince a wide berth as they dismounted. Just being around Koben made her anxious, knowing that he was still holding onto the secret of whatever “appropriate” punishment he and the other leaders had planned for her, Leslyn, Arlis and Kaleit, but not knowing when he actually planned to spring it upon them. Perhaps they meant to use the element of surprise to make it even worse than it needed to be.

Once the older men had gone off toward the house, leaving the soldier to wait, Erin went right up to Romo, craning her head to look up at the two boys on his back.

“Hey Arlis,” she said with a small wave.

“Hello,” he replied, matching her wave. “I checked on Phoebe before we left. She asked me to let her out to play, but she had to settle for some cheek-scratches instead.”

“Those are definitely her favorite,” Erin said with a chuckle. She and Arlis had never really interacted much in the beginning, but she’d been getting along pretty well with him since that first battle, when they agreed on letting Wrath help with the fighting. By contrast, “Hi,” was all she said to Leslyn.

“Hi,” Leslyn said back.

Awkwardly, they looked away from each other, just as Kaleit came across the courtyard toward them. He glanced up at Leslyn, then twitched an eyebrow suggestively at Erin—like he’d been doing whenever he caught them anywhere near each other. As usual since that annoying habit began, she just curled her lip and rolled her eyes.

Kaleit still hadn’t cornered her for that explanation about their odd relationship that he’d demanded and that she dreaded to try to give, still unsure how to avoid bringing anything about her old life on Earth into it. Erin suspected the delay on his end was because he was having way too much fun with this new method of torment to let it be spoiled by what might actually turn out to be a sensible explanation. At least he hadn’t tried to spread any rumors, thanks to his stupid ego over keeping that tenuous hold on his own personal honor, or whatever.

Erin was glad when he passed right on by, calling up to the soldier on the other griffin. "Yenner, good to see you. What uninspiring task has my father conned you into today?"

"Transport," the man answered with a flat-sounding sigh. "On a positive note, as I understand it, you're on the cargo manifest."

"Me?"

"The girl, too," he said, gesturing toward Erin. A thrill of anxiety immediately started her stomach to withering. Was today the big day she'd been dreading, then?

"You already know more about this trip than I do, and I’m Koben’s squire." Still sitting behind Arlis, Leslyn had turned in the saddle to look at the soldier, eyes narrowing with suspicion. "Where are we going?"

"Sorry." He shrugged. "That's all I've got."

"We're going to the ocean," Arlis volunteered. "Koben told me earlier this morning to get my rowing muscles ready."

"The ocean? During Flood?" Kaleit observed the boy with a tolerant patience. "The water should be teeming with merlings and their seabeasts this time of year.”

“It’s what he said,” he insisted.

The tall one shared a look with his soldier friend Yenner, the two of them wearing faint smirks. “Think about it, Arlis. Would your cousin really risk your life—and all of ours—doing something so stupid?"

Normally soft and wide, the boy's eyes seemed to darken and a faint blush of outrage tinged his skin. "You should be careful how you speak about your prince."

"Well, maybe he should be more careful—"

Frowning, Arlis spoke over him with a quiet, controlled voice until Kaleit realized it and went silent. “If Koben does something that seems stupid, then it must be very important. You’d do well to trust him, like I do."

It had sounded like a fairly gentle reprimand, but coming from mild-mannered Arlis, it was downright savage. Erin hid a grin behind her hand.

Kaleit closed his mouth and smiled, but it was the forced, lemon-sucking snake-smile of someone who was definitely imagining a far less courteous response in his head. Even with that bounteous arrogance of his, he didn’t dare voice such thoughts to a member of the royal family.

Just then, Koben and Tannoran came back from the house, making their way over to the waiting trio of griffins.

"I still can't believe Xavara agreed to this," Tannoran said, glancing up at the doe-eyed boy on Romo's back.

The prince shrugged. "What can I say? It seems she's finally beginning to accept the fact that she'll have to let Arlis come into his own at some point."

"This is certainly a fine way to go about it." The captain's dubious tone made it clear that he felt quite the opposite.

In the middle of a brief but animated conversation with Leslyn, Arlis was blissfully unaware of their comments. Erin heard, though. She had a lot of trouble picturing him ever growing up. Ignoring his near-adult size and build, she thought he looked and sometimes even acted kind of like a kid.

Just how old was he? He was supposed to be too young to have a griffin, so he had to be less than eighteen. Wait... Leslyn had said something about a year too young, give or take a few months... Sixteen, seventeen? She would have guessed fourteen or fifteen, going off his face alone. It was weird, realizing that they might be closer in age than she thought.

"Right," Koben said, clasping his hands together with a loud clap, startling everyone to attention. With a sly smile that did not at all reassure Erin, he scanned his four soon-to-be victims. "Which of you renegades here knows how to swim?"