The torment of Leslyn’s early morning shock continued well into the day. He was left to imagine the worst, for Koben failed to show his face at the Aerie at all before the recruits were scheduled to head out to the field for training.

Knuckles still aching from their collision with Kaleit’s face, he joined the others in releasing the keets from their enclosures, both looking forward to and dreading the coming distraction. He stopped by Phoebe’s pen, saddened at the sight of her craning her head and frantically pacing back and forth in front of her gate, calling to her departing siblings and searching in vain for Erin. There would be no training for the blue keet that day.

In contrast to the disorganized exit on their first day of basic training, all of the keets were well-behaved now, staying with their masters wherever they went. The moment they were outside and their feet touched the grass of the field, however, it was pure free-for-all. The young griffins raced ahead of their manling partners with their wings stretched wide, a joyous stampede toward freedom.

Now almost fully feathered out, many of them ventured to leap into the air, flapping frenetically. The majority just came right back down in awkward running landings, but a few with lighter bodies and longer wings, like Zabor, managed a choppy glide nearly all the way to where a laughing General Xavara waited for them.

Try as he might, Leslyn couldn’t smile at the sight. A glance at Kaleit showed the youth was still unusually sober as well, but he could not mask the spark of pride at his black naturally outshining so many of his siblings.

Trailing behind all of the other griffins was little Valiant, toddling on his hind legs quite a bit less gracefully and without more than a single attempt at making use of his still half-feathered wings. While his siblings were visibly lengthening into lanky impressions of adult griffins, he'd retained the round shape of an infant, and all the awkwardness that went with it. Perhaps it was his own emotions coloring his interpretation, but Leslyn was convinced that Val was embarrassed and sulking by the time they’d caught up with the rest, feathers pressed flat against his body and head sunk into his shoulders in a vulture-like hunch.

“A shame that your griffins are more excited about training than the lot of you,” the general teased the recruits as they arrived, face stern but voice warm. “I wish all of my soldiers were so enthusiastic as they are.” Her critiquing eyes fell on the moping Valiant, but she kindly refrained from commenting. “All right, recruits. Group up and run your formations. I mean that plainly. If I catch anyone walking today, you'll be shoveling griffin apartments.”

After a series of quick conversations or hand gesture games to choose their captains, the recruits commanded their young griffins to come with them and get into position.

As the others instantly moved to obey, Valiant remained where he was, his ears briefly rising at his master’s voice, then turning to lay flat against his head. Instead of heeding Leslyn’s second and third calls, he sat down, letting his wings hang limply to either side.

Leslyn went back to the yellow keet and knelt beside him, bending to either side as he checked for anything that might suggest an illness. Val just looked at him as he felt for injuries and examined his ears and face, an unusual heaviness in the griffin’s piercing blue eyes. By the time the general’s shadow fell over them, Leslyn had already realized what was happening.

“Valiant is telling us that it’s time," Xavara said, quietly enough to spare them from the hearing of the other recruits. "Forcing him to continue when he’s clearly unable to keep up with his siblings is just going to sour him. He’ll see any challenge as impossible, and lose his will to work at all.”

The other keets were in formation and running across the field while switching positions at their captains’ bidding. At least one group was going so fast that they'd gotten out of control and their masters were scrambling to catch up with them. There was no way Valiant could have held his own among them.

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The youth cupped the griffin’s muzzle in his hand, gently stroking his thumb across Valiant’s cheek.

Leaning into the comforting touch, the keet closed his eyes and let out a sad, flagging trill.

“I knew it was coming," he said. "I just didn’t expect it to be so soon. We've only barely gotten started.”

"You can still participate in appropriate lessons as they crop up, but sit these formation practices out from now on." Xavara put her hands on her hips, briefly checked on the performance of the rest of the recruits, then turned back to the dejected pair. “Leslyn, I won’t offer you any false hope, but if Valiant does manage to grow well enough given more time, you two can attempt basic again along with Wrath’s next clutch. I’ll leave the decision up to you, if and when the time comes.”

"Thank you, General," he answered, hoping she would be satisfied with that and leave them be. To his relief, she nodded and went back to monitoring the active recruits.

They were still sitting there, Leslyn with his legs folded and Valiant's head draped across his lap, when the others broke for a rest.

Arlis trotted over with red Larx and plopped down in the tall grass beside Leslyn, still breathing hard from all the running. "Can't wait... until we can fly… instead," the boy panted. He leaned back on his palms, the pale skin on his face and arms glistening with sweat. "I saw you sitting when we came back the other way. Is Val sick?"

Leslyn shook his head.

“No? Then why—oh.” The boy looked back and forth between Valiant and the much larger Larx, who was one of the largest keets in the clutch, then his doe-like eyes widened with the dawn of understanding. “I’m sorry,” were his emphatic words to Leslyn as he sat up and took the older youth’s hand.

The well of emotion overflowed for a brief moment, involuntarily twisting a corner of Leslyn’s mouth before he laughed it back down and patted the boy’s hand with deliberate amusement. “Thanks, Arlis,” he said, smiling kindly as he gently extricated his own hand from the other's grasp. “We’ll be all right. We all knew this would happen from day one.”

“It still hurts,” Arlis said, looking at his own keet. He then looked to his mother, the general, his brows knitting dolefully. “It hurts a lot. The waiting makes it even worse.”

Leslyn recalled a conversation between Nilvar’s leaders from some months ago, where his and Valiant’s fates had been discussed. Arlis’ age had also been a topic of their heated meeting, him being two years too young to legally take on a keet and subsequently be drafted into the Guard. General Xavara had made it very clear then that she expected her son to be held back from the draft until he came of age, no matter how well he and Larx performed during basic training.

When he realized Arlis’ meaning, Leslyn leaned over and bumped the boy’s shoulder with his own. “Perhaps Val will have grown as big as Larx by your eighteenth year, and we can graduate to the Guard together.”

Clutching his shoulder with an automatic frown of surprise, he looked at Leslyn for a few bewildered seconds before a delighted grin broke out. “I wish we could. All fifteen of us together—even Kaleit and Effran.” Something suddenly occurred to him, and Arlis looked around, searching the scattered griffin-rider pairs. “Hey, where are Erin and Phoebe? Aren’t they here?”

“I’m not sure where Erin is,” Leslyn said truthfully. He had a few ideas, though. None of them were good, and all of them involved the merling, Coyrifan. Either him directly, or else punishments for creeping off to speak with him. There was no need to scare Arlis with those suspicions, though, so he left it at that.

“I hope she’s not sneaking around again,” the boy said, plucking at a piece of grass. “I’d hate to see her get in trouble for skipping training.”

Leslyn barely got his hand up in time to cover a startled snort. Clearly, Erin was fooling no one. Not even innocent Arlis.

“Break’s over, recruits,” General Xavara’s voice rang out. “Back to formations!”

Arlis got up and ran off to continue training with Larx, leaving Leslyn alone with his thoughts. Idly stroking Valiant’s back, he quickly drifted to worrying about Erin again. Wherever she is, let her be safe, he thought, trying not to picture her anywhere dark and full of water.

Once again, he marveled with a fair horror at how easily she’d fallen to the merling’s siren call. Coyrifan might not have been physically present, but he’d still managed to influence her continuously through her moonstone necklace, and likely that cursed metal slab as well.

With a silent gasp, Leslyn sat straight up, his hand fallen still on Valiant’s head.

Wherever she’d gone or been taken, did she have her messenger bag—and all of its contents—with her?

He looked across the field to Kaleit, the only person he could think of who would know and who was not in a position of leadership. There was no other choice, if Leslyn wanted to find out for sure.

That was going to be a conversation he was not looking forward to.