The tablet was just shy of twenty percent by the time the city of Nilvar came into view, standing high upon an immense hill. She might have squeezed another percent or two out of the last leg of the trip, but Erin put the electronics away early to avoid any surprises, such as one of the many griffin riders she could see up in the sky dropping down to observe or talk. It was just as well, for clouds had started to coalesce overhead.
Some of the griffins were solo or in small groups, flying aimlessly for pleasure, but there were several dozens of the beasts forming a tight diamond shape that sliced through the sky, their wingtips nearly touching with every flap. Most had plain pelts in shades of light tan to red to black, but a few were brightly saturated, striped, spotted, or reflected back iridescence as they passed through stray shafts of pure sunlight. Erin shielded her eyes and gazed up at them with a joyous beam. They looked so much more beautiful in the flesh than they ever could have in the flat, stylized pixels on her screen.
She sneaked a hopeful peek around Koben at Leslyn, but he appeared to be unaware of the majestic creatures that filled the sky, staring morosely ahead toward the settlement. She swallowed a pang of frustration, hiding it behind a grin when Koben glanced her way.
Their wagon rattled into town with a fair number of riders wheeling their mounts overhead to get a good look at the live cargo. They gathered quite a curious following on foot as well, but Koben didn’t stop until a boy ran over and nearly climbed up into the cage with Wrath.
Erin and Leslyn both stood and emitted startled cries, but the big man seemed completely unperturbed by the youth’s foolish behavior. He stepped down from his seat and strode over to ruffle the boy’s hair. Something about the young fellow’s broad shape and stance spoke of a family resemblance when they were standing together, though their faces were quite different. Koben’s eyes were light and sly, while the boy’s were dark and innocent. Similarly, the man was golden-haired, and the boy’s hair was dark enough to appear black in the shadow of the griffin’s blue bulk.
“Good to see you, Arlis,” Koben said, but the boy only had eyes for Wrath.
Arlis faced her without fear, his snub nose inches from the beak nearing his own size that protruded through the bars of the cage. “A hemoth?” he asked.
“No, she’s just a very big girl.”
The griffin’s ears were pinned back, her head tilted slightly as she gazed back at Arlis. Erin could hear a faint rumble coming from the beast. It had a definite note of warning in it, but the boy seemed not to notice. He was staring at the trunks of eggs. “To the Aeriemaster,” he said, his urgent voice cracking to a lower tone halfway through. “Now, Koben. The keets are moving. They could start hatching any time.”
The blond man gaped for a moment, then hurried to reclaim his seat on the wagon. As he leaped up between Erin and Leslyn, he took a shoulder each and made them sit with a firm push.
Erin plopped onto the bench with an audible oof, and abruptly found herself snugly pressed between Koben on one side and Arlis on the other. The boy was not only broad of shoulder, he was also taller than she’d expected, falling just about her own height while they were seated. With those doe-like eyes she could clearly see from that close, Erin couldn’t decide whether he was an unusually big kid, or someone closer to her own age with some serious baby face going on. He seemed important—why hadn’t he ever appeared in her dreams before?
The wagon went forward with a lurch as Koben slapped the reins on the horses’ rumps, startling them into a quick trot and making his passengers cling to their seats for dear life. He urged the animals to a faster pace, cupped a hand to his mouth, and shouted to all within hearing to stay out of the way. Erin found herself wishing dearly for a seatbelt as their speed continued to increase, making the cobblestone road seem more and more bumpy with each second.
Wrath let out a snarl when they took a tight turn, the wagon and its heavy cargo tilting dangerously. Erin’s stomach turned and she instinctively grabbed for something to hold on to. That turned out to be Arlis’ arm.
Their eyes met. He blinked at the girl, then yanked himself free.
He was gone from his seat so quickly that Erin feared she’d done something wrong, but then she realized the wagon had come to a stop, and Koben and Leslyn had also instantly sprung down. More than a dozen men quickly converged on the cage with them, and in minutes they were in the process of moving Wrath out of her cage and into the Aerie with ropes and chains. The trunks of eggs were carefully lifted by four men apiece and brought up the rear. Arlis ran ahead, disappearing somewhere inside the massive structure.
As she walked toward the Aerie’s entrance, Erin looked up in awe at the large, dome-shaped enclosure that rose up from behind the building. It was a flight cage, a giant version of what she’d seen in zoos, made of thick metal beams and bars built into and around a natural rock formation. It had to be at least two hundred feet in circumference, both length and height. The average griffin had a twenty-foot wingspan, so they wouldn’t be able to fly very fast, but it was enough space to take some leisurely air-laps or fly up to rest on the platforms that had been carved into the existing rock.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Inside, the Aerie was clearly built with its inhabitants in mind, with high ceilings, wide walkways and strong sliding metal doors with equally strong locks to secure each apartment. The scent of straw and manure was fairly strong, but not bad enough to be disgusting. From what she could see, each apartment appeared quite clean, and all the griffins who stood to attention at Wrath’s passing seemed perfectly healthy, save for some mostly-healed injuries on a few. Who’ve they been fighting? she wondered. Each other?
Speaking of Wrath, she was surprisingly cooperative, only pausing to warble at her eggs or when she seemed unsure of where to go next. Following the others at a safe distance, Erin watched the process and understood that the restraints were only precautions at this point, for Wrath seemed to be on a mission, even stalking ahead of the men at times, turning her head and sniffing in all directions as if searching for a particular something.
Arlis and a man with wavy auburn hair met them at a convergence of hallways. Erin held in a gleeful squeak as she recognized him from previous dreams. So he’s the Aeriemaster! She could barely mask her smile, thrilled to see his pretty hair and big, round ears in perfect detail. They had been immensely fun to draw. Along with Koben, he seemed to one of the oldest of the major characters, probably in his late thirties. With a gloved left hand, the Aeriemaster held out a handful of dry grass and feathers under Wrath’s beak. Erin idly noticed that he only wore one glove, a stylish addition to his outfit. “This way to a safe nesting place,” he said to the griffin.
To Erin’s surprise, the beast’s ears stood straight up, and she actually deigned to follow him. He led everyone into a very large room that was empty except for a griffin-sized metal cage that contained a pile of straw, sticks, shreds of fabric, and other similar items. Wrath went willingly into the cage and began nosing the materials around with purposeful thrusts of her beak, paying no mind to the men who deposited her eggs nearby, and those who carefully removed her bindings.
She’s building a new nest! Erin couldn’t help but bounce lightly on her toes with excitement. Most of the people who’d helped to bring the griffin inside had remained to watch the beast, forming a small crowd that partially blocked her view. She edged closer, noting that Leslyn and Arlis were doing the same. She joined them to stand a few arm-spans away from the cage.
The wavy-haired man closed the heavy door behind Wrath and her eggs, then turned to regard Koben with painfully heavy eyes. Koben strode up to him and slapped his shoulder so hard that Erin winced. “Gunu, your eyes look like they’re carrying stones in those bags,” the blond man laughed. “Haven’t you slept at all since I left?”
Gunu’s look was stony. “When your success or failure might determine whether or not we will have a large enough breeding pool to keep our ranks filled out? And let’s not mention the scarcely-avoided panic over the potential need for your father to appoint another heir. You’ve been gone for weeks, fool. Some were already assuming the merlings took care of you.”
While the men spoke, most of Erin’s attention remained on Wrath. The griffin was busily pushing the soft materials into a ring around her eggs, all the while talking to herself—or was it to her unborn keets?—with musical-sounding purrs that moved in and out of the range of human hearing.
“Nonsense,” said Koben. “In fact, I may have accidentally befriended one of them.”
“Of course you did.” The Aeriemaster turned away dismissively, shifting his focus to the nesting griffin.
“He kindly escorted my ship most of the trip. I imagine his seabeast was somewhere below and out of sight, protecting us from greater threats from the deep.”
“Indeed.”
When she was satisfied with the outline of her nest, Wrath sorted out a pile of sticks and began weaving them into it. As she turned and worked on placing the third stick just so, she accidentally nudged most of her stash through the bars with several unconscious sweeps of her wingtips, just next to where Koben stood. When she returned for another stick and saw the mess, she stomped one of her rear paws, narrowed her eyes at the man, and growled low in her throat.
She thinks he did it! Erin thought, stifling a laugh.
Wrath’s next concern was getting her sticks back, awkwardly slipping the tip of her beak through the bars and scraping at the ground to try and pull them closer. She secured one beneath her beak, but it lay perpendicular to the bars. She was smart enough to try and turn it, but her beak no longer fit between the bars when she tilted her head sideways. After a few tries, she became frustrated and yanked the stick straight through. When that resulted in a useless snapped stick, she attempted a similar act with one of her wing talons, also to no avail.
The man who stood right beside her was too engrossed in his storytelling to notice, so Erin went to help, kneeling to push the sticks back through one by one. She was not surprised to see Arlis doing the same, but it was kind of amazing that Leslyn had also come to assist, offering the end of a stick to the griffin—which she rejected with a look as if she’d eaten something sour. Leslyn glared back and tossed the stick onto the floor just in front of her, where it was left in favor of Arlis' clearly superior stick, which Wrath delicately plucked from the boy’s hand.
“Any other tall tales to share before I can get back to work?” the Aeriemaster sighed.
The blond man’s grin was vexatiously broad. “Yes, in fact. I’ve brought—“
Wrath whirled toward Erin with a piercing scream, and the girl couldn’t control the spastic jerk that sent her to her feet to flee. Time slowed as she turned, and she saw that Wrath’s green eyes were focused on something behind her. She slammed into a body and clung to it in equal parts terror of the griffin and sheer mortification of what she’d just done. For a moment, strong arms held her close, but then abruptly extended, nearly lifting her off the ground as they pushed her back.
She looked up, lips already parted to apologize, but what she saw nearly made her choke.
A young man was glaring at her, his red-brown eyes as sharp as Wrath’s. He was tall and slim, with obvious strength in his upper body, and his skin was much darker than hers, a deep olive contrasting starkly with the white shirt and light leather breeches he wore. His hair was black and silky-looking, so fine that she could picture it flowing back as he walked, as if a slight breeze was caressing his face. That face was a tossup between masculine and pretty, featuring a broad, sharp jawline, a medium-long chin, a slight hook to the nose, and dimples that showed faintly even though he was most definitely not smiling.
He started to say something, but Erin flinched and turned away, cupping both hands over her own face.
Don’t look at me, her thoughts screamed. DON’T LOOK AT ME!