The Black Gryphon

changed or disappeared, and the memories of her parents became a soft-edged memory of nurturing acceptance, a memory so distant it came to seem like a dream or a tale, having nothing to do with her reality.

It was the contrast between the fledgling’s memories of loving care and the subadult’s reality of indifference that had suffocated her in the cold box of self-hate.

Conversely, however, the same thing had kept her from killing herself.

The knowledge, only half-aware, that when she was still in the downy coat of a fledgling she was loved had given her soul the broad feathers it needed. There were no specific images now, and no remembered words; there was only the sensation that, yes, with certainty, they had trilled their affection as she drowsed and taught her when she awoke. Brief as that time had been, it had given her an underlying strength, and a reason to endure.

By the time their cups were empty, most of the night had passed by, and they had wandered into mutual observations. Zhaneel asked about the life of a kestra’chern. He’d wondered aloud, once he knew the subject would not alarm her, where she had gotten her idea that Amberdrake would be her lover.

Her nares flushed. “The horse-rider was telling the others about you, and I listened. I didn’t understand some of it, but I thought it was because she was a human.” She ducked her head a little as her nares flushed deeper. “I thought, this must be what you do with all who come to you. I thought, this was why Great Skandranon had told me to come to you when I was given the reward.”

He clenched his jaw for a moment. I might have known Skan was at the bottom of this! No wonder he was acting so—so smug! But a confrontation with Skan would have to wait. Now, all unknowing, she had given him another opening to bolster her self-esteem.

“Skan sent you here?” He blinked as if he were surprised, but he continued quickly before she could burst into frantic protest that he really had, as if he might doubt her truthfulness. “Do you realize just how impressed he must have been with you, Zhaneel? Why, it was only two days ago he was brought in, injured—he is still not Healed, and he has made it very clear to me, his friend, that he does not wish to be troubled with inconsequential things. And yet he thought enough of your proper reward to send you to me! How much time did he spend with you?”

“I—do not know—half a candlemark, perhaps?” she said, doubtfully.

“Half a candlemark?” Amberdrake chuckled. “I cannot think of any other he has spent so much time with, other than his Healers. Truly, he must have found you fascinating!”

“Oh,” she replied faintly, and her nares flushed again. “Perhaps he was bored?” she suggested, just as faintly.

Amberdrake laughed at that. “If he was bored, he would have sent you elsewhere. Skan’s cures for boredom are reading, sleeping, and teasing his friends, in that order. No, I think he must have found you very interesting.”

By now, from her body-language and her voice, it was fairly obvious to him that Zhaneel had—at the very least—a substantial infatuation with the Black Gryphon.

“He doesn’t pay that kind of attention to just anyone,” he continued smoothly. “If he noticed you, it is because you are noteworthy.”

She perked up for a moment, then her ear-tufts flattened again. “If he noticed me, it wassss sssurely to sssee how freakish I am.”

“How different you are—not freakish,” he admonished. “Skandranon is not one to be afraid of what is different.”

“Am I—” She hesitated, and he sensed that she was about to say something very daring, for her. “Am I— different enough that he might recall me? Notice me again?”

Amberdrake pretended to think. “I take it that you want him to do more than simply take notice of you?”

She ducked her head, very shyly. “Yessss—” she breathed. “Oh, yessss—”

“Well, Zhaneel, Skan is not easily impressed. You would have to be something very special to hold his interest. You would have to do more than simply take out a couple of makaar once.” That was a daring thing to say to her, but fortunately she did not take it badly; she only looked at him eagerly, as if hoping he could give her the answers she needed. “I know him very well; if you want Skan, Zhaneel, you will have to impress him enough that he wants you—enough to make him ask you to join his wing.” Before she could lose courage, he leaned forward and said, with every bit of skill and Empathy that he possessed, “You can do this, Zhaneel. I know you can. I believe in you.”

Her eyes grew bright, and her ear-tufts perked completely up. “I could—I could entrrrap the makaar.” She paused as he shook his head slightly. “Perhaps if I made of myself a target, outflew them to ambush?” Again he shook his head. Both her ideas were far too impulsive—and suicidal.

“It will have to be something that only you can do, Zhaneel,” he suggested. “You don’t have to make a hero