Owlsight

The thick walls would keep this place warm in the winter and cool in the summer, the vines screening the skylight would keep out direct sun in the summer, but when they lost their leaves, would allow warm sunlight to penetrate in the winter. There was no direct light in the bedroom, exactly as Darian preferred. If he had designed the place himself, it could not have suited him more - and all of this, hidden under an innocuous mound of leaves!

He unpacked his baggage quickly, stowing it away wherever things seemed best to fit. What little furniture there was matched the ekele perfectly, being formed of bent, polished branches with the bark removed, or woven of willow withes. And as he put the last of his belongings away, the thought hit him with the suddenness of a lightning strike that this was his own home! He shared it with no one, it wasn’t a guest house, this was his, entirely his to decorate as he chose, to clutter as he chose (or rather, as much as the hertasi would let him), to change as he chose.

My own place. . . . Bigger than the cottage he had shared with Justyn, and far, far superior to that dark little hovel.

Dear gods, I think I feel grown up!

That was certainly the measure by which people judged in Errold’s Grove. You weren’t an adult until you had a house of your own, however tiny and poorly built. Until then, you were a child, and subject to the orders and whims of the adults in whose house you lived.

He sat down in one of the window seats and took a deep breath, savoring the moment.

Then he went out to find Snowfire and see this peculiar cliff house of his.

He knew where Nightwind and Kel had set up housekeeping, of course, so he headed for the lake at the end of the valley and the cliffs overlooking it. Kel was already in residence, stretched out on a ledge near the top of the cliff in the sun, overseeing a line of hertasi carrying baggage up a stair that had been carved out of the living rock. At the top of the stair was a balcony with a low stone railing. A dark recess behind it probably represented the door into the new dwelling. The ledge Kel had draped himself over had a similar dark recess behind it, and belatedly Darian realized that this must be his home as well.

He followed the last hertasi up the stair, and tried not to think about how far down it was as he climbed, nor how much he wished that there was a railing on the staircase. Though the railing about the balcony ledge was no more than knee-high, he was very grateful for its presence.

There was a door cut into the rock, and windows, too; that was all he had a chance to see for the moment, as Kel greeted his arrival by leaping to his feet and bounding over to the balcony from his own ledge.

“Isss thisss not a marrrvel?” the gryphon chortled. “Ayssshen isss a geniusss! Except that it isss a lake beneath us and not an ocean, and the rrrock isss grrray, thisss could be White Gryphon! I feel entirrrely at home!”

“And so do I,” Nightwind echoed, as she came out onto the balcony. She was smiling broadly and held out her hand to Darian. “Even Snowfire is happy - ”

“Snowfire is more than happy,” the Hawkbrother interrupted her. He stepped right up to the edge of the balcony and peered down. “Not only is this as high up as any good scout-ekele, but I think I can dive into the lake from here.”

“Don’t you dare!” cried Kel, Nightwind, and Darian all together.

“Why not?” he asked, turning away from the ledge, wearing a grin that was the equal in mischief to his cousin Summerdance’s.

“You’ll break your silly neck, that’s why not,” Nightwind said tartly. “It’s not deep enough, and the cliff slants out, not in. There is at least one thing you don’t have to do to keep up with Starfall.”

“Yet,” added Ayshen from the doorway, “there’s plenty of time to dig it deeper at this spot.”

Nightwind threw up her hands in exasperation, as all three males, Darian, Kel, and Snowfire, now went to the edge to look down at the sparkling waters of the spring-fed lake with speculation.

“I don’t think so,” Darian finally said. “You’d have to dive out too far. Nightwind is right, there’s too much stuff you could hit on the way down.”

“That, too, could be changed in time,” Ayshen said agreeably. “But we do have many other tasks that will take precedence.”

“Far too many tasks,” Snowfire confirmed, with a sigh. “And by the time we have the resources, I’ll probably be telling my offspring why they shouldn’t dive off from here. Nightwind will never forgive me if I remove the obstacles in their path.”