The White Gryphon

Advisor, the Silver Veil. From this day, it will be allowable that a King may choose to wed his kestra’chern.”

He continued, enumerating all the changes, great and small, that he and his Advisors had determined would be reasonable and acceptable for the next years. The litany went on, but his real thoughts were elsewhere.

I have been given my life by these strangers, he thought, And—I have been given awareness of my true love. What more could they have given me? I will be in debt to them for the rest of my life, but it is a debt I will joyfully strive to repay.

Shalaman felt the supporting presence of his beloved and his friends at his back, and smiled at the crowd. He even smiled at Skandranon’s grumbling.

“I hope this is over soon. I’m scheduled to fall down and twitch,” the gryphon murmured. “Then I’m due to eat everything in sight and sleep for two days, and then—”

Shalaman stifled a laugh at the explicit description of what the Gryphon King would be doing with his mate Zhaneel. These people of White Gryphon would shock and delight his Court for a long time.

Only one shadow still darkened his joy.

Where was Amberdrake?

Eleven

Amberdrake worked the last of his bonds loose, and stood up, hands and feet still tingling. He wished he could ignore the sensation; the best he could do was to keep from making too much noise about it.

Now—-find those others Hadanelith mentioned. There are probably two; maybe more, but he talked as if there were only two.

If anyone had ever described Amberdrake to his face as a courageous man, he would have laughed. He had never considered bravery to be one of his chief attributes; that was for others, not for him. He was able to recognize bravery when he saw it, but it was never a quality he would have granted to himself. He was often afraid, and knew it, and did not scruple to show it. Not that brave people weren’t afraid, but they were able to get beyond their fear to act. Amberdrake knew, in his heart, that fear often paralyzed him.

Thinking on it, he would not have granted himself physical bravery, the kind of bravery that made Skan and Zhaneel fly off and risk their lives, over and over, as if such risk was no worse than a cold bath on a winter morning.

And right now, he felt as if he were the biggest coward in this whole shattered world. As Skan vanished out of sight, all Amberdrake wanted to do was find somewhere to hide until the whole mess was over. He wished he could find a nice, secure room and lock the door so that no one could get at him. That would be the sensible course, really—what could he expect to accomplish?

There’s no way I can just hide when the most powerful and dangerous of our enemies are both here, somewhere, wherever that is. Something has to be done about them. They may be engrossed with whatever magic they’re controlling, or they may be confident they’ve already won, or—

With no real Mindspeaking ability of his own, he would not know whether Skan arrived in time to save the King and Winterhart until long after the fact. The light grew dimmer with every passing heartbeat—and Hadanelith was due to strike at the darkest part of the Eclipse. No one knew he was here except Skandranon and Kechara. Assuming that Kechara wasn’t watching Skan, she would know what was happening on his side of this little battle, but otherwise he was on his own.

And somehow I doubt she’ll be able to tear her mind away from her “Papa Skan.”

Was this how Skan felt when he went off on one of those famous solitary missions? Lonely—and deserted— and completely terrified?

Not terrified, not Skan. He’s been scared, but always confident in himself.

Kechara might be able to call for help if things went wrong and she was watching him, but that also assumed that she had enough understanding of what she saw to tell the others if Amberdrake was in trouble. She had shown a surprising grasp of abstracts lately, but—well, she was tired, and stressed, and under a great deal of pressure, more than she ever should have had to bear. Little Kechara was more toddler than warrior.