The White Gryphon

Amberdrake clasped his hand with the same reserve. Palisar nodded, with brusque satisfaction, and they all resumed the walk to the Audience Chamber, the one place where all their answers—or at least, the answers they would get for now—would be waiting.

Two weeks later, Skandranon and Amberdrake watched as Makke packed up the last of the myriad of gifts that the Haighlei had presented to Skan and Zhaneel. The Black Gryphon would never again lack for personal ornaments; he had enough jewelry especially crafted for gryphons to allow him to deck himself like a veritable kestra’chern!

“They’re going to make me vain,” Skin remarked, as yet another casket of jeweled collars and ear-tuft cuffs went into the packing crate. The curtains at the window and the doors of the balcony billowed in a soft, soporific breeze.

Amberdrake laughed, as he reclined on the only couch in this room. “No they won’t. You already are.”

Skandranon stared at him with mock effrontery. “I am not vain,” he protested. “I am merely aware of my considerable attributes and talents. There is such a thing as false modesty, you know.”

Amberdrake snorted with derision, and took another sip from the cool drink he held. Skan was pleased to see that the dark circles under his eyes, and the gray cast to his skin were both gone. The first week after the Ceremony had been rather bad for his friend; all the horrors of what might have been came home to him as soon as he got a little rest. According to Winterhart, he’d had four solid nights of nightmares from which he would wake up screaming.

“I’ll be glad to see you back at White Gryphon,” Skan continued wistfully. “It’s going to be very quiet there without you around.”

Amberdrake gazed thoughtfully out the balcony door for a moment before replying. “I don’t want to go home for a while,” he said, very quietly. “There are things I need to think about before I get back, and this is a good place to be working while I do that.” He returned his gaze to meet Skandranon’s eyes. “Snowstar sent word that he doesn’t want to run White Gryphon.”

“Then what I told you a few days ago still applies,” Skan told him, wondering tensely if he was going to have to return only to shoulder responsibilities that he now knew he was ill-suited to handle. “I had to give him the first chance, since he’s been handling everything for me since we arrived here, but —”

“But that’s one of the things I need to think about.” Amberdrake turned the cup in his hands. “Being the leader of White Gryphon is not something I’d take on without thinking about it.”

“I wouldn’t want you to,” Skan said hastily. “But you’d be good at it, Drake! Listen, I’m already a symbol, and I can’t get away from that. I’m an example, and I can’t avoid that, either. But if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that I’m not a leader—or at least, I’m not the kind of leader that Urtho was.”

“You’re a different kind of leader,” Amberdrake said, nodding. “When people need a focus and someone to make a quick decision, you’re good at that. I’ve seen you act in that capacity far too often for you to deny it, Skan. You have a knack for making people want to follow you, and the instinct for making the right choices.”

“That’s all very well, but a real leader needs to be more than that.” Skan sighed as he watched Makke pack away more gifts, this time of priceless fabrics. “I admire those leaders, but I can’t emulate them.” His nares flushed hot with embarrassment. “I get bored, Drake, handling the day-to-day snarls and messes that people get into. I get bored and I lose track of things. I get bored and I go stale and I get fat. I make up crisis after crisis to solve, when there aren’t any. I turn ordinary problems into a crisis, just so I feel as if I’m doing something. You, though—you’re good at that kind of thing. I think it’s just an extension of what you were trained for.”

“What, as a kestra’chern?” Amberdrake raised an eyebrow. “Well, you may be right. There’s a certain amount of organizational skill we have to learn—how to handle people, of course—how to delegate authority and when to take it back. Huh. I hadn’t thought of it that way,”

“And you won’t get bored and fat.” Skan nodded his head decisively. “Judeth says I can have my old job back, so to speak. She’ll put me in charge of the gryphon wing of the Silvers. Provided I can find someone to take over my administrative jobs.”

“Oh, really?” Amberdrake looked as if he might be suppressing a smile. “Fascinating. I wonder how you talked her into that.”

Privately, Skandranon wondered, too. Judeth had been entirely too accommodating.

Then again—leading a gryphon wing took some special talents, and they were talents a mere human wasn’t likely to have.

Sometimes getting them to work together feels like herding grasshoppers. It’s hard to get them to understand that teamwork is necessary off the battlefield.

“We aren’t the only people emigrating out of the battle zone, just the first. She thinks that we’re going to need to help the Haighlei deal with more refugees, and they’re as likely to be from Ma’ar’s army as ours,” he said by