6
And that was how Laela’s life in Malvern began.
She spent the first two days as she’d planned to-recovering from her journey. The Eyrie’s servants continued to look after her, bringing three solid meals every day and providing her with more new clothes and a bath whenever she asked for one. They were polite but distant with her-apparently interested in doing their jobs and nothing else-and brushed off her attempts at conversation. She saw nothing more of the King during that time, which at first made her feel relieved, but it didn’t take long for her to start feeling bored and lonely.
She didn’t know how much freedom she had in the Eyrie, so at first she stayed in her room and was careful not to stray any further than the corridor outside. But boredom quickly supplanted caution, and she decided that it wouldn’t hurt to wander around a little. With that vague plan in mind, she left her room on the third morning and set out.
She didn’t know exactly what she’d been expecting to find when she first left, but in any case, she was disappointed.
The tower’s interior looked like nothing but an endless corridor slowly spiralling downward, mostly because that was exactly what it was. Doors lined it at intervals, and every so often she came across an oversized, glassless window-obviously meant for griffins to enter by.
Before long, bored, she began tentatively exploring the rooms-poking her head through the doors that were open. Most of them led into griffiner lodgings, and some were occupied, but she managed to remain unnoticed. A few people did see her, but she avoided eye contact, and none of them paid her much attention.
Emboldened, and aware now that she was probably the only Southern-born woman able to see the interior of the greatest Northern stronghold in the world, she sped up, turned a corner, and walked straight into a very large griffin.
She halted, frozen in shock.
The griffin paused, too, one enormous forepaw still raised.
As Laela hesitated, a voice spoke in some harsh language, and a woman appeared, walking forward from the griffin’s side. She was middle-aged and one of her eyes was covered by a round leather patch. The other eye glared at Laela as she spoke again in that same language. It sounded like a command.
“I don’t understand,” said Laela, backing away.
The woman’s eye narrowed. “I said, get out of the way,” she snapped, using Cymrian this time. “Who are ye, anyway? What’re ye doin’ in here?”
Laela tried not to look at the griffin, which was hissing. “I’m, uh. . Laela. I’m stayin’ here.”
The eye narrowed further. “Why would that be? Ye ain’t no griffiner.”
“I dunno,” Laela said honestly.
She had been going to say that the King himself had brought her here, but at that moment the griffin suddenly moved. It came close, brushing the one-eyed woman aside, and sniffed at Laela as the red griffin had done by her father’s grave.
Laela cringed away, ducking her head to protect herself. “Please, just let me go. I ain’t done nothin’. The King said-”
Without any warning, the griffin reared up violently, beak open. It made a horrible screeching, snarling sound, and at that Laela’s nerve broke, and she ran.
An almighty thud came from behind her, and as she ran she heard the rush of feathers and the thump of paws and knew that the griffin was chasing her.
Heart in her mouth, she put her head down and broke into a flat sprint. She had always been fast, and she managed to keep ahead of the griffin, but not far enough ahead to lose it or to duck through one of the doors. She could hear its talons tearing up the floor. And it was gaining on her.
Panic-stricken, she hurtled around another corner and straight into someone coming the other way. Her momentum bowled them both over, and she found herself sprawling on the floor on top of an unpleasantly bony shape. She lifted herself off, and found herself looking into the face of King Arenadd himself.
Laela screamed and rolled off him.
The King sat up, a little dazedly. “Ow. What the. .?”
The griffin had halted. Instinctively, Laela hid behind the King as he stood up.
He rubbed his head. “Laela, there you are. What in the gods’ names were you doing running around down here?”
The griffin hissed uncertainly but backed off when the King spoke to it in griffish.
A moment later, the woman appeared, huffing with the effort. She stopped when she saw the King, drawing herself up and eyeing him.
“Saeddryn.”
The woman stepped closer, gesturing at Laela and speaking rapidly in what she had to assume was the Northern tongue. He replied in the same language, and a brief, rapid conversation took place.
It ended when the woman backed away, wearing a look of complete disgust. She turned it on Laela. “Sometimes I have doubts about ye, Arenadd,” she said. “An’ ye-half-breed. . if I were ye, I wouldn’t stay long. Ye may think ye’re different, but trust me-he’ll be the death of ye. Maybe not soon, but one day.”
That said, she turned on her heel and walked off. The griffin paused to stare balefully at Laela and followed with a swish of its tail.
Once they were gone, the King turned to Laela. “Oops.”
She cringed away from him. “Oh, gods, please, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean t’run into yeh like that, Sire, I. .”
He smiled crookedly at her. “I’m sure I’ll live. What in the Night God’s name were you doing down here, anyway?”
“I dunno what happened,” Laela mumbled. “I was walkin’ along, like, an’ I met up with them two-that one- eyed hag an’ the griffin, an’ then the griffin just came at me, an’ I ran.”
Arenadd chuckled. “Yes, apparently he thought you were a spy. I told him you weren’t.”
“Who was that hag anyway, Sire?” said Laela, calming down.
Arenadd paused to smooth his hair. “The, uh, ‘one-eyed hag’ would be my cousin, Lady Saeddryn, the High Priestess of the Moon Temple here in Malvern.”
Laela blanched. “I. . uh. . I. . didn’t know yeh had relatives, Sire. .”
He chuckled again. “Not many, but Saeddryn and her family certainly count. Anyway. . I was just going to lunch. Would you care to join me?”
Saying no after knocking him over felt like one rudeness too many, so she nodded.
Lunch turned out to be bread and cheese for Laela, and several cups of wine for the King.
“Aren’t yeh gonna have some, Sire?” Laela asked, as he was polishing off the third cup.
He put down his cup and refilled it. “I just need something to keep me going. . I’m not hungry anyway.”
Watching him, Laela felt a sick, sad churning in her stomach. She pushed her plate toward him. “I’m done with this, Sire. If yeh want any.”
He stared at her, expressionless. His eyes were fathomless and had no brightness to them. Looking into them for a moment, Laela felt as if she were looking into an empty pit.
She did not look away.
Arenadd put his cup aside and picked up a piece of bread. “Thank you,” he said softly, and bit into it.
Laela couldn’t help but smile. “I reckoned yeh could do with some feedin’ up, Sire.”
He finished the bread. “Is that so?” He took another piece. “May as well have some more, then.”
She watched him eat. Gods, this was strange-too strange. To be here, with him, seeing him do something as normal as munch on a piece of rye bread. It didn’t have much to do with the cackling, blood-soaked lunatic of popular myth. But, then, popular myth had very little to do with real life.
“Sire?” she ventured. “I was wonderin’. .”
