Page 43 of Shade of Ruin

“Follow me,” I say as I start walking. East. Away from the road a little further. “And be quiet, please. You want to find a creature that can fly, so use all of those Fae powers of yours to walk silently.”

He nods, not quite as lost in his fervor as he was when we raced through the brush before. When he walks behind me now, he’s as silent as Cole, and it’s me that sounds like I’m crashing through the undergrowth like a wild ox.

As we’re moving, I catch sight of a bit of white above us. Stuck on a tree branch, I don’t even know how I noticed it, but I point up toward it. Darian jumps, pixie wings sprouting from his back just like Cole has done so many times. I watch and wait for him to fly up to the feather that I know will match the one we found on the path.

If the gryphon brushed that tree, then it was probably landing. There should be tracks somewhere around here. But I wait for Darian to prove that I’m right.

When he lands beside me, a wide grin on his face, he’s holding another feather just like the first one. “How in the name of Vyran did you see that?”

I shrug. “A lot of time in the woods.” I grab the feather from his hand and take a sniff of it. I don’t know what a gryphon smells like, but I assume anything that large is going to have some kind of a scent. Nearly every huntable animal does, so a gryphon should, too.

I’m right. There’s a soft oily scent to it, not like a bear or boar. More like a male deer. But it wouldn’t smell like that if it had been in that tree for more than a day. “Come on,” I say. I keep my eyes out for lion tracks.

Lion tracks. Gryphon tracks. My world has become very different from my childhood.

But you track all animals the same way, and my body and mind are honed to a razor’s edge on how to do that. I slide under a tree branch, my fingers brushing it as I pass, and I veer slightly north. The wind blows toward me, and I could swear that I smell that same soft musky scent on it.

I follow that scent, running instead of walking. It feels like my steps are booming, but I know that I’m far more silent than any human I’ve ever met. Even the most experienced hunters make more sound walking than I do running.

Darian’s even quieter as he keeps up with me effortlessly. But he wouldn’t be able to find a gryphon. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a paw print. My body and mind follow the trail as easily as I’d follow a path with signposts.

My thoughts turn toward the size of that paw print. The fact that its claws are probably as long as my hand. The depth of the paw means it weighs probably as much as a cow. This is not a creature I should be tracking because it most likely falls into the “you will never win a fight with a Fae” rule I’ve lived by. If a human sized harpy can out fight me, I’m sure that a cow sized gryphon would barely bat an eye as it crushed me.

But Darian is not me. I saw him fight Cole, and I know that while he may be a little odd, he’s capable of protecting both of us. So now I get to see a gryphon up close.

I stop suddenly as I hear a chittering from behind a bitterberry bush. And… Darian runs squarely into me. He looks light. He’s not. I hit the bush hard, falling over it and landing about five feet in front of a very, very large gryphon.

The description that everyone knows doesn’t do it justice. Half eagle and half lion. That sounds like it would be similar to a four-legged bird. That’s just not true. Where the drakeling was a tiny dragon. This creature is the largest bird that was ever born.

My bed would fit on its back. A party of four could ride it. It wouldn’t fit inside a wagon. And the wingspan… I have to turn my head to see from one tip to the other. Feathers cover its entire body, except its paws and tail. The tail probably weighs more than me, and it flicks around in agitation.

There aren’t many creatures that I’m afraid of. I wasn’t afraid of the drakeling at all. But this? Yes, every inch of me knows that I need to leave this creature alone and stay far away.

But Darian doesn’t seem to have those same issues. In a flash, he’s standing in front of me with a grin on his face. The gryphon screeches so loudly that I have to cover my ears. I push myself back against the bush and get to my feet, my eyes never leaving the hooked beak that’s larger than my head.

Then I see its eyes. There’s so much more intelligence in those eyes than a normal eagle or hawk would have. There’s still the same territorial instincts and need to lash out at anything that startles it, but it knows I don’t want to hurt it.

When Darian doesn’t shy away from it, the gryphon calms down and begins to eye this new threat that doesn’t seem afraid. I assume that there aren’t very many creatures in these forests that aren’t afraid of it, so when there is one, it takes notice.

“There you are,” Darian whispers softly. “Don’t you worry. I’m not going to hurt you.” He digs into his pocket and pulls out a piece of jerky that we made from the boar I killed. “Here you go, boy.” He tosses the bit of meat to the gryphon, and the gryphon moves out of the way, letting the meat hit the ground while he rears up on his back paws, spreading his wings wide.

“Eat it,” Darian says. He looks down at the meat on the ground, and the gryphon follows his gaze. It’s like he just realizes what it is. Cocking his head like only birds can do, he looks at the meat again, and then at Darian.

He scoops the meat up with his hooked beak and swallows it. Immediately, he turns to Darian and paws the ground in front of him. Darian tosses the meat to the ground, and the gryphon picks it up with his beak. Without any hesitation, the gryphon paws the ground again.

I have to blink a few times to believe that what I’m seeing is real. Darian just convinced a gryphon to eat his traveling rations.Now it’s… asking for more? There’s no way anyone could have convinced the boar I saw the other day to do that. It might have attacked me for food and taken it from me after I was dead, but it wouldn’t have asked for more. Politely.

This time, Darian takes a step toward the gryphon before tossing the piece of meat. Again and again, he tosses a little piece and takes a step. The gryphon doesn’t seem to mind at all.

And then Darian touches the gryphon’s neck. Not gently, either. He puts his hand on the creature’s neck and grips it. Hard. The gryphon’s eyes open wide, almost like he’s panicking, but then… hedoesn’ttry to kill Darian.

The gryphon immediately lays down. I glance at the tail, noticing that it’s not twitching anymore. Darian’s still got that firm grip on his neck, and he says, “It’s okay, Maeve. He’s not going to do anything while I have him like this. You know, everyone says that gryphons are mostly bird, but if you look at how they act, they’re mostly cats. They just have a lot of feathers and a beak… and a bird’s head. But they’re mostly cats. Maybe that doesn’t make sense.”

I can’t help but chuckle at Darian’s chaotic ramblings because I’m sold. That’s a cat with wings. And a beak. And a bird’s head. But it’s a cat with wings. I know this because when I run my hands under the gryphon’s chin, he purrs. Like the biggest cat in the world.

Darian pets his massive feathered cheeks, and the gryphon pushes against his hand. The thrumming purr only gets louder. This enormous, cow-sized creature that could shred either one of us without any trouble just wants snacks and pets, and I think this is my favorite part of my new life. First a drakeling. Now a gryphon.

If only there wasn’t all this danger and death and fear, I could really get used to living in a magical world.

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