Page 11 of Ties of Death

There’s nothing like cuddling a baby gryphon, and the memory of that comfort is what’s driven me here now.

The gryphons generally ignore us as we weave between them. I earn a few brief side-eyes and ruffling of feathers, but mostly I’m beneath their notice, and I’m perfectly fine with that. It’s better than the open staring I earned from the clansfolk.

We reach the back of the cavern, and Eskil stops outside one of the hatchling nests. “We’ll wait out here.”

I eye him, surprised he would leave me to enter alone. He just smirks and saunters over to a spot on the wall, leaning back and pulling out a small block of wood and carving knife. Kettil shrugs when I look at him.

A bud of hope sprouts in me as I take the last few steps toward the entrance. If Eskil trusts that I would be safe entering alone, then that must mean…

That hope erupts into a bouquet of delight when I see the occupants of the cozy little nesting cave.

The gryphon lying curled around three sleeping babies raises her head from her taloned forefeet and stares at me. I would know the sleek black feathers, the dark brown shiningcoat, and the crooked wing that doesn’t quite sit right against her side anywhere.

I have to swallow back the lump as I step forward once and lift my hand. I wait for Zephyr to approach or acknowledge me before I enter any further. “Hello, beautiful,” I croon softly. “It’s me. I know it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other.”

There’s a beat of silence, stillness, before she eases herself up, careful to not awaken her sleeping babies, and pads across the distance, resting her beak on my shoulder. The touch makes the years of separation vanish, and my heart swells. A purr rumbles up from her chest, and that’s all the encouragement I need to bury my fingers into her feathers behind her beak and scratch, the way I have hundreds of times before. My second hand comes up and strokes her feathers, as smooth and soft as silk and blacker than night.

We stay like this for a long time, until a small mewling cry comes from beyond Zephyr. She turns immediately, resuming her place by her young and nudging the gryphling who’d caught her attention. She eyes me expectantly.

I laugh. “I’m coming. Of course I want to see your beautiful babies.”

I close the distance and kneel beside her, vocally admiring each one of her gryphlings; there are three of them, all the size of large house cats. They’re predominantly black and silvery grey, but there are some touches of brown and white. Each one of them is impossibly fluffy, with downy feathers on their front halves and puffy fur on the back. I itch to pick one up, but that can wait until they’re awake.

Instead I lean into Zephyr’s side, content to stay here until my guards drag me away. With everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours, I need the serenity and safety she exudes.

I missed her. Since I wasn’t a warrior, I didn’t have a formal bond with a gryphon. I learned to fly like everyone in the clan does, but Zephyr was the only gryphon I ever truly connected with. She broke her wing when she was young, but she was of the best stock in the flock, so she was relegated to breeding, and she took to it like it was destiny. She made for a fierce, nurturing mother. I met her when Daenn first bonded with his gryphon, Storm; they were mates, and when Zephyr wasn’t nurturing her babies, she was with him.

Under different circumstances, coming home would have been a joyful event for me. It was strange to think of it as such—I trained myself to refer to the manor with Tolomon as my home, as he so frequently insisted I do. But while the manor never truly was my home, for the last eight years, neither was the clan my home. I missed it desperately, though. I missed my mother. I missed Sigrid and Zephyr, and most of all, I missed Daenn.

But the reality of my homecoming, the circumstances of it, poisons everything, leaving me with only these small moments that haven’t turned bitter.

Daenn is a monster now. He killed Tolomon and stole me away from my life—however pitiful it was. He has a whole trail of bodies behind him. He claims they’re from his magic, but do I believe him? He’s shown how ruthless he is now; it’s easy to believe that the blood on his hands might not be restricted to accidental, magic-caused deaths.

For so long he was all I wanted, but I don’t want him anymore—not like this. He has my magic like he wants—now that we’re married, our magics are linked. It’s a well-known side effect of a gryphon clan wedding that the magical auras extend to the other spouse, or in the case of two with magic, they share both magics. I’ve never heard there being a distancelimit on that—but married couples rarely spend more than a few days or weeks apart.

But the thought of staying here at Daenn’s side makes me sick to my stomach. It will kill me slowly to watch the reality of the tyrant king destroy the memories of the Daenn I loved.

He said he needs me, but that isn’t true. He needs my magic, but he doesn’t needmeto stay by him. He needs a wife, yes, but I am hardly the best choice for that role, either—I probably can’t even produce him any heirs. The line of succession is everything to any noble house, and especially to a king. Tolomon frequently lamented that I hadn’t managed to produce any heirs for him. I often felt quietly relieved, because the man would have been a horrible father, but the idea also brought a heavy dose of shame with it. Could stress keep a woman from bearing children? Or was I really as broken as Tolomon insinuated more than once?

I dread the idea of broaching the topic with Daenn. It will be humiliating, especially if it’s not even enough to deter him from wanting to complete our marriage for his own carnal—

I shiver away from the thought and turn back to the more pressing matter. Daenn doesn’t need me, and once he realizes I’m most likely defective in the way a wife ought not be, he certainly won’t want me for anything but my magic’s ability to smother his. If only his magic were gone, he’d probably be happy to release me—

My thoughts stutter and then circle back slowly, bringing that idea into clearer focus.

He just needs his magic gone.

I lick my lips, and my hands still against Zephyr’s side until she looks back over her shoulder and gives me a chirr of disapproval. I begin stroking her fur again as I turn my realization over in my head. He doesn’t need me. Maybe if I couldneutralize his magic in a more permanent way, I could leave. Our marriage isn’t final; our vows aren’t complete, not until we…completethem. So if we don’t, I could go somewhere to grieve the man Daenn has become and live my life in some sort of quiet peace. No more husbands, no more men to break my heart and spirit over and over.

I don’t hesitate or think it through any more than that. I reach for my magic.

It’s so strange and different, having it be a tangible thing that I can touch, that I can potentially wield. It’s always been present; I could always dive inside myself and see it, but it was like a glittering mist, something I could try to pass through but never touch.

But now, when I try to touch it, it’s sparkling strands of fiber, soft and fluffy and grippable.

And Daenn’s magic is still there, twined around it in poisonous black veins, even though there’s far less of his than of mine.

I mull my options. If mine neutralizes his by proximity, then maybe all I need to do to remove his entirely is to let the light of mine snuff it out.

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