The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

He laughed, an echo of hers, but his voice cracked and she had an uneasy feeling that he was hiding something profound, not just his identity and his purpose here but a deeper secret, like a fire smoldering beneath peat that may burst out unexpectedly to scorch the digging hand.

“I am no one, just a man in search of griffin wings.”

“And this—” She gestured. “—is a griffin’s nest?”

“Yes.”

“Then you are in the right place to meet the fate you desire.”

He laughed again, that disquieting cackle. “Are you? Where have you come from? What do you seek?”

She said nothing.

He brushed a hand along the curve of his throat. The casual movement unsettled her. Not meaning to, she touched the gold torque she wore, which she no longer had the right to wear.

“Only the lineage of the regnant wears the ring of gold at their neck,” he said. “Who is your father?”

“A humble man with neither king nor queen in his ancestry. How is it you speak Wendish? Are you a merchant?”

“I am nothing, nameless and purposeless, until I have griffin wings.”

“Then what will you be?”

“That depends on whether I defeat my enemy. He also wears a gold ring at his neck.”

She flushed, feeling heat on her skin, the racing of her heart. Henry might be fighting the easterners. It was too much to hope that this man knew the whereabouts of Sanglant, and she dared not reveal knowledge he could use against her.

“How will griffin wings defeat your enemy?”

“The feathers of griffins are proof against magic. Maybe even proof against yours, Liathano.”

He was, probably, a little mad, and certainly he played this as a game, shifting ground, casting straw into his opponent’s eyes. This man was not her friend. It was still difficult to gauge whether he was her enemy. She changed her tactics.

“How do you know my name?”

The fire snapped as he regarded her, tilting his head to one side, listening. She heard only the howl of the wind and the whispering rustle of the outermost layers of the giant nest.

“I have been seeking you because yours is a name of great power. Because you burned down a palace. Fire is a weapon.”

“Then you must know that you can’t hope to kill me, or take me prisoner. Fire is a weapon that not even griffin feathers can defeat.”

“You have already served your purpose. Listen.”

She listened. But all she could hear was the wind.

He gripped his spear across his body and without warning dashed outside. She jumped up just as the entire nest shuddered. Sticks and debris rained down on her. A broken eggshell, disturbingly large, dropped from the ceiling and shattered into tiny pieces at her feet. The low opening quivered as though probed. A beast screamed shrilly outside. A vast shape moved beyond the entrance and before she could find shelter—not that there was any crevice or cove to crawl into—a huge tufted eagle’s head thrust in through the opening. Snowflakes glittered on its beak. Its throat feathers had an iron gleam and its eyes the look of amber, but it rested its bulk on a lion’s tawny paw, made sharp with cruel talons.

The griffin had come home.

3

SANGLANT had never had cause to consider the limits of his mother’s curse. His wounds never festered, only healed. The grippes and agues that afflicted others never touched him. He could not die in battle or intrigue, only watch as his allies and enemies succumbed.

Now, some hours after fording the shallow river, he huddled in his cloak while the freezing gale tore at him, chilling him to the bone. Walking had warmed his wet feet and boots, but every time he stopped they stiffened and burned. Storm, he reflected, is neither male nor female. Cold is no disease but merely a state.

Maybe Bulkezu wouldn’t need to kill him, only get the credit for it afterward when he dragged in Sanglant’s frozen corpse.

Yet Sanglant could do nothing else but hunt him down. At first, traveling east across Ungria and through the steppe, duty had driven him. Now hate and rage impelled him.