Chapter Twenty-Six
The griffin stands before us, as beautiful and deadly as the cliffs it came from.
Its head is that of an enormous brown eagle, with a curved beak and sharp golden eyes that track our every breath.
Its feathered wings rest on the ground before it, talons flexing.
Behind it, the golden tail of a lion swishes, the dark tuft of fur at the end moving so rapidly my eyes blur the motion.
It's at least twice as large as I was imagining. It’s bigger than a horse, bigger than my father’s destrier had been. Now I see why Ronan said we’d be lucky to take it down with a single party.
And all we have is half of one.
I can’t help but think what a pity it would be to kill it.
It’s a majestic creature. What must it be like to see the world through its eyes?
To soar above it, taking in a view so few get to see?
I have an absurd notion that it would be fun to ride on its back.
Maybe I can convince Ronan to spare it. We can scare it away so the others never find it.
Beside me, Ronan places a hand on Taran’s shoulder to still him from reaching for his bow. He must have felt what I wanted. “Not yet,” he says.
Then he begins to rise.
What the hell is he doing?
“You can’t mean to approach it,” says Taran. “If we have any shot, it’s from back here.”
“I can feel her,” he says. Taran and I both turn to look at him.
“What?” we ask together.
“The griffin. I hardly ever feel animals. Just their fear, and rarely. But I can feel her. She’s curious about us.”
Oh, gods, he’s gone insane. “Did you feel me wanting to ride it? I wasn’t being serious. It was just a silly thought. You don’t need to do this.”
“Listen to her, sir. Listen to yourself. Do not go out there—”
Ronan ignores us. He rises, and the griffin scratches the ground with her talons.
Its talons. I do not believe he can tell that it’s female.
Taran looks at me, and I look back at him, our bewildered faces mirrored. “You’re the one who’s supposed to protect him,” I say to him.
“Kronor, sotero,” he says, a curse in the Orsan language, judging by his delivery.
Taran slowly stands to the side of Ronan.
“It’s alright, girl,” says Ronan, the absolute imbecile. He holds out his hand in front of him in a nonthreatening gesture.
The griffin scratches the ground again, huffing.
Ronan takes a step back to walk around the boulder, and I grab his wrist. “I will not let you die out there, and neither will Taran. If she attacks, we’ll kill her.”
Ronan tucks a strand of my hair back in place and kisses my cheek. It’s so soft and familiar that I forget my worries for a moment. “Trust me,” he says.
I do trust him, but I don’t trust anyone or anything else.
Which is a shocking realization that I’ll need to come to terms with later, assuming I’m still alive to do so.
Ronan creeps slowly along the stream bank.
He keeps his hands out in front of him, miles away from his weapons.
Taran and I sink back down behind the rock.
I don’t draw my bow in case it frightens the griffin with Ronan so close to it, but I reach for my power, my shadows.
I don’t know if I can make them take form again, but eagles are active in daylight.
I doubt griffins, with their eagle eyes, see well in the dark.
“I can make the water rush,” says Taran, pointing to the stream below us. “If he stands on the shore, it might be enough to take her off her feet or to make her take flight.”
Taran is water-born, then. That’s unexpected. I’d been guessing fire, although his adaptable, patient nature should have given me a hint, I suppose.
We wait, watching as Ronan slowly approaches. At one point, she stirs and cuts a large scratch into the gravel that goes all the way to the sand. She looks ready to charge. “Wait!” Ronan calls back just as Taran starts to raise the water and I begin to lower the canyon into darkness.
The griffin stands still.
“She’s fine, aren’t you, girl? Just a little closer.”
This may be the most anxious I’ve felt since I arrived in Selara. I’m losing my mind watching this man, this man I swore to kill and am now struggling to imagine living without, approach a beast that can take him out in one fell swoop.
My stomach is in my throat as he closes the final feet between him and the deadly creature. She backs away suddenly, maybe five feet back, and lets out a loud, low screech.
“Ronan!” I cry. “Just let her go. We’ll tell the others we didn’t find her. You don’t need to do this for me. She’s scared.”
Godsdammit, I want him to get back here. Maybe I could pull him back with my shadows.
Ronan bends low, showing her his neck. “She’s scared, but she wants me to approach her. Trust me, Sylvie.”
I shake my head, my heart pounding in my ears, as he reaches for the griffin. I can barely look. Maybe he’ll get lucky and she’ll only take his hand off. He could live without a hand if he could heal himself with his magic.
When I found out I was meant to kill Ronan, I imagined it would be a difficult undertaking. A dangerous game of cat and mouse, racing to keep one step ahead of him, searching high and low for a weakness, for any opportunity to strike.
If I’d known he would voluntarily put himself in situations in which he could be killed repeatedly, even against my strongest urging, I wouldn’t have worried so much.
Except that now I no longer want him to die, and he’s making it very difficult to stop him from doing so.
The griffin inches closer. She stalks forward with feline grace, her body lowered near to the ground in position to strike.
If he dies right now, I’m going to kill him.
The griffin waits a couple of feet from Ronan, as still as a statue. He flexes his hand in her direction in invitation.
And then, to my absolute astonishment, she lifts her head forward to meet his hand.
“Hello, sweet girl,” he says as he lightly brushes her feathers. “I’m Ronan.”
Taran and I look at each other in disbelief. He’s talking to a damn monster.
“It’s alright,” he calls back. “She’s calm now.” He looks at her again. “Can they approach you? They’re my friends.”
Who is this man? This is supposed to be the tyrant ruling with an iron fist. The man who starved Nithyria, who stole our lands and ground us down to nothing as punishment for the war.
How did I ever believe that? How does anyone believe that?
“Come on,” he calls. “I’ve made a friend.”
The griffin paces around Ronan, sniffing at him and nudging at his clothes. I’m not as certain as he is that she isn’t trying to find which parts of him to tear apart first, but I’ll admit that there is a certain level of curiosity in her intelligent eyes.
“Nope,” says Taran. “I’m fine right here.”
“Sylvie?”
I hesitate. I know he’s done this for me because I thought about riding her. And, I admit, there’s a part of me that’s curious. I wonder if anyone has ever ridden a griffin before. I can’t remember reading about it. I wonder if anyone ever even thought to try.
Ronan’s eyes are filled with childlike glee. Kerensa save me, he’s adorable. He’s just so excited, and he did it for me. I can’t resist him.
This is what I want my life to be like, I realize as I approach him. Adventure, a little danger, a lot of excitement, and the feeling I get when I see him smile.
“Come on,” he says. “She likes you.”
I swear if this man is delusional, I’ll—
“Oh,” I say as she nudges my shoulder with her head. It’s feathery but firm, a powerful push that nearly knocks me off my balance.
“See?” says Ronan. He catches me by the waist with one hand and pets the griffin’s eagle head with the other.
“Very good,” yells Taran from behind the rocks. “Can we go now?”
The griffin lowers herself so that her hindquarters, the lion bits, are on the ground.
“What is she doing?” I ask.
Ronan smiles in response. “Didn’t you say you wanted to see the world?”
“No!” shouts Taran, understanding what Ronan is doing before I do. He cautiously approaches us, his sense of duty overwhelming his fear. “I’m sworn to protect you. I can’t let you do this.”
I really want to, but I’m terrified. It wouldn’t be like riding a horse. Griffins fly. People don’t fly. Not even the wind-born can fly. We’re just too heavy for it.
“She wants us to,” says Ronan, already moving to her side and getting ready to put me on her.
The sensible thing to do would be to turn around and head back to the palace, leaving the griffin to her griffin business.
The main problem with that is that I do want to see the world from the sky.
I’ve thought about it since I was a child climbing the castle walls.
Since I pretended I was an acrobat, soaring and tumbling through the air.
And I know Ronan knows it.
“Taran, tell the others where we’ve gone.
Tell them the hunt is off. Tell them something like Kerensa appeared before me and asked me to spare the animal, and that out of love for her, Sai agreed they should hunt some fallow deer on the way back to the palace.
Or make up something better, I don’t care. ”
Taran stops, hand furiously rubbing his tattooed neck. It’s a direct order from his king, but I can tell by his continued defiance that this wouldn’t be the first time Taran had to save Ronan from himself. “If you die—”
“We won’t die,” says Ronan. “She won’t let us. I know I sound insane, as usual, but you’ve learned to trust me. I’m right, at least half of the time.”
Taran remains unconvinced.
“At least a third of the time? Look. If you won’t believe me because of me, believe me because of her. I won’t let anything happen to her.”
Me. He won’t let anything happen to me.
Taran nods, shoots me a look that says that’s what you get for encouraging him, shakes his head, and walks away.
“Ready?” says Ronan.