Band of Breakers Read online

“I don’t want to be the queen of everything, but it seems like this is my lot in life. I’m going to have to call the moves when we fight because my magic is what is supposedly going to free us. So I’ll be the alpha. No jokes, Nix. I hate this, and you know it.”

  Nix held up her hands. “I said nothing.” She sidled over to Arc, who was still permitting the gryphon to eat his boot. “If we don’t do something quickly, the elf will be less one piece of footwear.” She bent to eye level with the gryphon. “Good job, youngling. If only you had fire.”

  Vahly sighed. “So how we do show the gryphon our standing in our pride?”

  “First, we must decide who will be second and who will be third.” Lowering his chin, Arc glanced at Nix. “Now, you won’t like this, but…” He pursed his lips. “I hate to be indelicate, but I think at some point I may…touch Vahly if she wishes it. In that case, I must be her second or the gryphon will defend her at the cost of my life and quite possibly his own.”

  Shaking her head, Nix’s gaze flattened. “Here it is. You act at being the cool-headed male of study and serious strategy, but you are truly enjoying yourself, aren’t you, Arcturus?” She huffed. “Royalty.” She dusted one of her wings, then lay on the ground, one hand slung over a voluptuous hip. “Well, come on. You’ll need to lay your teeth on my neck if I’m not mistaken. Let’s get this over with.” Lifting her chin, she exposed the jewel-toned scales underneath.

  “Are you all right with this, Nix?” Vahly asked. “Be honest. I’ll find another way to raise this gryphon if you aren’t.”

  “I’ve done stranger things to help out a couple, my dear.” She chuckled, and Vahly heard a touch of the old Nix in the sound.

  Vahly sighed, relieved, and picked up the furious gryphon as Arc went to her.

  He knelt, his gaze solemn. The wind teased the loose strands of his hair. “Forgive me for this, Mistress Nix of the Dragon’s Back.”

  “Honey tongue. Hmm. If you tire of Vahly, do look me up.”

  Vahly rolled her eyes.

  Arc bent, parted his lips, and set his teeth on Nix’s throat. Nix murmured something wildly inappropriate. Vahly growled.

  Tucked into the crook of Vahly’s arm, the gryphon looked from them to Vahly.

  Vahly forced herself to calm down and pet the gryphon as if this were all perfectly normal. The gryphon squeaked and nuzzled her arm.

  Arc stood, then helped Nix up. She took his hand and blew a small flame over his head. He jumped, laughing, and bowed slightly.

  “And now,” he said, eyeing Vahly, “you need to dominate me.”

  Vahly swallowed hard. A shiver danced down her body.

  Nix, wearing a smile loaded with innuendo, took the gryphon from her gently.

  “Shut it,” Vahly barked.

  “I didn’t say a thing.” Nix stepped away.

  Arc knelt as he had after Cassiopeia’s crowning, when he had sworn fealty to Vahly. He threw his head back and shut his eyes. His lashes were sable-black against his luminous cheeks. Here was an elven royal exposing his throat to a human. Vahly took a deep breath. This was insanity.

  Vahly’s body warmed as she regarded him, so strong and so open to her. She imagined what it would feel like to drape herself over him now and have her way with that mouth of his.

  But she pushed those thoughts away and went to work, setting her teeth against the cool column of his neck, as he had with Nix.

  Arc’s throat moved. His breath snagged, then resumed at a quick pace. A tingling spread through Vahly, simmering under her skin like a wildfire spreading through dry grass. His elven magic combined with a power simpler than all of that—desire. She dared to touch the end of her tongue to his skin.

  Blushing, she drew away.

  “And that’s that,” she said, her voice husky. “What say you, gryphon? Do you agree not to tear him apart if he deigns to touch me again?”

  Arc stood slowly and rubbed the back of his neck. He cleared his throat, then finally looked up. Vahly wasn’t certain whether he had enjoyed her secret touch or if he was angered. She decided to pretend it had been an accident.

  Nix brushed the gryphon’s back. “He is already sprouting feathers and fur. Do I need to set my teeth to his throat now?” She looked as though she worried Vahly might draw her sword at the suggestion.

  “I guess so.”

  Flipping the gryphon gently, Nix kept an eye on the gryphon as she lowered her mouth to his neck. The gryphon’s gaze locked on Vahly and she smiled, hoping the intention would be clear. He stilled and stayed that way until Nix finished and turned him upright again.

  In awe, Vahly watched the gryphon as Nix set him on the cave floor beside her bed of bright, leafy moss.

  The gryphon began smoothing the start of some feathers above his shoulder. Foggy-white fur caught the light, lengthening and thickening from the spot where new feathers stopped and on down his body. Then he hopped out of the cave, ducking the scalloped tips of the akoli grapevines and heading into the sun.

  Heart light, Vahly strapped her sword onto her belt and followed.

  Nix and Arc chatted behind her.

  As Vahly stared at the gryphon, a part of her heart, a corner she had never noticed, opened wide.

  Tears pricked her eyes, and she blinked, confused at the sudden and overwhelming emotion. She didn’t even know what to name it, but she knew one thing for sure: Even in the most serious of card games, she’d never be able to hide her love for this creature.

  Vahly grimaced, her stomach twisting.

  A weakness, that’s what this was. A chink in her armor. Armor she’d donned after losing Dramour, Ibai, and Kemen.

  The gryphon grew another few inches and boasted a fine lion’s pelt. Short and almost wooly, but thinner than wool. Finer, too. His tail swished, the end showing a tuft of hair as the fellow pranced around Vahly. His four paws, bright as gold coins, bounced lightly on the ground.

  Magic thrummed inside Vahly’s chest, strong and sure. He was a weakness.

  But he was also—somehow—a strength.

  She exhaled and bent to place hands on either side of the gryphon’s head. Sharp intelligence sparked from his eyes, showing a deep wisdom that countered the fact that he had hatched only moments ago.

  A strange feeling burned its way from Vahly’s palms toward her heart.

  Love? Energy? Both?

  “What should I call you?” Her voice broke on the last word, overcome with the fact that there was now a being in the world whose life mattered far more than anyone else’s.

  Vahly chided herself. Amona deserved this feeling from her. Nix too. Possibly even Arc.

  But there was no denying it. Though the gryphon was new to the world and to Vahly, her love for him was mighty.

  “Familiar.” The word glowed in her mind’s eye. “We are bonded. We are kin.”

  Arc and Nix stepped close, smiling and watching the gryphon with undisguised curiosity.

  “Humans always did love their animals,” Nix said.

  The gryphon extended his wings and flew into Vahly’s arms, eliciting a surprised yelp from her.

  Nix grumbled. “We’ll have to work on your takeoff, youngling.”

  The gryphon’s cool beak nudged Vahly’s collarbone, then nipped at the tie of her linen shirt. His body warmed her arms and torso, chasing off the day’s unusual chill.

  “Anyone have suggestions on how to name a gryphon? Arc? You were presumed extinct as this fellow was. Do you have any ideas?”

  “I don’t see how that relates, but …” He chuckled. The dawn’s light sparkled off his throwing knives. “I suppose you could name him after an attribute he displays.”

  “You can’t speak telepathically with him, can you?”

  “It doesn’t seem so.”

  Vahly was secretly glad, though she knew it was churlish to think that way.

  Nix’s gaze was distant, her mouth turned down, and the joy of the gryphon’s hatching gone from her face.

  Vahly’s heart ache
d. The old Nix would have made several humorous attempts at names, but grief was pulling at her vivacious spirit, and Vahly wasn’t sure it was right to force her to act like she used to. If Nix gave any sign of wanting to talk about their lost ones, Vahly would be there. But she wouldn’t push. Not yet.

  At least Nix mentioned Dramour, Ibai, and Kemen now and then. That was a start.

  If Vahly were being honest with herself, she would admit that she had little desire to express her own ongoing grief. Because what good would it do? They had mourned their friends. The three dragons were gone. Remembering too much only brought searing pain. And that was another weakness, another chink in the armor.

  “What do you think the gryphon can do to help our Queenie girl?” Nix stretched one wing to block the direct sunlight from the squinting hatchling.

  Then Nix’s gaze caught on something in the distance.

  Her eyes opened wide.

  Without a sound, she soared into the sky to crash into a snarling Jade dragon.

  Chapter Twenty

  Vahly held her breath, grabbing the gryphon and spinning.

  The leader of the band of rogues blew dragonfire at Nix. She dodged the flame, spinning in the air, her red hair flying as she slashed him across the face. Then the rest of the rogues flew in around them.

  Vahly’s stomach turned. They must have found the body of the dragon Vahly had killed. The feigned rockslide must not have convinced them, and now, they were set on avenging their fellow rogue.

  Baz yowled from the sky as Vahly perched the gryphon on her shoulder to free her hands. She unsheathed her sword, and the familiar weight of the weapon brought an idea to mind.

  Magic drumming through her blood, she flipped the blade to draw the edge along the ground.

  Arc shouted spells in the elven tongue as he wielded crackling beams and luminous spheres of air magic. The resulting wind forced the dragons back, the smaller wings of their human-like forms shuddering.

  Gathering close, they fired on him, and storm clouds clustered above, silver streaks of lightning attracted to their joined power.

  Vahly, sweating and chilled, lifted her earth-crusted sword.

  By the Source, let this work.

  The undeniable urge to move and shout coursed through her, shoving her into action, despite the fact that she didn’t know what her magic could do.

  The gryphon shrieked at her ear and leapt from the perch of her shoulder. His feathers lengthened as he landed, and she realized he was larger too, standing at the height of Vahly’s knee.

  One command flashed through her mind. “Fight!” Her voice was hoarse, but the sound carried, earth magic grinding and pounding through the noise.

  The gryphon spread its wings, and two shapes crawled from the dirt—gryphons with bodies and legs of dark brown earth, born of the bond between Vahly’s magic and the gryphon’s inner spirit. Her familiar had indeed changed everything. The realization beat against her heart, in time with the earth, as wings of vines and emerald oak leaves wove themselves into existence, and claws and teeth of briar thorns showed at paw and mouth.

  Shaking, Vahly tore her eyes away from the two earthen gryphons to grab a handful of the earth at her feet. She thrust the dirt forward. The earth answered her call. A mound surged upward between the other rogues and Arc, creating a wall of protection around which Arc could launch his spells.

  Turning, Vahly watched as the two earthen gryphons flanked the real gryphon, and then surrounded Baz, flying quick to avoid Nix’s coordinated attacks on the rogue, and doing their own striking with jagged claw swipes and gnashing at ears and eyes.

  Lightning flashed out of a bank of fierce clouds in an otherwise blue sky.

  Luc rushed to back up Baz. He blew dragonfire at the gryphons, and a panicked sweat broke across Vahly’s face.

  The two earth gryphons disintegrated into nothing.

  Gutted, Vahly shouted, and the earth lifted her on a wave of sandy dirt, akoli vines, and grasses. Rising up eye-to-eye with Luc, she swung her sword and cut the dragon deeply across one wing. Spraying blood, he reeled back, his body disappearing down the hill and into the rocks at the sea’s edge.

  Baz reached for the gryphon and grabbed it by the neck. “You seem to like this one, human. I liked Fedon, and you buried him, covering your tracks as if I’d never know a true rockslide from a created one. I have lived here in the wilds while you’ve been suckling at the Lapis matriarch’s teats like a babe! You’ll never defeat the Sea Queen. Give up. And don’t follow us, or we’ll exact more than a life for a life.” He held the gryphon high and laughed, moving his talons around the gryphon’s neck.

  “I will slaughter you, rogue!” Vahly’s throat was raw, and her eyes burned.

  She stumbled, pulse knocking against her teeth. Pain dragged across her stomach and just beneath her heart, in the place where her magic guided her.

  As he gripped the gryphon and flew higher, Vahly felt the pain in her own neck, only an echo of the hurt the gryphon had to be feeling, but the sensation strangled her enough to stop her voice from working. She pointed her earth-crusted sword at Baz, but no more earth gollums rose.

  Baz slashed out at Nix and scored her eye. Vahly tensed, frozen.

  Nix fell out of the sky, tucking her wings and rolling to a stop beside the cave.

  “Rogues!” Baz waved an emerald hand, his other talons still wrapped around the struggling, mewling gryphon.

  Vahly threw her sword onto the mound she’d called up and gripped the dirt. “Swallow!”

  The ground under Baz lifted into the sky, ten—now twenty—feet. Go down, monster. Go down. Vahly seethed, her nails cutting into her flesh. But the dragon evaded the wave of churning earth and flew up and up, into the mountains, his cohorts trailing him like storm clouds.

  Shaking with fury, Vahly ran to Arc. He was bent at the waist and breathing heavily. Smoke drifted from his surcoat, and the odor of burning hair marred his usual natural scent. Nix rushed toward them, hand cupping her eye. Blood leaked from the wound like liquified rubies between her sapphire talons.

  Vahly wanted to run screaming—to wreck everything in the world to get her gryphon, but her heart also ached for Arc and Nix. “Are you all right? Did they burn you badly? Nix, how is that eye?”

  Arc lifted his left arm. Dragonfire had bubbled the flesh on the tender underside of his upper arm, where he’d evidently raised his hand to block his face. The skin was an angry scarlet. Vahly took his elbow and blew gently on the burn as if that might help. “Can I do anything to help you heal?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Nix took her hand away from her eye and tried to blink. Blackened blood covered her lid and crusted her eyelashes. Her lips quirked into a sad grin. “I thought it might be fitting to take up Dramour’s style. He always said I’d look good in a patch. More mysterious.”

  Vahly hugged Nix hard, tears threatening. “You’ll be even more irresistible.”

  “By the Blackwater, I wish those rogues would mind their own business,” Nix hissed, pulling back and shaking her head.

  Shuddering, Vahly closed her eyes and took three deep breaths. “Did you see what the gryphon did with my earth magic?”

  “I did.” Arc eyed Vahly’s fallen sword, then her face. He retrieved the weapon, wiped it clean with his surcoat, then presented it to her across his palms with his head bowed. “And you will use that new magical bond to rescue him with us at your back.”

  Nix blew a blast of fire into the sky. “Just tell me when.”

  “Now. That’s when. Right now.” Vahly ran in the direction the rogues had flown.

  Arc ran beside her, eyes fierce and magic curling around his head.

  Mid-takeoff, Nix transformed into full dragon form, not bothering to disrobe and ripping her clothing to pieces that fell from her like ash.

  The back of her neck prickling in warning at what they were about to do, Vahly attempted to speak to the gryphon like Arc did to horses.

  We are coming
for you, my new friend. We will never stop fighting for you.

  No answer whispered through her mind. Either he could not communicate in that manner, or he had been silenced.

  Vahly ran faster.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Vahly and Arc rushed up the animal trail, their pace devouring the distance between the rogues and them. Nix flew above, the scent of her fire magic strong in the breeze.

  The link between Vahly and the gryphon fell slack—like a fishing line broken and unwinding from its reel—and Vahly’s stomach dropped. Her feet gave out and she began to collapse, but Arc took her arms.

  “What is it?” He cradled her face in his warm hands as Nix landed behind him, her face full of questions.

  Vahly couldn’t breathe. If they had hurt him, or worse… The tie between the gryphon and me…something is wrong. Very wrong.

  Do you think they returned to that same camp? Sweat glistened along Arc’s smooth forehead as he helped Vahly begin running again.

  With a sensation like a violent jerk, Vahly’s magic reminded her of what she already felt deep in her bones—the exact location of her familiar. “The bond between us is telling me where they’ve taken him. To their camp.”

  Snarling, Nix took off into the sky with two heavy beats of her wings. They will suffer for this. I promise you that, Queen Vahly. She soared high, then dove to slide through the air directly over Vahly and Arc.

  Vahly’s hair blew into her face, and the wind of Nix’s wings flattened the surrounding salt cedar bushes and scattered their blooms. Nix’s full dragon body tore through the wind and ice-blue sky like a storm cloud. Shoving her hair from her mouth, Vahly pummeled the ground with her boots as she sprinted, her whole body shaking and images blinking through her mind.

  The gryphon screaming.

  Baz ripping the creature’s head from its body, blood spraying and bones shining.

  Vahly’s jaw ached from clenching her teeth and from a lack of oxygen. She pulled a long breath, doing her level best to keep up with an elf and a flying dragon.

  Did you realize we are all talking telepathically? Arc asked.