Band of Breakers Read online

  “How long will this work for me?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, actually. I’ve never handed one off to a human.”

  Nix looked over the ground. “I can torch a branch for you if we find one.” She picked up a sad little stick, then dropped it. “Nah. There’s nothing here that’ll work. Stick with the magic of elf balls.”

  Vahly snickered as she lowered herself into the crevice, but she heard Arc’s reply to Nix.

  “I’m so glad you are finally beginning to appreciate the prowess of my kynd,” he teased Nix, his voice echoing off the walls as Vahly climbed down.

  Vahly maneuvered into the crevice, then underneath a low shelf of rock. “Nix has been admiring your prowess since we left,” she called up to them. “And by prowess, I mean your arse.”

  The space Vahly wiggled into quickly widened into a room with damp, heavy air and a constant drip from an unseen source. The pull in her drummed in rhythm with her pulse as earth magic sang through her boots and into her feet. She climbed over a tumble of smaller stones, scattering a few hand-sized cave spiders.

  A shudder rocked her. She’d always hated the little beasties.

  “Why did it have to be spiders?” she muttered, forcing herself onward.

  Arc’s orb glinted, weakly illuminating the end of the space. Vahly knelt and ran a hand along the dark rocks at her feet, feeling for a spring. All was dry, so she pushed her fear of more arachnid beasties to the back of her mind and stretched to reach farther down.

  Finally, moisture wetted her skin. Using thumb and finger, she tried to dislodge one of the stones in hopes that disturbing the spot would allow the water to flow freely enough to fill her water skin.

  Idly, she wondered if she could use her earth magic to move the rocks. Her power was weak at best and, of course, tied to her own energy levels. Right now, she was tired and parched. She managed to work another rock away from the water source, deciding to hold off on using magic to save it for instances in which nothing else would do the job. Best not to risk it at the bottom of a cave, in any case.

  The water bubbled over the back of her hand, cold and refreshing. If she could get a hold on one final stone—an incredibly smooth and oddly shaped one—perhaps the spring would be fully accessible. She pushed the strange rock, trying to shift it. The thing rolled back, slid over her hand completely, then knocked along the ground, rolling to a stop out of sight. It wasn’t nearly as heavy as it should’ve been.

  She scrambled to where it might have halted, and sure enough, an opening to a spring appeared. Water flowed at a steady enough pace to fill her water skin. Well, it would once she moved the rolled stone.

  Wait. It wasn’t a stone.

  She set the light orb down, then lifted the stone that wasn’t a stone.

  Purple flecks colored the seamless surface. Vahly tapped it.

  Something inside scratched back.

  She nearly dropped it, her own heart hammering along with the earth’s ever-present heartbeat. It was an egg. And her tingling fingers and the sound drumming in her ears made it very clear this was no normal egg.

  Whatever lived in this shell belonged to her, and, equally, she belonged to it.

  Forgetting the water and her parched throat entirely, she cradled the egg, and then maneuvered her way back to the crevice to the upper level. She looked up, her hand steady on the egg, and an ache spread through her chest—a feeling similar to being on the brink of crying.

  Arc’s eyebrows rose as he peered down. Nix leaned over too, her pupils dilating in that dragon way beside a second light orb Arc must’ve created.

  “Water,” Nix said slowly. “We needed water.” She glanced at Arc. “I think our friend here must have bumped her skull. She’s forgotten the goal completely. We can get eggs from the trees, darling Vahly.”

  But the fire in Vahly’s returning look must’ve shown them exactly how important this egg somehow was.

  They immediately set to work helping her bring the egg carefully up to their level.

  Once Arc had secured the egg, Vahly filled all three of their water skins at the mouth of the spring—the place the egg had revealed to them. Because that was exactly the truth of it. The egg had brought her to the place where she and her cohorts could find proper water flow. Every beat of the earth inside Vahly’s Blackwater blessed blood sang the truth of it.

  A word whispered through her mind. Familiar.

  Climbing back out of the crevice to join Nix and Arc, Vahly did her best to remain calm. What did that word mean? How was it related to a large egg? Was this the end of her quest? Had she found the reason her magic had been pushing her into the western mountains? So many questions. Her mind burned for the answers.

  Arc nestled the egg inside Vahly’s satchel, which sat beside her bow and sword belt. She held her breath as he adjusted it, but he was careful, keeping the buckle on the flap from clipping the delicate exterior.

  The egg held her attention in full as a buzz ran through Vahly’s chest. She had found a friend, solid and trustworthy. But how did she know this? None of it made any sense. This unborn creature was her confidante?

  Nix’s mouth lifted, and she ran a gentle, taloned hand over the shell, looking to Vahly as she approached. “What do you think is hiding in there?” Nix asked.

  Vahly shrugged, wishing she had more answers than questions. “I don’t know.”

  Arc sat and crossed his legs, appearing far too calm. They needed to rush outside with the egg and do some kind of celebratory dance or something to show the world how excited she was about this find.

  “I know what it is,” Arc said quietly, frowning.

  A weight settled on Vahly. He didn’t seem pleased. “Don’t hold back on your elvish wisdom now.” Vahly knelt beside him.

  “It’s a gryphon egg,” he said.

  Disbelief slid through the cave. There hadn’t been a gryphon spotted as long as Vahly had been alive. And from the scrolls she’d read looking for clues to her power ritual, they’d been extinct for at least a century.

  Nix fell back, mouth open. “This is even more shocking than the idea that the elves continued to flourish for so long without the rest of us knowing a thing about it.”

  “Are you sure?” Vahly asked Arc, touching the egg and feeling the echoing scratch against the underside of the surface.

  Arc nodded. “Those plum-hued spots only show up on a gryphon egg. I too had thought they’d passed from this world.”

  Vahly stood, then sat again, unable to be still. She gripped Arc’s bare forearm, feeling the warmth and strength of his elven flesh and bone. “I can feel the creature inside.” She touched her heart, where the tugging sensation was strongest. “When do you think it will hatch?”

  Arc’s head dropped. He looked up at Vahly through a thick lock of his raven hair. “It will not hatch.”

  Vahly’s heart seized, and she jumped to her feet, bumping her head on the cave’s sharp ceiling. Rubbing the pain away, she peppered Arc with questions. “But why? How do you know? Did elves study gryphons? You can’t possibly know for certain.”

  Nix took a long drink from her water skin, then handed it to Vahly. “Drink. If you die of thirst, none of this will matter.”

  Vahly did as Nix suggested, taking a quick sip. Her body wanted more, but her mind didn’t have room for worrying about that.

  Arc stood, arms crossed and eyes sad. “They died off due to a general failure to hatch. We have records of it in our scrolls. The gryphons once thrived in the Red Meadow and the mountains here and to the north. But after the first of the major wars between elves, humans, and dragons, the new eggs never managed to hatch. No one knows exactly why, but the accepted reason is the gryphons didn’t have enough prey. The smaller animals were driven out of the area by dragonfire spreading through the underbrush, and the hungry gryphon adults bore offspring that died in the shell.”

  Vahly blinked, wishing Arc were more often wrong in his assumptions. Her limbs filled with sand, and the gro
und suddenly looked inviting for a long sleep and a good cry.

  Nix eyed Arc like she might consider him for her next meal. “Elves. You’re always blaming it on the dragons. Your kynd started that first war, Arcturus, if I remember the tales correctly.”

  Arc’s nostrils flared. “Only because you had infringed on our hunting grounds.”

  Vahly held up her hands. “Peace, you two. I thought you’d grown fond of one another. Where did the fondness run off to, hm?”

  “He’s fine,” Nix muttered. “Lucky he’s so pretty.”

  Arc looked down, amusement showing on his full lips.

  Vahly tucked the egg farther into her satchel and lowered the flap over the shell. Heavy and sluggish, she pulled her bow over her back, then buckled her sword belt around her waist.

  Arc and Nix drank more from their water skins as they argued.

  Vahly’s thoughts clung to the egg. Why was she meant to find a gryphon egg? Especially if it wouldn’t hatch? Was her magic faulty? Perhaps the earth’s drumming and that tug near her heart were only aftereffects of the fever she’d suffered. This couldn’t be the Source’s plan. An egg? What was the point?

  Daylight drifted through the break in the rocks, and Vahly started toward it while Arc and Nix talked quietly behind her.

  Before leaving the cave, Vahly set a hand against her satchel. Beneath the fabric, the egg’s shape curved against her palm. “What is the deal with you, egg?” she whispered. “I hate to drag your unborn tail into this mess of a life I’ve made here. Wouldn’t you rather stay in this cave? You might have a better chance of hatching in this safe place.”

  Perhaps it was her imagination, but Vahly felt a hard thump against her palm. “The creature inside just bumped me again. It’s alive. I know it. I think it’ll hatch. He is strong.”

  Arc’s voice rose. “He?”

  The knowledge swelled over Vahly’s mind, sure as the rising sun. “The gryphon is male. I don’t know how I know that. But I do.” She patted the egg and walked into the sun.

  “Maybe this is tied to your earth magic too,” Nix said.

  They walked in silence, all of them puzzling furiously.

  Chapter Four

  Queen Astraea glided through the ocean, grinning at the power that sang through her blood. Soon, Ryton would return. He’d be triumphant, and there would be no cause to worry about the flood failing. All would be well. She wished he’d already reported back, but perhaps he was enjoying himself. Taking time to kill the blooming Earth Queen with style.

  Astraea quite liked that idea.

  How would he do it exactly? Driving water into her lungs? Spearing her through, limb by limb, to watch her slowly die?

  The ocean would devour the human’s blood like it did every other creature’s. This Earth Queen would die, one way or another, as all would die. This one would perish at Queen Astraea’s command.

  Schools of silvery longfish broke apart, then fled the queen’s sudden approach, their strategy of clustering together to appear larger forgotten entirely.

  The wide-open water went on for miles upon miles. Light drifted from the surface and turned the shallow levels of the water a pale green.

  Astraea stretched her arms wide, kicking her feet. The expanse of her world was marvelous. And it was all under her control. No one else’s. She was the most powerful creature. None could force her to submit. Never again would she be the fearful creature of her youth, suffering her mother and father’s slaps and insults, their fingers tight in her hair, the bubbles from their mouths hot and stinking on her cheek.

  Never again.

  A shark five times Astraea’s size darted from the shadows of a sunken human ship.

  The queen’s heart tripped in reaction, but just as quickly, her pulse normalized. This simplebeast was no match for her.

  “Take me into your maw if you think you can!” Her magic vibrated around her words like plucked strings.

  The ocean tasted of death and blood. This shark had killed recently.

  Plunging toward her at a breakneck speed, the shark opened its mouth to show rows of pointed teeth.

  The poor beast thought it could end her.

  She cackled, bubbles rising from her coral-red lips. A spell came to her mind, as magic often did, and she raised her arms, speaking the ancient words of power. Words that were as old as the world itself. The sounds were hollow, then snapping. Long, then howling. They were like beasts themselves, set loose to do her bidding.

  A floral taste touched the queen’s mouth, her magic’s flavor, and a current whirled to life. As the water rushed away from her, it tried to tangle her tightly knotted blue-green hair. She shifted, and the blast of spelled salt water gushed toward the black-finned shark.

  The spell whipped the creature from its path, currents blasting the knife-edge tail and collapsing one entire side of the great body. His head seemed distorted, wrenched down in pain, jaws slack.

  Astraea did not stop there.

  “You should’ve had the good sense to bow to your queen.”

  She poured more of her energy into the spellwork and the whirling currents of white-green. Water drove into the shark’s open mouth. The creature jerked hard, tail slicing the eddies in an instinct to survive, to flee this horror he’d dared to face.

  The queen fisted her free hand as her spellwork pummeled the shark toward the sea floor. Her cheeks lifted into a vicious grin and a glint sparked from her eyes as the creature twitched, then grew still.

  Without another look, Astraea swam away from her victim. A sense of triumph colored the world in bright shades of blue, green, and gold. This was exactly the way the world was meant to be. With Astraea as the supreme power.

  Only in this particular version of life could the queen smile, dance, and swim proudly. If even one beast, simple or high, tread upon her place as ultimate ruler, she’d lose it all.

  Her confidence. Her strategic mind. Her magic.

  If anyone or anything caused her to submit, her past would crawl out of the darkness and bury her. If she failed to destroy any barrier, any usurper, she would hate herself again. She would see, in her mind’s eye, that little one she had been so long ago.

  A sad shadow in a house of fists and degradation.

  Her stomach turned at the broken memory. Fermented sea violets. Their clinging stink. The way those hands—hands that should have cared for her, loved her—shoved the intoxicating violets down her young throat. The laughter that scratched against the gray coral walls and pierced her eardrums as well as any bone needle.

  Astraea’s legs beat against the water, shaking the memory away. She swam hard and forced a smile. No one would ever submit her to their will. Ever again.

  She would die first.

  Beyond a wall of waving seagrass, the city of Wode’s Current appeared. Tailors with their shops of pale blue stone lined the main street, which led into a square of sandstone guild houses.

  The sea folk bowed as Astraea passed, snippets of their whispered words tickling her ears. They knew she was headed to a music concert at the house of the wealthiest family in the sea, the size of their fortune second only to her own. Pearce controlled the pearl trade alongside his quiet wife, Acantha. At events, Astraea had seen her acting docile and shy, only to suddenly snap into a rage at surrounding young ones. Most likely, she treated their daughter in such a way.

  Pearce claimed their daughter Larisa had a golden voice.

  Singing, music, painting—the arts deserved top billing in the world, just behind war and power. The arts deserved wholehearted respect. If this pearl merchant’s daughter was worth the praise folk were piling on her, Astraea would gladly invite her to court to escape her parents and play for the upcoming battle feast.

  And what a celebration it would be.

  Soon, Astraea would flood the Lapis territory. Many sea warriors would be slain. She knew that well. Such risks deserved reward, so before the flooding commenced, Astraea would welcome her warriors to a grand spread of t
he ocean’s finest offerings, steamed and seasoned by the castle chefs. There would be countless pleasures at their fingertips. It was only right to shower those willing to give up their lives with praise, food, and the best of the arts before the big day.

  If only Ryton would hurry. He should’ve been back already. No human could match him in the water.

  Surely.

  True, this was an Earth Queen he was set on killing, but still. The Earth Queen hadn’t struck out at the sea yet, so she could not be as powerful as Astraea had first feared. So what was taking Ryton so long?

  Two rows of blooming firestalks led Astraea to an arched doorway. Between the open doors, Pearce and Acantha stood with twin smiles of welcome.

  Astraea swept past them and into their entryway. The marble floors were cool on her bare feet as she walked, head high, the couple scurrying to catch up.

  Pearce rambled on and on about improvements made to the house and how pleased they were to have the queen as a guest.

  “Yes, yes.” Astraea’s patience thinned. “The audition will be in this room?” She pointed to a set of bright red doors in the center of the home, the usual spot for gatherings in sea folk houses.

  Acantha opened the door. “Yes, please go in. The servants will provide you with refreshment.”

  Three uniformed servants scattered like startled needlefish as Astraea found a settee and made herself comfortable.

  “That is not necessary,” Astraea said. “Let us hear your daughter. Where is she? I don’t have time to linger overlong.”

  A thin female with a long face entered the room from a passageway in the back corner. She bowed gracefully to Astraea. So this was Larisa. Her hair was braided neatly on top of her head, pearls threaded so thickly that the room’s luminescent nautili glittered off her as if she herself also glowed.

  Astraea smiled genuinely at Larisa, pleased with her demeanor and appearance.

  “Please begin when you are ready,” Astraea said in a softer tone that she rarely used. So often, folk disappointed her in the ugly way they spoke or acted. Larisa had more grace than her parents had ever possessed.