A Shard of Sun (35 page)

Kjorn, proud to called Shard his wingbrother in that moment, shuddered at the memory of wyrms. He’d stood tall himself, but not spoken or challenged them. “Let’s hope, when the time comes, we can all do the same.”

“I ran, when first the wyrms roared, and I lost my name for too long.” He showed Kjorn his teeth. “When the time comes, I will not run again.”

“I
T WILL HAVE TO
be at night,” Natsumi said. “And alone.”

They sat near the fire in Hikaru’s den, picking at the last of a pile of fish Hikaru had caught. The dragon dens were tidier than gryfon dens on the whole, carved to almost perfect roundness, with smooth, flat floors of stone. A hearth on one wall heated the den to summer warmth, and three torches that ringed the walls shed bobbing light. Carved channels in the stone guided the smoke out of the den, where it could vent naturally in the massive cavern outside.

“He isn’t supposed to wander alone,” Hikaru said after a moment.

“Nor am I supposed to talk with you,” Natsumi said mildly, her pale scales taking on a mesmerizing, amber hue in the firelight.

“I’ll be less noticeable alone,” Shard said, picking up on her thought. “And Hikaru, you won’t get in trouble by showing me dragon secrets.”

Hikaru tilted his head down stubbornly. “But the empress will find out anyway, when you go to tell her what you find.”

Shard considered the fire. “Yes, but it’s different. I’ll have the information I need, and hopefully she’ll listen to that rather than focus on my trespassing.”

“She’ll have to listen,” Hikaru agreed, running talons down his belly scales in his old, nervous habit.

“I can tell you the way.” Natsumi sat up a little in her coil and stretched her wings.

“Why haven’t I met this chronicler?” Hikaru asked, glancing toward the entryway as if he expected someone to be spying. One ear flicked to the side. Shard flicked his ears, but heard nothing.

“We usually only go in our second season,” Natsumi said reassuringly, averting her gaze. “After you shed your first scales.”

Hikaru dipped his head down near Shard. “Oh, Shard, it’s so exciting! I didn’t tell you about our shedding. For each new season, we become new, we have new scales, and new strength.”

Shard nodded. “It sounds wondrous.” He would’ve compared it to gryfon molting, but he was sure it was nothing like.

“I will have new scales by the Halflight, when winter turns to spring. Kagu says I will always have black, though, because I am winterborn.”

“Kagu doesn’t know anything,” Natsumi said, a growl in her delicate voice. “And even if you do, what does it matter? I like your scales.”

“My uncle had black feathers,” Shard said quietly. “All his life. He was very handsome.”

That soothed Hikaru and he considered his scales in the firelight, while Shard looked to Natsumi. “Can you tell me something about the elements?”

“Of course, Shard.” She sat up attentively, ears perked forward.

“Isora said something to Kagu about having too much fire, and everyone says that to be winterborn is ill luck. Why? What does it mean?”

“Oh.” Natsumi looked at Hikaru, her gaze shadowed. Then she sat back, neck arching, and explained. “It is unfortunate because winterborn are ruled by their element. Hikaru knows this now. The winterborn tend to have very difficult lives.”

“Everyone says that,” Hikaru said darkly, “but no one will tell me why, as if I should already know.”

Shard tossed fish bones into the fire. They popped and crackled and sent up a delicious, oily aroma into the den. “Amaratsu said the same thing. Why do you believe that, Natsumi?”

“Because of how water rules them.” She didn’t quite look at Hikaru. “We really don’t have to talk about it. I want to hear about where you came from, the wyrms, and all of it. When night falls, I will tell you the way to the chronicler.”

Hikaru coiled near the fire and began to clean his claws. “But I would like to hear about water, and being winterborn. I still don’t know much about the elements.”

Natsumi looked between them, and stretched her wings in a graceful motion of surrender. “Each season has an element. Springborn take elements of the earth, being steadfast and grounded. Summerborn are like fire, aggressive and dominant.” She fluffed her wings. “I am autumnborn, wind-ruled, and my mother says that means I like change, and adventure. That is true enough.” Looking to Hikaru, she finished apologetically. “Winterborn are…”

“Ruled by water,” Shard said, following the progression.

Natsumi nodded.

“But water isn’t bad,” Hikaru said. “Isora taught that water is one of the strongest elements.”

“They are all strong,” Natsumi said quickly. “But water is
difficult
. To be born in the dark winter of the year, and to die then, is to be ruled by water, which means you are ruled by your heart.”

Hikaru chuckled, nudging Shard with a wing tip. “That’s not so awful.”

Natsumi stroked her own flight feathers, looking uncomfortable. “It isn’t awful—that is, it doesn’t mean
you’re
awful. It’s just difficult. The heart doesn’t always want easy things. To be ruled by the heart is to be terribly vulnerable. That’s what my father says. But he was springborn.”

That made Hikaru look thoughtful, and he glanced to Shard, who considered the many times his heart had been split, and he’d had to decide between two equally important things.

“I see,” Shard said, then butted Hikaru’s flank. “Well I think you’re strong, Hikaru, and you have a strong heart. I think it will rule you well.”

“I do too,” Natsumi said softly, gazing at him. Hikaru dipped his head, though his brow ridge furrowed down, ears back in contemplation.

For a moment they all looked at the fire, as if seeing their own hearts as displayed by the elements. In dragon estimation, nearly all gryfons were springborn, so should be ruled by the earth. Shard found that ironic, as much as most gryfons valued the sky, and seemed to forget the earth.

“Well now,” Natsumi said, drawing them out. “Let me tell you the way. Soon it will be dark, and most resting, and you’re so small you should pass unnoticed, if you go the way I tell you.”

“But don’t take too long,” Hikaru warned, eyes glowing with firelight, “Or I’ll come find you.”

True to Natsumi’s word, Shard found the caverns and passageways quiet and deserted. He was so small and plain of feather, he blended with the mountain, and any dragons passing high above him took no notice. He avoided the torchlight the best he could, and followed Natsumi’s directions, guided by the carvings over each archway and along the walls of the tunnels.

He knew he’d passed under one mountain into another, caught a whiff of the forges, and then ducked away into another tunnel. He would’ve liked to fly, but it might have gained attention.

Once or twice he thought he heard a whisper of wings behind him, or saw the flash of another’s shadow along the wall. Every time he paused to look, he was alone. He hoped it was just nerves.

At last he found himself in a long, wide tunnel, where sparse torchlight reflected off winding veins of gold in the rock. Natsumi had said he would be close when he came to the halls of gold.

Wishing only that Hikaru was with him, but knowing the necessity of going alone, Shard picked up to a lope through the glimmering tunnel.

Following a bend, the passage opened before him into a shining display of gold and silver.

Shard stopped short, staring up, staring around, beak open.

It was the most massive hall he’d seen thus far, larger than the main cavern he’d first entered. Larger than the Dawn Spire, large enough, Shard thought with a dizzy thrill, to fit around the White Mountains from the Sun Isle. It yawned so long and wide that the torches winking from the far end seemed to be distant, golden stars.

Reverently, Shard stepped forward, realizing he could see as well as if it were daylight, not night, underground in a mountain.

He quickly understood why.

Torches bounced warm light around the endless hall where the wide pillars were not mere stone or ice, but sheathed in hammered gold. They stretched all the way up to the ceiling far away, and depicted scenes of dragon lore.

Distracted by the shining pillars, Shard walked a few more steps in, only to look behind him and see that hundreds and hundreds of dens were carved into the walls, ringing the cavern in neat tiers, level upon level.

He peeked over to see the inside of a den on his level, and his skin prickled to see that the walls were entirely lined with translucent, honey-colored amber. Raw stones of all colors piled within the room, waiting to be polished or cut.

Feeling distinctly like a trespasser, Shard backed away quickly and looked around again, realizing that every room must be stacked with precious gems and treasure.

He turned his attention back to the pillars. Slowly he realized these were not simply art or fancy, but tales with clear beginnings, middles and endings.

Dragon history.

Growing excited, he followed a story that ran its course in images across the bases of several pillars. A dragon emerged from a wild sea and encircled the earth like Midragur. The same dragon raised mountains from the sea, which, on the golden pillar, were inlaid with pearl that looked like snow, so Shard knew it was the Sunland and the Mountains of the Sea.

The sun and moon rose and set on the Ages across the pillars and Shard saw war, peace, famine and abundance. He saw the Sunlanders learning how to bend gold and jewels into their crafts, saw them swimming, fishing, flying.

“Like gryfons,” he murmured, touching a talon to the gold. “Dragons dwell in earth and sky.”

Eagerly, Shard wound around the pillars, seeking the Tale of the Red Kings.

“You enjoy history, I see.”

Shard yelped and sprang into the air, whirling about and flapping two leaps high.

The withered voice, female, came from above him. “I thought the empress expressly forbid you from entering the treasure rooms.” Shard spotted her, peering out of a den four tiers off the ground level—an enormous, aged dragoness with scales the same soft hue of a fading aster.

For a moment Shard couldn’t respond, for he saw that she sat coiled in a den lined, like the one in amber, with nothing but panels of polished emerald. Firelight glowing off the precious stone wall cast green warmth around her and the den like a summer day in the woods. The dragoness, sitting comfortably in the den and with a sheet of thin, hammered gold before her, watched him curiously as he stared. “But then I suppose it is a gryfon’s nature to ignore such a command?”

Shard heard irony in her voice, not condemnation, but he tread carefully as he re-gathered his voice. “I think gryfons are very misunderstood here.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“I’m Shard,” he said, flying up to her level. “Son-of-Baldr.” Dwarfed by dragon treasure and the dragoness herself, he felt he should add more. “Prince of the Silver Isles in the Starland Sea.”

“Yes. I’ve heard. You may land, there.” She pointed to a ledge just outside where she lounged. “It wearies me to watch you hover so.”

Shard touched down on the rock, taking another look around the gleaming den, then mantled to her. Her soft, shifting gray-violet scales had lost their shine, but light brightened her eyes and her mane and whiskers seemed to drift about in their own invisible breeze. He was sure he stood before a springborn dragon, one near the end of her life, a strange mix of ancient knowledge, swift growth and naïve wisdom.

Taking a breath when he beheld her more closely Shard blurted, “You’re beautiful.”

She chuckled, taken aback. “Oh? Among my kind, I am considered plain. I would return the compliment but I don’t know how your looks fare, among gryfons.” She seemed pleased, embarrassed that she was pleased, and she carefully set her sheet of gold aside to make room for Shard. Glancing at it furtively, Shard saw she’d been in the middle of tracing out images. He wondered if he was in any of them.

“I fear I’m also considered plain,” he confessed, and the scales around her eyes crinkled. “I hope you don’t find me disrespectful. Everything seems wondrous here.” He settled his wings. “Are you the chronicler?”

“Yes. I am Sora’s daughter, Ume.”

Shard mantled again, bowing low. “Honorable Ume. A spirit told me of a dragon who keeps separate the truth from lies, who keeps the stories. She gave me this token, from a dragon who was once her friend, long ago.” He lifted the silver chain and she bent her head to examine it. “She said you might be able to help me.”

Her eyes widened. “Yes, I know this work. These links are signature of my family. To what spirit did you speak?”

“I’ll tell you everything,” Shard murmured. She smelled of earth and warm dragon flesh, mineral and sharp. He had a feeling she didn’t often leave this vast cavern. “I have so many questions for you.”

“And I you.” She leaned forward, sniffing the air about him, then backed away into the emerald cave to give him more space. “You’ve stirred the winds of Ryujan with your arrival, no doubt about that. And I hear something in your voice I haven’t heard since I hatched.” She looked beyond him, to the long, endless hall of history and treasure. Then her large eyes settled on Shard’s face. “I didn’t think I would know it when I did, but I do. Amaratsu heard it, and followed it, and now I know it too.”