Page 151 of Griffin Food
A Pride Leader.
“You have given us much,” he says. “You are a Queen worthy of legends—one who has strengthened the entire pride. Come. There is a battle to be won.”
And then we are leaving. He does not need me to offer greater urgency. A strange energy flows into me and out of me. It feels as though it comes from the very stones of the eyrie itself… the mountain core, trickling through me and then outward, pulsing… pulsing…
We reach the opening to the upper eyrie. The air implodes, and where Atlas stood is Aldric. He shakes out his beautiful gray feathers and directs his whirling silver eye my way.
The familiar harness is already in place across his back. I know where to place my booted feet, as he lowers one wing, making a platform for me to hop up onto his back, where I clip myself into place.
Aldric glances back and chirps approvingly, seeing I’m ready… and launches himself from the cliff.
My stomach drops with him before he spreads his wings and sweeps wide, following the line of the craggy mountaintop. To my left, Galeor and his wing, and to the right, Darkan and his wing. Beyond them, griffins in every color fill the skies—wings upon wings of them.
“We are ready for your command,” Darkan announces. “Commander Dirk and Rafe are in position.”
“And the damn mutt has roused the wolves,” Fenix adds cryptically—Galeor echoes his dark approval in my mind.
“Good,” Atlas says, all business. “Light the beacon. Let the battle begin.”
A fire blares to life on the very top of the eyrie. Aldric emits a mighty screech. The other griffins answer the call. A sound that once terrified me. Now, it creates a rush inside me, one that rises as his wings beat steadily, taking us toward the battle.
Below, it all spreads out: the fires, the battle lines, and soldiers on the outskirts of Acton Trussell, the once quaint little trading village.
The banners of the royal houses that have pledged their allegiance to the Hydornian king.
The black, insidious serpent banner of the dark fae.
Rising out of the monstrous rabble are great white beasts—rocklings.
Fenix’s wing peels away, and then they launch themselves into the battle. Darrion’s wing peels to the right before they do the same.
Dead ahead, a great horde of wolves—far too big to be anything but shifters—bound from the treeline and rush between the lines of human soldiers, seeking out the rocklings.
And all the while, I feel the power of the eyrie surging through me.
Atlas remains high, orchestrating the battle from above. “Hold the left flank… Galeor, support the eastern line… Pull back from the ridge, they will overrun you.”
My vision fractures into a thousand different scenes.
I see Rafe, a great sword in his hand, a black stallion beneath him, both splattered in blood as he carves his way through enemy men.
I see Lark, white coat bloody, as he hunts with the wolves.
I see ordinary men and women, simple villagers, gem miners, traders, and farming folk, helping shore up defenses and tend the wounded.
And there—her standard flying beside the High King’s—I see my sister with Elijah at her side.
Everything else falls away.
“There,” I say.
Aldric does not hesitate. He banks sharply, the wind tearing past us as he turns toward her.
Chapter Fifty
Fenix
One hundred years earlier…
