Page 21 of Gryphon in Light

:Greetings, Sky Warrior,: Sifyra Mindspoke to the group. :We are here to assist.:

“Assist who, exactly? Me, or those who near-killed me, after I was treated as an invader, and my mind was cut up like a feast of ribs?” Kelvren snapped back.

Ayshen and Drusi both went a bit wide-eyed. Ayshen dropped his chains, then swiftly picked them up and pocketed them.

Silverfox rocked back a little, then commented, “Ho. Ah. That punches the air out of our happy welcome-back.” He raised his arms from his sides. “I think I understand why you’re upset. Don’t rage at us, Kel, we’re your friends. You’re no enemy of ours.” He spread his hands wide and palms up, in a k’Leshyan display that translated to “I have no weapons, I bare no claws toward you.” Silverfox then gestured down the path toward Kelvren’s cliffside home, and the ekeles near there, far from the Heartstone. “We’re here to walk with you. Firesong wants to see you.”

Ayshen chimed in, “And that’s where your meal awaits, with sweet-bread and the honeywater mix you like.”

Drusi added, “Baked just for you. We have missed you so much. You’re the talk of the halls.”

Kelvren was placated by this and let his hackles drop somewhat. He became aware that he was illuminating the four as much as any of the mage-lights dotted around the walkway. He raised his head and looked around over the others’ heads, and noticed something odd about the lights. The lights looked as if they pointed toward him. In fact, all of the mage-lights in sight were flaring toward him, as if they were candles and a breeze blew their flames in Kelvren’s direction. Something here was very strange.

Silverfox had apparently noticed the phenomenon, too, and ventured, “Kel, there are some situations that are different now, and you have some changes ahead. No small number of things have happened that relate to you, and we need to explain what they are.”

Without acknowledging Silverfox at all, Kelvren suddenly snapped his gaze to Sifyra and loudly said, “You called me Sky Warrior, not Wingleader. Ever since I have been Wingleader of k’Valdemar, you have called me by my rank.”

:I call you as you are, with the respect due to you.:

Silverfox ushered Kelvren along, although the gryphon was reluctant to break his stare at the dyheli. “That is part of what we need to explain to you. We just don’t want to do it out here. Let’s get to the receiving room at our ekele, shall we?” Ayshen and Drusi vanished in a burst of hertasi speed, presumably going on ahead. Nightwind and Darian followed the irate gryphon through the vine-fall, and Darian said, soothingly, “You’re probably just famished, Kel. You know how you get when you’re hungry.”

Grrr. I am not a gryphlet!

The dyheli stayed several bodylengths back, but always within sight.

Kelvren grumbled, “It isn’t hunger that has me angry. It’s the feeling that I am being handled because I’m as dangerous as a leaking oil-bomb. I feel like I have eyes upon me, and not in the way that hertasi are always watching. It feels like I have scouts ready to slay me with bowshot and mages ready to vaporize me. It is like I can hear the whispers of their thoughts with Mindspeech, and the whispers are all about how to be rid of me.”

To his shock, Silverfox replied with disarming frankness, “That is fairly accurate.”

Darian started, “Some of the—” and was cut short by an explosion.

The walkway mage-light nearest to Kelvren at that moment disintegrated with a loud crack, sending hot shards of glass all around, and a whip-crack of light the width of a human thumb lanced from the explosion into Kelvren’s wing feathers. Everyone flinched, and when Kelvren recoiled from the explosion, the mage-light on the other side of the path did the same thing when he leapt near it. The mage-lights, made to last for decades of steady light, hadn’t faded—they’d detonated.

Quite literally, the glowing gryphon’s eyes blazed.

“Maybe you should stay toward the center of the path,” Darian suggested.

Everyone agreed, and edged away from Kelvren.

The ekele of Firesong and Silverfox had expanded constantly since their arrival from Haven. Broad walkways now led to new levels, where decks large enough to host a half-dozen gryphons or thirty humans served as the roofs of tall gathering-rooms beneath. Silverfox led Kelvren into the largest of these rooms, laid out as a much more comfortable version of an enclosed council circle. The center of focus was a huge pile of lounge cushions with a graduated, curving stone perch nearby. Serving shelves and various amenities were placed artistically in every direction, mostly formed of sinuously curved blond wood. Two heavy tables were laden with slabs of beef and swine, one side cooked, the other raw. Heavy glass carafes of beer and honeywater were chilling off to the side, and a hertasi-sized bounty of baked goods made the layout complete. The floor was hard-tiled in sandy colors, but when Kelvren stepped in, he could feel that he stepped not only onto hard stone, but also through several layers of shields. He noticed one other thing immediately after seeing the meal laid out: aside from the carafes, the room had been cleared of anything easily breakable.

Firesong leaned by the only other exit, his arms folded, and commented, “You do know how to light up a room, don’t you?”

Silverfox almost soundlessly joined Firesong, and guided him by one elbow to the nest of cushions. Darian and Nightwind followed Kelvren through the shields and inside, and the dyheli stayed outside. Kel was fine with that, and centered his gaze on the food he’d been promised.

Firesong gingerly removed the day’s mask, and with it the mask’s six long falls of braided hair and feathers that obscured his scarred ears. Kelvren knew that Firesong’s appearance startled most people, Tayledras or not, but after years, most people had come to think of the masks as Firesong’s actual face. Only in private, with close friends like Kelvren or Silverfox, would he let himself be seen unmasked, because neither of them cared what he looked like—for very different reasons, of course. For Silverfox, it was love. For Kelvren, it was indifference. Kelvren didn’t care about what a horror Firesong’s face was—Kelvren only cared about someone’s “need to be hurt.” If someone was beautiful but tyrannical, they needed to be hurt. If someone was ugly but kind, they didn’t need to be hurt. Firesong was ugly to the nearly exposed bone, by human standards. Much of Firesong’s face had been burned away by molten metal, but Kelvren only cared about his quality of character. Because of that, Firesong didn’t “need to be hurt.”

“I am here for two reasons, Firesong,” Kelvren growled. “Food and courtesy.”

“Food first,” Firesong wisely replied. Kel needed no further invitation to dig into the meal—very literally. He immediately sat down on his haunches, grasped a great chunk of meat with his talons, and hooked his beak in, pulling away deep gouges.

Firesong leaned into his mate’s touch. Once his overmask was set aside, the thin, perforated leather undermask that matched his skin color was peeled away by Silverfox’s gentle fingers. After Silverfox laid both masks across the perch, he retrieved cold water for both of them. Darian and Nightwind each sank back into heavily padded chairs.

“I want to talk to you about power,” Firesong finally said.

“Still eating,” Kelvren replied. Firesong sighed and waited. Darian cleaned out an ear with a finger. Nightwind took a boot off and emptied it of grit. Kel packed his gullet well, downing a carafe of beer to follow the first helpings of meats. The sounds were enough to make any prey animal flee.

“Are you ready to—” Firesong began.