The giant looked down at his boots, raised one slowly, grimacing at the
legs dangling from the sole. The fair man with the wings dropped a hand on his
shoulder, shook him lightly, fearlessly.
“Temper, Bayley,” he murmured. His eyes, on Pierce’s face, widened in
sudden comprehension. “We must have wandered off the map into the realm of a
sorceress.”
“Or a lunatic,” the giant muttered, shaking crab off his boot.
“No.” The intense gaze fixed Pierce, held him motionless. “He is the
sorceress’s son. That’s why you couldn’t speak. Isn’t it? You saw
something in us. Tell me what you saw.”
“I saw—” Pierce whispered, losing his voice again, “I saw your shadow.
Your wings. And I saw your fire,” he added to the giant, then to the dark
knight, “I saw your barbed tail.”
Suddenly, they were all smiling.
“No wonder you lost your tongue,” the giant marveled. “We’ve been up
north, hunting our ancestors.” He held up his brawny arm; Pierce saw the fine
embroidered medallion on the black sleeve: a white bear outlined in flames. “
I am Sir Bayley Reeve. My ancestors took the Fire Bear. I’m not sure how,”
he added with wonder. “She’s huge. She topped even me by a head.”
“And mine took the wyvern,” said the man with the sea-green eyes. “I am
Roarke Wyvernbourne.”
Pierce swallowed, speech swollen like a lump in his throat. Even Desolation
Point, the outermost stretch of isolated land along the coast of Wyvernhold,
got a newspaper now and then.
“And mine the great Winter King of the north,” the pale-haired man said.
“The Winter Merlin, who taught the ancient mage of the first Wyvernbourne
king. Back when there were a dozen petty kingdoms and as many kings. That’s
what you saw in me: the falcon’s wings. I am Sir Gareth May.”
They waited, gazing at Pierce expectantly, until he found his wits again.
“Oh. Pierce Oliver.” He started to hold out his hand, felt the crab net rope
still in it.
“Oliver,” the Wyvernbourne prince murmured. “Wasn’t there something . . .
” He shook his head, shrugging. “Well.”
“Did you— Ah— Did you actually— I mean, with weapons? I thought they were
already pretty much extinct?”
The knights were silent for a breath; Pierce saw the memories, complex and
mysterious, in their faces.
“We came as close as we could,” Gareth May said slowly. “They leave a
track. They leave a rumor. I climbed into the high forests, found the ancient
nesting places of the Winter Merlins. I heard their voices in the wind. Maybe
I saw one. Maybe it was a cloud. Maybe it was both.”
“I searched in fire,” Bayley said. “At night. Fire licking wood as the Fire
Bear licks her newborn to turn them into flesh and blood; she swallows their
fire, their immortality. Maybe I did that.”
“I found the caves where the wyverns raised their young,” the Wyvernbourne
prince said. “I saw their high nests, hollows of stone where they laid their
eggs, said to make a noise like thunder when they cracked.”
“What we hunted, what we took, is what you saw,” Gareth said simply. “That
you saw it so quickly, so easily—that’s the wonder. We were searching for
what we found. You weren’t looking for anything at all.”
Again they were silent, consulting one another with their eyes. Pierce
watched, fascinated by their closeness, their fellowship. The motionless gull,
which he had forgotten, gave such a sudden, piercing cry that he nearly leaped
off the dock. It sounded, he thought as he caught his breath, like a curse.
He glanced down, saw more crabs wobbling to the edge of the rings, toppling
onto the dock. He bent to pluck a couple of likely-looking dinners up, toss
them back into the net.
“Look for us,” he heard, “if you come to Severluna. You might find a place
for yourself in King Arden’s court.”
He straightened again, blinking at the thought. They were smiling at him
again, welcoming him to their world, making him, for a moment that melted his
heart, one of them. The moment passed; he was himself again, in all his
awkwardness, his isolation, his inexperience: a young, tangle-haired man
wearing a filthy apron at the end of a dock at the edge of the world, chasing
after crabs instead of wyverns.
“I’ve always lived here,” he explained. “It’s home.”
Bayley glanced bewilderedly at the tiny town lining the main street, doors
facing the setting sun. The others refrained from looking. “Oh. Well,” the
giant said gruffly, and added, “Sorry about your dinner. Luckily there are
more in your net.”
“They’re for my mother.”
“Oh.”
“She owns the best restaurant on the cape. I was working in the kitchen
earlier; that’s why I’m wearing this ridiculous apron. Most of these are too
small to keep.”
“What about that one?” the prince asked of the one Pierce had just thrown
back into the net.
“Let’s see . . .” He pulled it out again, turned it over. “Nope. It’s
female.”
They gazed at it. Bayley broke the silence.
“Hell can you tell?”