Shadow's End (Elder Races #9)

Bel gave her son a look of rebuke. “Holding one’s ground is not passivity. It takes its own kind of strength. Sometimes the hardest part of a battle is holding one’s ground. At most Malphas has gained a standoff. He has not won anything yet.”


“Nor will he,” said Graydon. “Although this may turn into a very long war. Have patience.” He looked up. Dark smoke was beginning to billow out of the manor’s windows and chimneys. “We should leave. I can take you both back to London.”

“I can’t abandon the horse,” Ferion said.

That small, selfless statement helped Graydon feel a little more kindly disposed toward the other male.

“It’s a hired horse, yes?” When Ferion nodded, he said, “Tie the reins to the hitching post beside the stable doors. It’s far enough from the house, it’ll be safe from the fire, and you can be certain that Wembley’s constable will be up here momentarily, along with many other people. They’ll make sure it gets returned to the stable where it belongs.”

Ferion did so. Within moments, both he and Bel settled astride on the gryphon’s back.

The return flight to London was mostly made in silence, each one of them wrapped up in thought. When Graydon landed in Grosvenor Square, it had just turned midmorning. The sun had begun to take the chill out of the frigid air.

Tradesmen crowded the streets, conducting business, although many who had attended masques the night before would still be abed. Graydon maintained his cloak. He sensed Bel’s cloaking spell as she did the same.

She and Ferion slipped from his back. Together, they both moved to face the gryphon. He would not even get the chance to say good-bye to her in private. Pride made the gryphon hold his head high.

“Thank you for everything,” Ferion said. “I will never forget what you’ve done for my mother and me.”

“Make something good come out of this,” Graydon told him. “Stay away from gaming tables.”

A harsh breath escaped the other male. “The thought of gambling again makes me feel ill.”

Well. At least there was that.

Bel stepped forward, looking up at him. Her expression caused his chest to ache. Telepathically, she said, I will miss you with all my heart.

The pain in her mental voice was so apparent, every imagined rebuff or slight he had felt over the last several hours vanished in an instant.

Slowly, the gryphon lowered his head until he rested his beak against her chest. He breathed deeply, filling his lungs with her scent one last time. She stroked his head.

This isn’t over, he told her. Don’t ever forget it.

Nodding, she stood back and wiped at her eyes. He felt the physical separation like a knife cut along his skin. Ferion put his arm around her shoulders. Graydon watched as they walked to their house.

Once she had disappeared from sight, he launched again and stayed aloft for hours, hurtling through the air as fast as he could in a crazed flight going nowhere.

Malphas couldn’t kill Ferion without also freeing them to hunt him down, but that did not defang the Djinn, not while he held the lien on Ferion’s soul. If they broke the bargain, Malphas could control or torture Ferion with impunity.

That meant Graydon couldn’t hunt for Malphas, or say anything to anyone based on what he had learned that morning.

But, like setting fire to the house, there was nothing in the bargain to keep Graydon from watching and waiting for other leverage that may come his way.

And nothing whatsoever in the bargain that could keep him from using it.





TEN


South Carolina, December 2015

As Graydon flew south along the coast, he left the snowfall behind in New York.

Gradually the air warmed. The cloud cover cleared enough to reveal the glow of the moon. He watched the shadowy ocean and the glowing lattice of the coastal cities while he considered the challenges that lay ahead.

The biggest challenge was figuring out how to speak with Beluviel in private. If Linwe refused to tell Bel he was coming, and if, as Linwe had said, she was secluding herself, trying to talk to her would not only be difficult, it could very well be dangerous.

The Elves had been through one hell of a year. Earlier in January, their numbers had been decimated. Their Lord Calondir had been killed, and for a brief time, Beluviel herself had been controlled by a Powerful madman, Amras Gaeleval.

Graydon’s muscles clenched as he remembered carrying her from the battlefield. She had been bloody and suffering from exposure to the cold. An atavistic, primitive part of him had wanted to lash out at the world, to keep her from any harm.

But she wasn’t his to protect. Giving her over to the care of the healers and walking away had been one of the hardest things he had ever done.

Aside from the loss of so many Elves, for Bel, one of the most devastating losses had to have been the death of her Wood, which had been destroyed when a fire swept through it.