Our ride ended all too soon.
In minutes, the gryphons had flown us all the way from the academy up the mountain to the Eir Ruins. Balder and Brono landed in the main courtyard, which was full of wildflowers, herbs, and even a few small trees. The moon and starlight bathed the plants and surrounding stones in a soft silver sheen, making the area look even lovelier than it had when I’d been here in my dream—or whatever that had been—with Sigyn last night.
I swung my legs over the side of Balder’s back and slid down off the gryphon. Ian did the same, at a much slower speed, and he wobbled when his boots hit the ground. I laughed, and he scowled at me, but his expression quickly melted into a sheepish smile, and I could tell that he’d enjoyed the ride as much as I had.
Ian hesitated, then gave Balder’s side a soft pat. The gryphon snorted his amusement, then wandered away and started snatching up wildflowers with his beak and eating the delicate petals and stems.
Ian glanced from one side of the courtyard to the other. “Are these the Eir Ruins? After Takeda told us that we were coming to the Colorado academy, I read up on them, but they’re even more beautiful than the pictures in my history books.”
“I love them,” I said in a soft voice. “And the gryphons too.”
He nodded. “I can see why.”
“C’mon. I’ll show you around.”
On an impulse, I reached out and grabbed Ian’s hand. He jerked back, as startled by the motion as I was, but he didn’t let go.
And neither did I.
We stood there, frozen in place, staring into each other’s eyes. Like the ruins, Ian was even more handsome in the moonlight, his face looking as though it had been carved out of marble, and his gray eyes seeming to be the exact color of the silver tint that coated everything around us—
Brono head-butted me again, jealous that I wasn’t paying any attention to him, and my hand slipped free of Ian’s. I laughed, but it was a high, nervous sound, and I quickly turned to the baby gryphon and started petting him to hide how much I had enjoyed the feel of Ian’s warm hand in mine, his strong body close to mine, his soft breath kissing my cheeks.
Ian cleared his throat, as determined to ignore the moment as I was. “You said something about a tour?”
“Yep. This way.”
I petted Brono a final time, and the gryphon joined his father. While the gryphons grazed, I led Ian all around the ruins, pointing out the different types of wildflowers and herbs, the gurgling stream, the fountain in the center of the courtyard, and the animal carvings that covered many of the broken, crumbling stones.
We ended up sitting on a pair of round, smooth boulders at the edge of the ruins, which offered an incredible view. The rocky ruins ended in a wide canyon that was so deep I couldn’t see the bottom of it this late at night. On the far side, the forest took over and rolled like a dark carpet all the way down to the valley below. In the distance, the lights of Snowline Ridge burned bright and steady, along with those of the academy.
Ian peered down at the steep drop below and scooted a little farther back on his rock. “What is it with you and heights? I’m starting to think you’re dragging me around to all these high places just to torture me.” His words might be grumpy, but his tone was light and teasing, and he seemed more relaxed than at any other time since I’d met him.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, Aunt Rachel isn’t crazy about heights either. So you’re not the only scaredy-cat around here.”
Ian straightened up. “I am a Viking. I am most certainly not a scaredy-cat.”
I gave him a look.
He winced. “Except when it comes to heights.”
“Glad to know that’s the only chink in your armor.”
He shrugged, but his face crinkled into a smile.
We sat there, enjoying the view. The gryphons moved back and forth in the courtyard, still eating wildflowers. The wind whistled around us, and I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, hugging myself into a tight ball to help keep warm. The motion made my jacket sleeve ride up, and my silver charm bracelet and heart locket glimmered in the moonlight.
“That’s pretty,” Ian said. “Did your aunt give that to you?”
I grimaced. “Sort of. Aunt Rachel gave it back to me. It was originally a gift from my parents on my birthday last year. I used to wear it all the time. Until, well, you know.”
Ian looked at me. “How did it feel? To realize that they were Reapers?”
“You mean that they were the bad guys and they’d been lying to me my whole life about who and what they really were?”
He nodded.
I let out a harsh, bitter laugh that echoed out from this side of the canyon, hit the far side of the rocks, and bounced right back to me, like a slap in the face. “It was the worst moment of my life.”
“What happened?” Ian asked in a soft, sympathetic voice.
I fiddled with my bracelet and locket instead of looking at him. “I was in class, and everybody started getting these text alerts on their phones. The next thing I knew, everyone was staring at me and whispering about me. Then a couple of the academy administrators showed up, took me out of class, and told me what was going on. They tried to be nice and vague about it, saying that my parents had been in an accident, but I didn’t believe them. I ran off and went straight to the library. People tried to stop me, but I shoved past them. That’s when I saw my parents lying on the library floor, dead and bloody, with their black Reaper robes billowing out all around them.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s when I realized what they really were.”
“I’m sorry,” Ian said. “I know what that’s like. I couldn’t believe it when Drake turned his sword on me. When he told me that he was a Reaper, that he had been a Reaper for years, and that I was going to join him—or else.”
I nodded, and we both fell silent again, lost in our own thoughts, memories, and heartache. But these feelings bubbled up inside me, shaping themselves into words—words that I’d never told anyone before, words that I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Do you know what the worst part is?” I said.
“What?”
I let out another bitter laugh. “I was actually happy that they were gone. At least, at first. Once all the other kids learned that my parents were Reaper assassins, everything in my life imploded. The few friends I had pretended they didn’t know me anymore, and all the other kids treated me like I had the plague, like they were going to catch being a Reaper just by sitting next to me at lunch. Everybody gossiped about me, but no one would actually talk to me. I blamed my parents for that—for all of that—and for a long time, I was happy that they were dead. I was so angry at them for so many things. For being Reapers, for never telling me, for making me the most hated person at the academy.”