Violet Stormwing's Arc

Chapter 18 of 46

The griffin did not fly off. It sat on the broken roof and watched the pink dragon with fierce yellow eyes. Behind Violet, in the ruined house, the hatchlings huddled around the tired mother dragon. They were spent from the long flight. One loud scream from the griffin could send them bolting into open sky, where Kael's men would spot them at once. Violet could not chase the griffin away. Fear would scatter her whole brood. She needed it calm, and calm fast. She raised her empty hands and stepped into the open street. "Easy," she said. "I'm not here to fight you." The griffin's talons scraped the tiles. Its wings half-opened. The pink dragon growled low behind her. Violet held up a palm to still it. If the two clashed, the noise alone would break the hatchlings. A voice came from the shadow of a doorway. "Don't stare it down. It thinks you're challenging it." Violet turned. The horned young man stepped out, the same one who had shown her the hidden passage through the mountain. Antlers rose from his brown hair. Patchy fur covered his arms. He had a broom in one hand and a bucket in the other, as if he'd been sweeping the ruins into a home. He set the bucket down slow. "Jasper," he said. "I keep the old cave warm up the mountain. That griffin comes for scraps, not blood." "It's about to spook my dragons," Violet said. "Then feed it before it decides." Jasper reached into the bucket and drew out a strip of raw meat. "Slow. Toss it short. Make it come to you, not the nest." Violet took the meat. Her hands were steady. She tossed the strip halfway between herself and the roof, then stepped back toward the hatchlings, away from the griffin's path. The griffin's head snapped toward the meat. It dropped from the roof, wings beating once, and landed on the stones. It tore the strip apart and swallowed. "Again," Jasper murmured. She threw a second piece, farther from the nest this time, out toward the edge of the village. The griffin chased it, hopping across the broken street. Each toss drew it wider, away from the frightened dragons. Jasper watched with kind, careful eyes, and when the griffin settled at the ruins' edge to eat, he let out a slow breath. "It won't leave now," he said. "But it won't scatter them either. It'll stay near the meat." Violet looked back. The hatchlings had stopped shivering. The mother dragon lowered her head. The threat on the roof had become a full belly at the far wall. She had held her brood together. Jasper picked up his broom. "You can't stay in these ruins," he said quietly. "Griffins draw others. And your lord's men will come back to a village they already know. Come up to my cave. It's warm, and it's hidden." He nodded toward the peaks. "But we climb tonight. Before the next one lands."