The Gryphon Chronicles- Book 1: The Corrupt King

Ch. 4: On the Road

Cyra stared at her with unmasked shock. Zephyr seemed to buffer for a minute. "Um...Cy? What's on your face?"

"What?" Cyra yelped. She grabbed Zephyr by the sleeve and dragged her over to the creek to see their reflections. Sure enough, there were glowing blue lines tracing all over her face. Already they were starting to deteriorate, but there was no doubt that they had appeared.

Cyra seemed transfixed by the glowing markings across her face in the water. There was a horizontal one right below her bottom lip, another line covering her top lip. The symmetrical marks on her cheeks were already beginning to fade away, as well as the one connecting them on the bridge of her nose, but there were still dots under her eyes in an arc. A sideways crescent moon sat on her forehead, making it look like a smile.

She glanced at Zephyr, a grin growing on her face and showing off all of her sharp white teeth.

"What in the five kingdoms...." Zephyr whispered back. The girls stared at the reflection of Cyra's face for what seemed like forever as the marks slowly melted away. They would have stayed there longer, had a howl not sounded. A very close howl.

"What was that?" Cyra asked Zephyr.

"I don't know, but I doubt it's anything good."

Cyra and Zephyr both sprung into action. They hopped up and started gathering their belongings. Cyra put out the fire while Zephyr filled their canteens with water from the creek. Once they had all their belongings together, they threw on their bags and started to run towards the mountains. The howling had stopped, but that didn't mean the danger was gone. They booked it to the mountain

The girls ran until Cyra began to lag behind a bit, and by that time, they were almost to the foot of the large mountain range known as the Deirik Mountains. There was a single pass in between the two largest peaks that the girls were close to, so they decided to just skip the outpost entirely. Since they were now ahead of schedule, they would definitely have enough supplies from Willow-Mill to last the trek through the pass.

Cyra and Zephyr made their way through the thick evergreens as the sun began to peek out from behind the towering mountains. The farther they went, the colder and icier it got. The heat of the rising sun was no help, only making the snow blindingly bright as its rays reflected off of the crystalline flakes. They pulled their cloak and coat around themselves tighter, shivering as the howling wind cut through them like a jagged icy blade.

The process had slowed down significantly since they had reached the snowy part of their journey. It was proving to be much more difficult to walk through snow than moss. Zephyr noted that they probably should have foreseen this, to which Cyra just grumbled some unintelligible complaints about know-it-all sisters and cold fingers.

After a while, Cyra started to get bored, which surprised no one.

"So, what are we gonna do about the fact that I'm apparently magical?" Cyra asked.

"I've got no idea. I think it might have something to do with the whole 'gryphon changeling' thing, though."

"Oh, really? It might? You really think so? Wow, gosh, never would have been able to guess that obvious fact if you hadn't pointed it out like we didn't already know it."

"You stop that. I meant that it might have something to do with the gryphon part, specifically."

"Yeah- I got that, ya dork."

"Oh, shut up, shorty. Either way, we may be magical but we don't know how to use it."

"So, should we go find someone who does and ask them to teach us?"

"Yeah, probably. Where are we gonna find someone like that, though? All the human mages are gonna turn us into the Eldrum Guard, and then we'll get sent to- actually, I don't know where we'll get sent to, but I doubt it'll be good."

"That's true, but there's a little thing you missed."

"What?"

"We're on our way to Andaxia. The kingdom of the Walkers. There's bound to be someone there who will teach us."

"Oh, yeah- good point. I forgot about the Andaxan mages."

"Eh, I think most people do. Pretty sure they don't get involved in all the interkingdom conflicts like the humans and fae do."

"Yeah. What does it say about us though, that we're human-raised fae and we're traveling to another kingdom to escape the royals in this one?"

"One more thing. If I have magic, because I'm a "gryphon changeling" as the guards put it, what about you? I would guess you're the same way, right?

"I don't know."

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That night, they made camp in a hollow pine. Cyra gathered what moss she could find and spread it out for a softer floor, while Zephyr made a campfire and started to toast some food over the flames. The night was eerily quiet, and when Cyra climbed up a tall fir tree she could see that the entire side of the mountain was covered with a blanket of glittering white snow.

The two had decided that neither of them needed to keep watch, since everything was so cold and they were well hidden. After covering the entrance with thick fir branches, they both curled up under their cloak and coat, and went to bed, with Zephyr half over Cyra. Soon they both drifted off to sleep. Unfortunately for them, they would not be getting that much sleep.

The howling they had heard was in fact a danger, but they hadn't lost it. A female dire wolf and her huntress had been tracking the pair since she had picked up the trail a few days ago. That howl had been her way of telling her partner that she had sighted them. Now that they had finally left the small village, she could confront them, and ask why the king wanted them, much less the gryphon fae. The wolf waited just beyond the girls' sight, til the huntress caught up.

"Come on, Frost." The huntress crept towards the hollow. "Let's see if we can get some answers out of these two."