I read the passage again and swallow back the despair and sense of duty that it conjures in me. There’s a hopelessness in the words. I’m surprised that even in her most private thoughts, there’s no hint of fight, just a resigned acceptance that this sucks and there’s nothing she will do about it. I turn the page.
Tonight did not go as expected. This year’s Offerings filled the room, each of us primped and styled in the most fashionable and desirable of ways. I was lucky that my parents provided me a gown. Some of the other Offerings were only given jewelry, and some not even that. I know what we were trained to do, but to be expected to stand featherless and nude, on a night like this, has a level of desperation to it that I’m surprised to find in this class of people.
I did my best to make all the expected connections. I moved in a desirable way, hinted at what I was capable of. Flashed the power of a partial shift here and there. It was all going as planned. The brightest of the Winged had their eyes on me, and I knew I would secure a good pairing and make my line proud.
Then he walked in.
His presence ate up the shadows. His power moved through the room like the threat it was. He wasn’t expected, and no one still knows why he was there. Some of the Ouphe of old would claim our kind. Not usually in public and not usually as a mate, but the inevitable offspring were bestowed with power all the same. That power became a commodity. Those of us who fit in the in-between, not quite Ouphe, not quite Gryphon, learned to use the power and our gifts to our advantage. We were once outcasts among both races, but now we were sought after.
He could be here looking for a plaything or as a favor to some other guest wanting to show off their connection. Either way, I expected nothing to come of it for me. There are some Offerings who seek out a pleasure match as opposed to lineage match; I am not one of them. I kept my head down and focused on what I was there to do.
And then bright green eyes met mine, and all that I knew, all that was expected of me, was simply gone.
Goose bumps prickle my arms, and I quickly turn the page to find out what happened next.
She sings for him.
No matter how I try to silence it, ignore it, and do as I was always told to do, she still sings for him. Her first note sent me running away. My parents were livid, certain that such a rash move had ruined everything for me...for them. I wanted to tell them what happened, but a stranger wore my mother’s eyes, and I couldn’t speak the truth.
How could I sing for an Ouphe?
Yes, my Sire was pureblood and my mother his favorite toy, but how can someone like me sing for a pureblood? I didn’t even know that was possible. I’ve never even heard whisperings. I was always taught that a gryphon could only call to another gryphon, and yet mine calls to him. I don’t know what to do. If I answer the call, I could be following my mother’s path. I would not be a disgrace to her or my Sire, given who the alliance would be with, but it’s everything I vowed to never become. If I implement the techniques that I’ve been taught and dismiss the call, I can have what I’ve been allowed to want for my life.
But she sings for him, and it’s not as easy as I’ve been taught to ignore.
I turn the page.
Everything is crumbling around me. I thought when Awlon answered my call that it would be the end of the suffering, the longing, the hardship. I would be out from under the wing of my mother and Sire, and as unusual as my circumstances are, there was nothing that could be done for it. The Sovereign of the Dark Ouphe won’t be denied, and like it or not, he’s taken a half blood for a mate.
What a stupid eyas I was.
All hope that others would accept the match have quickly crumbled to ash in my heart. They want me dead. They want him dead. Tension between the Gryphons and Ouphe come closer to boiling over every day. Neither side has a firm grip on power, and things here are getting very dangerous. My lady’s maid, Sedora, thinks she has found a way for us, but I’m terrified to get my hopes up. I feel certain that one day we will need to run, but I worry that once we start, we will never be able to stop. May the stars watch over us and guide us to safety.
I turn to the next page, but there’s nothing. I flip through the rest of the book, but every last page after is blank. I spread the pages so I can inspect the binding, but as far as I can tell, nothing has been ripped out. There are only four entries. I read through each one of them again. I slow down, studying each syllable as if there might be some unseen meaning hidden between the words.
Four entries that explain so much and simultaneously answer so little. I can say with no sliver of doubt that this is in fact my mother. The use of my dad’s name is a dead giveaway, but this is a life she never spoke of to me. How could this be her start in life? What happened between the last entry and the day that they died?
The car accident story Gran told me is looking less and less plausible. Ouphe and Gryphons are tough and live very long lives, it would have taken more than a car crash to have ripped them away from me. The sentence in the last entry reaches out and bites me like an angry snake.
My lady’s maid, Sedora, thinks she has found a way for us.
I stare at the words My lady’s maid, Sedora. Gran wasn’t even my gran, not by blood anyway. She served my mother and then, I suppose, me when they died. The room spins, and I try to take it all in. I recall weird things that Nadi said when we sat together in the dead Ouphe city of Vedan. She said something about the last Ouphe with my kind of magic died twenty years ago. But how did she know that? My dad and mom didn’t die here, so how would the people of this world know what was happening in another world?
Questions upon questions begin piling up in my head. I try to sort through them, arrange them by importance, so if the opportunity for more answers ever comes my way again, I know what to ask and search for first. My head starts throbbing again, and I lie back in the bed, my mother’s journal next to me.
“Pidge, what did she mean when she said she sang for him? Do you sing for your mate when you find him?” I ask, closing my eyes and throwing my forearm over my face to help block out the light.
Pigeon sends a flash of something I can’t make out and fills me with an emotion I’m not sure how to decipher. It’s uncertainty laced with confusion and edged in...pride maybe. I have no idea what she’s trying to say.
Tysa talked about the call, but at the time, the mating habits of Gryphons were about as far from my mind as could be. I thought of it as more of a dating thing. She asked him out, he said yes, the rest is history. But now, I’m wondering if there’s more to it. What my mom described seemed more like an instinctual phenomenon, possibly even fated mates.
Growing up, talk of fated mates amongst wolves was more of an old wives’ tale. There was talk that it could happen, but no one I knew—and no one they knew, for that matter—had ever seen it. In the pack, you chose, and once you chose, you bonded or imprinted on your mate for life. Yes, there could be an instinctual drive from your wolf to pursue another wolf, but it was still a choice.
The image of a book that probably will have some answers pops up in my mind. I remember pulling it from the shelves in the archives and reading the golden script on the cover. The Call: Understanding Gryphon Courtship and Mating Habits. I pulled the book into my stack to have an Archivist return it to its proper home, but I forgot about it. I’m pretty sure it’s still sitting in a stack of books on my table. I take a deep breath, which turns into a huge yawn. Tomorrow I’ll look through it and see what I can find.