Chapter Thirty-Three: No Third Option

They saw no rampaging gryphons anywhere in town, though they’d raced back as quick as their legs could carry them. The mercenaries pulled to a stop in the busy street, hunched and ready for combat; with their loose wet hair and clothes clinging fast to their bodies, they resembled a company of vengeful ghosts from the river bottom, but one by one they lowered their weapons. The town was quiet but for the wind, howling.

And the wailing. Ordinary, human, and terrible.

Osmund tried to calm his racing heart as he scanned their surroundings. The buildings—the rooftops—looked normal. No sign of attack. There was only one solitary merchant’s cart, upended and thrown with great force, its various goods and trinkets littering the street behind it like a blood trail. And beside it, an Anshan family, huddled in the street.

The young woman was inconsolable. By her side, a man crouched with one hand on her shoulder, his eyes distant and unseeing. Others—siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents?—completed the circle. A child sobbed in her father’s arms. Siblings embraced each other and swayed together like reeds, afraid to let go.

Osmund saw an array of rattled-looking soldiers, and beside them, Cemil and Sakina, unharmed, thank heavens, but no less agitated. The Meskato were apparently arguing. Even at this distance, he could see the rage and fear animating their faces.

He turned back to the mercenaries, ready to reflexively ask them a question they couldn’t possibly answer, only to find that they’d already consulted with a nearby soldier. Gudrun was shaking her head. “Guess it was bound to happen sooner or later,” she said with what sounded like forced nonchalance. Beside her, Nienos’ face was uncharacteristically slack and cheerless.

Osmund turned to Kasri and Keldin standing nearby, who were closest to him in age. “What’s happened?” he asked desperately.

The twins didn’t like to talk much, but Keldin gave him his answer.

“A gryphon has taken a six-year-old girl.”

Osmund’s heart dropped right into his stomach. The woman’s wails pierced back into his mind, unignorable. The anguish of a mother.

He looked at Cemil and Sakina again. Without his thinking about it, his feet moved, carrying him past the tortured family over to where the Meskato were speaking heatedly amongst themselves. By the time he was close enough to pick out individual words, the soldiers were bowing away. The matter, whatever it was, was settled. Grim resolve had fallen over his friends’ faces.

“I heard what happened,” Osmund said as he approached. “The girl…she’s dead?”

“Not when it took her,” Cemil answered, noticing him at last. His voice was terrible. “But…”

There was no need to finish the sentence.

Of course. Osmund knew what happened to gryphons’ prey back at the nest. Maybe better than most: he’d read about them as a young child, in an attempt to make them less frightening. These were social animals, with complex interpersonal hierarchies, where the strong cared for the weak. To their young and their infirm they brought live prey: fresh.

His temples throbbed; bile rose in his throat.

“How awful,” he whispered.

Cemil was shaking his head absently. “It happened so fast,” he uttered. “We were right here. We saw it happen. And we only…”

“We’ve seen how swift they are,” Osmund exclaimed, cutting him off. “It took an entire company just to bring down one! There’s nothing you could have done!”

Movement surrounded them on all sides; the Tolmishman saw the soldiers headed for their horses. “What’s going on?” he asked anxiously.

“We’ve developed a theory,” said Sakina, even as she steered the other two along. “Yesterday we noted several individuals bringing their catch to a particular cave. Even from a distance, the amount of carcasses inside indicates it’s been continuing for weeks.”

Osmund’s brows shot up. They’d learned since coming here that it wasn’t the right season for fledglings. “So the gryphon in that cave…that means it’s been sick for a long time.”

She nodded, and he understood. This was their lead on the source of the spread: an original patient, one who infected all others who attempted to provide aid. Osmund became aware of something else too: Cemil and Sakina were clinging to hope, and punishing themselves for it. They wanted to believe that the girl was alive.

They were in front of the stables now. “You’re riding out to save her?” he asked frantically. “Is there any hope?”

“There will be none if we don’t try,” said Cemil roughly.

Osmund felt the bloodlust off the Meskato soldiers as they geared for war. In spite of how they disdained the Anshan, they were following their prince into certain peril for the sake of one girl. “We’ll be back,” the Meskato prince assured him. He was already turning away. No.

Osmund grabbed at his sleeve. “I’ll go with you.”

“Osmund.”

“What about Anaya? What if she—and you—need me?”

Cemil steadied his shoulders, holding him at a distance. “I need you here. Safe. Do you understand?”

“I may not be able to fight, but you know I can ride as well as anyone,” Osmund contended. His voice was rising in pitch the longer he pleaded. “I’m not trying to throw myself into danger—I promise. I just—I can’t sit here waiting to hear if you’re alive or dead.”

The Meskato prince’s cheeks had darkened slightly. Now he was suddenly shy? “Since I’ll be on the cliffs, what if he stayed with me?” Sakina suggested as she led her horse from its stall. Osmund turned to her, confused. “He doesn’t have to go with you all the way into the canyon.”

Cemil considered. “The two of you must prioritize your own safety,” he conceded at last. The line of his mouth was drawn and unhappy. “Scatter at the first sign of trouble. Is that absolutely understood?”

Osmund was still a bit lost, but together with Sakina, he gave the most solemn nod he could manage. “I’ll saddle up Banu,” he said, and parted from the others before anyone involved could change their mind—his own self included.

A fresh stab of guilt went through him as he approached the chestnut mare. She was braying just at the sight of him, ignorant of the danger he was about to bring her into, though perhaps she could tell from the commotion that this would be no ride for pleasure’s sake.

“I’m sorry, darling,” he murmured in his native Tolmish, rubbing her neck comfortingly and wishing he had a crisp, shiny apple to place between her teeth. “I don’t mean to call upon you like this. You wouldn’t believe all that’s happened, even if you could speak my language.”

For the first time in a very long while, his thoughts returned to his horses that he’d been forced to abandon back in Valcrest. Beautiful Bella. Strong Minerva. Proud Callista. He liked to imagine that they’d escaped the castle and were running free in a field somewhere like wild creatures, maybe with foals of their own. The idea that he’d lost his entire family, and his precious girls too, had once been an unbearable burden.

He could not survive the same loss again.

Soft footfalls echoed close behind him. Osmund jerked, but it was only Sakina, carrying half a melon slice in the hand that wasn’t leading her horse.

“For Banu,” she said, offering it to him. Osmund stood aside.

“Go ahead.”

They were treated to a short, joyous neigh, followed by the muffled sounds of fruit disappearing down the horse’s throat. Banu loved Sakina too. That, or she held a good opinion of anyone who approached with a tasty treat in hand. Osmund could relate.

“Sweet girl,” Sakina said quietly. She gently scratched under the horse’s jaw. “I missed her.”

She hadn’t come here just to say hello to an old friend, and they both knew it. Osmund waited for her to say what she’d come here to say.

“Cemil told me before that you refused to leave,” she said at last, turning. As always, there was no judgment in her, just unflinching curiosity. “According to him, he offered you the means to go anywhere you wanted. And you wouldn’t take it, no matter what he said. Why?”

Osmund turned pink. After all this, wasn’t the answer obvious? “I…I care about him,” he said, keeping his eyes on his horse. “I’ve told you. And no one else has ever been so good to me.”

“But you know where this ends.” The chestnut mare, blissfully unaware, snorted happily as Sakina spoke. “He either becomes emperor of all the Meskato, or he meets death. At least in his belief, there is no third option.”

Why can’t there be? Osmund thought, though he didn’t voice it. He didn’t understand why the two of them were so obsessed with destiny—even Sakina, who had rejected her own. “I know,” he muttered instead.

“There are other, gentler men, who would love you just as well. I hope you realize that.”

At this, he looked up, frowning. Her observations unsettled him. “You want me to leave?”

“I just want to understand you.”

Osmund took a deep breath and debated whether to bare a piece of his soul he hadn’t yet shared with anyone here. Once again, she’d left him fumbling for footholds. “You’ll think it’s ridiculous,” he began, “but…I like to read romance novels.”

Sakina’s eyes livened. “Oh! Which ones?”

“Um…well, the ones I read are in Tolmish.”

“My Esteni has finally gotten pretty serviceable—I meant to learn some Tolmish next. Do you have any copies to share?”

Osmund shook his head, the disbelief finally catching up with him. “A-are you saying you read them too?”

“I am. And that I have a few Meskato ones you might like, if you need a recommendation.” She appeared to reel herself in. “But, I’m sorry. What were you trying to say?”

If this had been any other situation, he would’ve loved to get invested in this digression. It was his first time meeting another fan! …But all that would have to wait.

Once more uncertain, he turned back to Banu, brushing her coat one last time in case everything went wrong after this. “I always wanted to try falling in love,” he admitted quietly as his arm went through the familiar motions, the embarrassment stinging his face. It was his first time saying the words out loud. “It was my only wish, back when I could read my novels in peace. Only now that I…well…”

“You have feelings for him,” Sakina finished for him. Her voice was odd. “It’s different from how you imagined, then?”

“I-I think I wanted someone to…rescue me. Or fix me.” He pretended it was only simple Banu bearing witness, and closed his eyes. “And…now that Cemil is here, and he’s so kind, and considerate, and good, I only hate that I can’t help him too. It makes me want to be better. Stronger, or braver. It’s so…frightening. I really thought I’d given up on it a long time ago. On becoming more than I am.”

Sakina was quiet for such a long time that Osmund feared she was struggling not to laugh at him.

“That feeling never goes away. Are you prepared for that?” He looked up, startled. “You will never feel like enough for him.”

How? he longed to ask. How could someone as perfect as Sakina ever be made to feel as inadequate as he did?! But the opportunity slipped away.

Out went the rallying call. It was time to rescue that little Anshan girl. Or die trying, he supposed.