Page 35 of The Witch in the Dead of Night

“I never thought I’d leave Wealdstone, much less journey all the way to the Florin Isles,” I admitted.

Mordric grinned, entertaining my many questions about his travels as the waiter served us plate after plate of some of the finest food I had ever seen. Sheep’s milk cheese threaded with delicate ribbons of saffron, pears poached in red wine, green grapes plump with tangy juice. He was surprisingly easy to talk to, I found. So much so that I allowed myself to choke down the niggling fear that I didn’t deserve any of this. Stranger things had happened at court than an Outlander catching the King’s attention, I supposed. Although if they had, I had yet to hear of them. The nobles were more commonly known for using and casting aside the common folk with whom they crossed paths.

“It’s quite a big world out there,” he said as the waiter cleared his plate, replacing it with a crystal glass of spearmint sorbet. “I have a feeling you’ll enjoy exploring it as an official adviser to the King of Valen.” He raised his glass. “To new adventures.”

I mirrored him. “To new adventures.”

After we had cleaned our plates, Mordric offered me his hand again, but led me away from the path that had brought us to the clearing. “We’re not going back to the castle?” I asked, confused.

“Not yet. I want to show you something first.”

I trudged after him into the darkness, unable to see more than two feet ahead of me. We walked in silence until I caught sight of a guard leaning against a gnarled oak. Another stood not far from him. I blinked. It was unusual for a guard to wander this far from the palace. “What is this place?” I whispered.

The guards bowed to Mordric. “Welcome back, Your Majesty.” They ushered us forward to a sight that made my jaw drop.

An iron enclosure sat before us, holding what appeared to be two winged lizards the size of small horses. The creatures squawked as they grappled clumsily with one another, the sound so grating that I nearly clapped my hands over my ears. The larger of the two reared onto its clawed feet, its wings fanning out behind it. I followed the sharp edges of the bone with my eye. The wing was held together by a parchment-thin membrane, sporting a single, fatally sharp hook at the frontmost tip. It reminded me of the bats who roosted in the courtyard behind the cellars.

“Wyverns,” I whispered. I had never seen them up close like this.

Mordric grinned. “What do you think?”

I watched the wyverns in awe as they played roughly, snapping their jaws at each other like street dogs. Their leathery hides were greenish gray in color, not the deep russet that I had often seen depicted in books and paintings.

My head snapped up as a hair-raising screech sounded above us. Mordric laughed, wrapping an arm around me to pull me in close. A wyvern nearly three times the size of those in the pen descended upon them. “Her hatchlings,” he explained without my having to ask the question. Her squealing offspring beat their wings as she descended, sending clouds of dust into the air. I watched through splayed fingers as she dropped a mangled sheep carcass from her talons before drifting to the earth with remarkable grace for her size.

“It’s the Yarrows,” observed one of the guards, as the small wyverns trilled before diving into their meal.

“What?” I asked Mordric.

“Do you see the blue chalk on its pelt?” He pointed to the sheep, which was now being feverishly ripped apart by the hatchlings. “The mating pair primarily prey on deer and elk in the forest, but every once in a while a farmer’s flock will catch their attention. The crown has an agreement in place with the farmers in the surrounding areas, like the Yarrows, to ensure they are compensated if the wyverns make a meal out of their livestock.”

“How many are there?” I asked, scanning the skies for another.

“Just the two hatchlings in this brood, along with the female and her mate, who tends to spend most of his time elsewhere,” he explained. “We were hoping there’d be more this season, but wyverns are notoriously difficult to breed.”

He turned to one of the guards. “How many hatchlings do we have in the other clutches?”

“At the moment, three at the mouth of the Tirlif,” replied the guard, referring to the river that flowed from the east to the Great Sea. “And another two in the colony just south of here.”

“That’s not accounting for the wild pairs,” said Mordric. “Of course, we estimate that there are less than a hundred of them.” He grinned. “All part of our conservation program, which is generally kept under wraps. Wyverns were once hunted to near extinction, you know.”

“Are they dangerous?” I whispered.

“Not to us,” he replied. “As long as they have access to their hunting grounds, that is. They do us a favor, really, as without them, the forest would become overridden with deer and elk.”

I raised my brows as the creatures devoured the last of the sheep carcass. I supposed fortune had favored the deer this evening. Their meal finished, the creatures crawled all over their patient mother as she tried to take a nap. She snapped playfully at her brood, trilling.

I glanced up at Mordric as he watched the wyvern hatchlings, pride written clearly across his features. “You’re glowing,” I observed.

“Wyverns used to be synonymous with the Hellebore line,” he said. “My ancestor, the first king of Valen, always kept at least two by his side. It’s said that they helped him win the kingdom at the end of the Great Conflict. I prefer to keep them wild though. When the hatchlings reach adulthood, they’ll leave the nest and seek out mates of their own, hopefully breeding with the offspring of one of the other clutches. In a hundred years, we may not even need this program.”

“I think it’s amazing,” I said.

I watched as the larger hatchling launched itself at its sibling, renewing their earlier battle. Their mother’s amber eyes tracked her offsprings’ every movement. “Do you get along with your brother?” I asked suddenly.

Mordric took a moment to think before answering. “Not always, but I think that’s the case for most siblings, don’t you?”

“I suppose.”