Eternal Beasts

Reaching Out

Seth frowned some fifteen minutes later as the mass of young griffons shifted with uncertainty on the floor of the Library nearly two hundred meters down from the landing he had first entered the Library to stand on. Except he wasn't on that landing, two hundred meters up. He was on the floor as well, a mere twenty meters from where the griffons milled about.

"Young, but these are no fledglings," Javelin said, frowning as a series of glowing runes danced through a rectangular matrix floating above her hand. "Nor have they been battle trained or bonded. Which needs to happen in short order, if they're to be of any use in the upcoming fight."

A wave dismissed the matrix and she looked back over at Seth. Before she said anything, however, she looked over at an intent Bithra.

"I'm getting resonance out of you, war leader," she said, stepping towards the surprised denai officer. "You've been in contact with Lord Jared as well, haven't you? More recently than the pathfinder, in fact."

"How can you tell without delving her?" Jeremiah wanted to know. Javelin favored him with a quick look.

"As I said, denai, your comrade's contact with Jared was much more recent than the pathfinder's. But how?" She looked back at Bithra, her expression becoming considering. "As a lover, perhaps?"

"Of course not!" Bithra immediately declared with no little indignation. And Javelin faintly smiled at the hint of a blush she saw rising above the blonde war leader's collar.

"No, but the desire was there, yes? Lord Jared must be quite handsome, if your eyes were turned by a nysim's looks, war leader." Then she was pushing on before Bithra could further defend herself. "It doesn't matter that you desired him, denai. He is devoted to the princess, his betrothed, and she, to him. Even their energies in the pathfinder are intertwined. But he must have come to you for a reason. What was it?"

Bithra returned Javelin's questioning look with a resolute one of her own.

"He said he had lost his griffon in a battle with a leviathan and needed one of my wizards to portal him to the muulKerKerath Mountains, where a scry told him she was being held captive," she said in a flat, no-nonsense tone.

"Ah." Javelin frowned. "That's not good."

"No," Aerindal agreed, twirling a dagger he had borrowed from Seth in his left hand, already working on his off hand dexterity. "That means he's not recruiting."

"Recruiting?" Phineas repeated with a frown of his own. "Recruiting what?"

Javelin favored him with a look. But it was Aerindal that answered.

"New riders, pathfinder," he said, his expression thoughtful. "Lord Jared was called by the covenant to rebuild the griffon flights in time to fight the next War of Balance. Yet here he is, forced by the enemy to work on rescuing his griffon from captivity instead, wasting precious time that should be dedicated to finding riders, getting them bonded to their Eternal Beasts, and training them in aerial combat."

"How can you tell the Harbingers had anything to do with that?" Ezekiel asked.

"Because the Harbingers have been controlling leviathans for hundreds of years before the Second War of Balance, war leader," Aerindal replied, looking over at him. "If Jared and his griffon were attacked by one, it's because the Harbingers willed it so."

The Sky Guard captain's brow lifted.

"The good news is that their survival, even though separated and the griffon captured, tells us one very important thing."

"Which is?" Jeremiah asked.

"Lord Jared Turcott is powerful enough that the Harbingers deployed one of their most powerful Eternal Beast allies against him," Javelin answered, her expression also thoughtful. "They fear him. They fear what he is capable of. And they should. Their most powerful weapon failed to kill him or his griffon."