Griffin's Destiny Read Online Free PDF

did,” he said. “I just pray it’s not too late.”
    “Trust your sister to see the truth,” Ashinji replied.
    “Jelena once told me she thought you were the most beautiful thing on this earth, Ashi,” Magnes murmured. “She was right.”
    “No, my friend,” Ashinji replied, his voice catching as more tears threatened. “I am so far from that. My wife is the most beautiful thing on this earth, not me.”
    Magnes sighed and shook his head. He lay down and turned away from Ashinji, as if he could no longer bear to look upon what he so fervently desired but could never have.
    For a very long time, Ashinji remained awake staring into the fire, too exhausted and emotionally raw to sleep. When he finally did lie down, he could only toss and turn.
    When the sky beyond the broken edges of the barrow turned pearl gray with the coming dawn, Ashinji rose and climbed the rubble slope out onto the side of the ancient grave. He sat cross-legged in the dewy grass and watched the sun lift itself over the horizon to begin its daily journey across the heavens.
    When he heard the scuffle of footsteps on the slope behind him, he didn’t need to look to know who approached. Magnes came up beside him and held out a hunk of cheese and a piece of bread. Wordlessly, Ashinji took the food and began to eat. Together, they stared into the distance, two friends sharing a meal in the quiet of the morning, each one knowing nothing would be the same between them ever again.
     
     

A Change of Heart
    You have a body for me?”
    “Yes, Highness,” the old man said. “A man of middle years, dead less than a day.”
    “Excellent. Take me to it.”
    Prince Raidan Onjara did not fear death, having witnessed it many times during his long career as a physician, but as he followed the elderly healer along the dirt path leading to the man’s cold room, he felt a twinge of apprehension.
    What if the plague could not be stopped?
    The prince had arrived in Tono three days ago. Since then, he had examined the bodies of five victims, though none had been fresh enough to yield acceptable samples.
    All five were okui and had recently come into contact with hikui folk. According to the local Chief Constable, many people in the district had fallen sick, and the purebloods now seemed to die as easily as the mixed-race folk. This had led to some ugly confrontations, and increasing demands by some okui that all hikui be forced to leave the district.
    With Lady Odata away in Sendai for the war council, the thankless task of keeping the peace in the valley now fell to her eldest son, an untested youth just barely of age. Raidan had felt no surprise when the beleaguered chief greeted his arrival with such overt relief.
    Having no time to spare for anything other than the mission that brought him to Tono in the first place, Raidan had been forced to declare himself unavailable for peacekeeping duty, much to the consternation of the chief and his staff.
    From first light to well after sunset, Raidan and his small escort rode from one farmstead to the next, interviewing the healthy and examining the sick. From modest cottages to prosperous manor houses, the prince encountered the same thing; people feared the plague and the imminent invasion by the Soldarans—purebloods and mixed bloods alike.
    That evening, as the prince and his men dined at a local inn, word came to them of the old healer and the newly deceased man lying in a cold room behind the healer’s cottage. Not wishing to waste a single moment, Raidan abandoned his dinner and took to the saddle, leaving his escort behind.
    Trudging along behind the old man, his worn leather satchel bumping his back, Raidan made a mental list of the samples he needed: blood, saliva, hair, skin, and discharge from any swellings or sores.
    Let my brother scoff and cling to the belief that magic is the only way! The future lies with science, not magic, and if the elven people are to advance, they will have to give up their