“Giant mutant turkey leg.”

  Lera gave him an unimpressed look.

  “I know, mutant animals taste like sweaty arse, but if it tasted like that why would there be a line? And you did say you wanted something that’d last awhile and fill you up at the same time.”

  What better than a turkey leg the size of their heads?

  “You know what sweaty arse tastes like?”

  “No. It’s just a phrase.”

  “Very specific.”

  “I’m using my imagination.”

  “Should a prince be imagining what sweaty arse tastes like?”

  He tried to laugh it off, but the snickers from the people in line and around them as they walked away had the heat rushing to his face.

  “Ya ain’t having fun if it ain’t getting sweaty, Gryphon Prince!” someone in the crowd yelled to whoops of laughter.

  He grit his teeth before turning.

  “Keep it down! You want my mum to hear?”

  More laughter as he beat a hasty retreat.

  This time Lera had to hurry to keep up.

  “Good public relations training. My dad says it’s important not to be scary. I get it, but I, like, don’t care.” She shrugged.

  “You’re dad’s a wise man. Strength like that is scary. All it takes is me snapping one time and they’ll always be scared of me. I suppose if that’s what one wants then keeping a smile on one’s face doesn’t matter.”

  “If you’re about to say I’d look prettier with a smile I’m going to hit you with this.” She brandished the turkey leg like a club.

  “Heard that a lot, have you?”

  “Just around your kind. Luckily for you I am a model of patience and self-restraint.”

  He nodded.

  “Thank you for that. Although, I wouldn’t find fault with you if you were to, hypothetically, box a few ears.”

  “I’d do more than box. There would be a lot of humiliation without regard… especially because its your kind.”

  “I’m starting to feel a little insulted that you’d lump me in with that lot.”

  She gave him a flat look.

  “You’re a prince. That’s, like, an extra-noble.”

  “Perhaps, but has my conduct ever been less than exemplary.”

  She shrugged.

  “That’s the only reason I’m allowing you to follow me around like a little lost chub.”

  “I am not following you around like a chub. You must admit that in an objective sense we are walking abreast, mostly.” He smiled.

  “I guess that’s true.” She took a huge bite of mutant turkey leg. “It doesn’t taste like how you imagine sweaty ass tastes likes. Still weird that’s the first thing you thought of, but whatever. I shouldn’t judge. We’re all weird in our own ways. The chef who made this must have a pretty high level to get it edible, let alone tasting good.”

  “She specializes in mutated animals. My mum has an open invite for her to do a table at basically every party and function.”

  Lera rolled her eyes.

  “There you go with your elitist ways again.”

  He opened his mouth, but sensed the trap and deftly pivoted to taking a bite out of his turkey leg.

  “I do love this lemon pepper flavor. Tart and with bite. All working together with the natural herb flavors infused into the meat.”

  “Which herbs did you say she used?”

  “I did not.”

  “You can’t taste them?”

  “Sadly, I can’t help you in this.”

  “Pfftt. Not very useful for a prince, are you?”

  “I’m at your service in the ways I can be useful.”

  “Something to drink.”

  “Light, refreshing, fruity. Alcoholic or nonalcoholic, doesn’t make a difference to me anyways. Something to wash this down. And then dessert. Like a cake, pie and ice cream. But not separately. All three in one. Like the Holy Trinity.”

  “Ah! Casual blasphemy! I remember that about you.”

  She grinned then just as quickly killed it.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Hmm,” he mused. “I believe I saw a flash of a funny memory in your eyes.”

  “Okay, no you didn’t. You have bird powers.”

  “They aren’t bird powers.”

  “You have wings and eagle eyes. Ergo… bird.”

  “Can birds carry tanks?”

  “Giant ones can.”

  “My size?”

  “Monster birds…”

  “I’ve never seen a human-sized monster bird display the requisite strength for tank carrying. Have you?”

  She opened her mouth, but he forestalled her with a raised finger just like his tutors used to do to him before he surpassed them.

  “And I specifically refer to the main battle tank. Not a tank of water or such.”

  She waved her giant turkey leg in his face.

  “Spires are infinite. Going by logic there must exist a human-sized bird that can lift a battle tank.”

  “Ah! But I refuse to deal in a hypothetical.”

  “Then agree to a draw?”

  He mused a moment.

  “Draw it is, but only if you tell me what you found so funny a moment ago.”

  She sighed.

  “Casual blasphemy. I remembered when we were kids and I made the Bishop of Counting Berries guy really, really mad.” She giggled.

  Which was a scary reaction, but laughter was good for someone in mourning, right?

  “And then, he tried to slap me.”

  The prince remembered the archbishop as a less than stellar representative of the church. He had been forced to step down shortly after the incident.

  Lera’s giggles turned into laughter. The wild kind that slipped the leash of control. The kind that came from deep in the belly or the soul. He wasn’t sure if there was a difference.

  “And then… and then… I punched him so hard that I broke, like, four ribs.”

  She practically cackled.

  Her eyes were shut tight as tears leaked, leaving wet trails down her perfect cheeks.

  “He was all, like, shouting that I’d go to Hell and be raped by the devil. Then he excommunicated me from your Berry Church. I wasn’t even in it.”

  The laughter and the tears went on as the prince chuckled.

  “You do know that it’s not the ‘Berry Church’. Nor is it ‘counting berries’?”

  “What? Yes it is?”

  “I assure you, Lera. It isn’t.”

  She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath.

  “It did sound stupid. So, correct my ignorance.”

  “Ah, that’s alright. I think a berry-based church might be an improvement. I always wondered what sort of punishment you faced after that. My mum revoked all fun rights from my brother and I for that whole summer.”

  “What? Really? I’m sorry. You guys didn’t do anything.”

  “Her words exactly. We were your hosts and as such it was our responsibility that your stay shouldn’t have been anything less than a pleasant and found memory. Simply put that incident shouldn’t have happened at all.”

  “I got the same. My parents grounded me for, like, months and made me practice punching stuff for an hour every day until I could hit a person without breaking anything inside unless they really deserved it. Four ribs was too much for a slap. I would’ve been okay at one even if the slap wouldn’t have done anything. A grown man shouldn’t slap a child, after all.” She shrugged. “I was going to spend the rest of that summer visiting my—” she swallowed. “My cousin. But it was fine. I got to visit at Christmas, anyways. So, it wasn’t like I missed out or anything. So, it wasn’t a big deal.”

  She finished the ramble hurriedly like she wanted him to not notice the mention of a cousin.

  He hadn’t known she had a cousin.

  Had in the past tense in this case if his intuition was correct.

  He wasn’t going to pry.

  They were acquaintances at best and he had no right.

  “Drinks next, right? Unless you wanted to go another round with the chubs?”

  “No, I mean, drinks next. I can’t get too much baby griffin scent on me. I have some friends that don’t like that too much.”

  Naturally, he had questions, but swallowed them.

  “Drinks it is! Please follow me, young miss.”

  “I’m older than you. You’re not even an adult yet.”

  “A technically of my time of birth. However, I submit that my duty on the battlefield has granted me that status six months early.”

  “You know, I thought you’d be more brag-y about that whole thing.”

  “I don’t find it boast worthy. War is an unfortunate necessity. Not something to aspire to.”

  “That’s very mature and wise of you. If you mean it.”

  “I do.”

  She raised a brow, but said nothing.

  The time spent together was pleasant enough.

  Lera spoke with him more. Though, the conversation struck in irregular spurts.

  Loquaciousness about the things she fought in the years since he had last seen her interspersed with silent melancholy when those recollections included her unnamed cousin. The latter he merely surmised.

  The end came sooner than he anticipated.

  Heralded, as such things were, by the appearance of a witch.

  If he had a point for every time he had been present at such an occasion he’d have nine, which seemed like a lot from what he could gather from the experiences from others.

  This time there were two witches that appeared as if they had been there the whole time.

  His mum’s men and women weren’t around.

  In fact… everything around them had gone silent and still. The people weren’t moving. The animals in the trees weren’t moving. Nothing was moving.

  “Time stopped. Huh? That’s a new one.”

  The first witch was the one that he had encountered at his mum’s bake shoppe tent.

  She waved vaguely in his direction.

  “Sit tight, Prince of Parrots. This won’t take long. Then you can go flapping away to do what you’re best at.”

  The second witch was wearing an old-fashioned man’s suit and tie complete with a vest. All in dark gray. Her pointy witch hat was smaller than most, though it did still come to a point. When she moved he caught the flash of two silvery pistols in underarm holsters.

  He knew this witch or rather knew of her.

  “I greet you—”

  The witch held up a finger.

  They really had no respect for title and tradition.

  Part of him grew annoyed, but the obedient part of him remembered his mother’s lessons and shut it up.

  “Emergency?” Lera nodded. “Good. I haven’t hit something in awhile.”

  The witches exchanged a look.

  “Something that deserves it!” Lera snapped.

  “Sorry, kid,” the pistol witch said. “You’re going to have to wait longer. We’re here to remind you of your promise.”

  “Because you can’t stop me.”

  “Yeah,” the first witch shrugged. “But you did promise mommy and daddy to be a good girl.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  The pistol witch grunted.

  “You’re not a kid anymore.”

  The prince wanted to point out that she had, in fact, just called Lera one not ten seconds ago.

  The witch eyed him as if daring him to.

  She continued when he returned her look with a pointed stare.

  “I don’t have to remind you that they already have a lot on their hands without worrying about you going out into a real battle in your current state of mind.”

  “I can control myself. It’s all I’ve ever done,” Lera said to grit teeth.

  “Barely, from the feel of it,” the first witch said.

  “Lera, despite the name, this moment isn’t eternal. I need your word that you’ll keep your promise to your parents,” the pistol witch said.

  “Your mom only popped you out after hours of arduous labor,” the first witch said.

  “One day, that won’t work anymore.”

  “But not today?”

  “Not today.” Lera sighed. “Fine. I’ll keep my promise. Unless, these people are in danger.”

  “Wait?” he had enough of the cryptic-ness. “My people are in danger? What kind? Where from? When?”

  “Only missing two,” the first witch said.

  “You’ll find out the moment this spell ends, Prince Harold,” the pistol witch said.

  True to her word, his mum’s people surrounded them in what felt like an instant as motion and sound returned.

  “Don’t shoot!” he said, perhaps, unnecessarily.

  They were all professionals.

  No misunderstandings.

  And in any case.

  They had greater concerns than a couple of witches that had popped up out of nowhere.

  Hurried explanations.

  A quick call to his mother.

  Gearing up from his bag of holding brought by one of his mother’s people.

  And he was winging his way northward.

  A contingent of enemy fliers had somehow bypassed all their defenses to appear less than a hundred kilometers away from London.

  Scramble times for the handful of fighter jets and attack helicopters meant that they couldn’t intercept until the enemy had already reached the populated areas of the city.

  The griffins weren’t fast enough.

  Only he could meet them over an unpopulated area.

  It was too bad that his not-date with Lera had been interrupted.

  And he wouldn’t have turned down her coming along to help, but such was life and duty.

  The Gryphon Prince would ever defend his mother’s Queendom and people.

  …

  “Wings out, please.”

  He spread the dark brown feathers to their full span, casting a large shadow in the grass at Georgina’s direction.

  His mother must’ve been concerned if she had sent her right-hand woman to oversee his gearing up.

  The tall, severe woman directed her people like a mix between a conductor her orchestra and a teacher her school children.

  “Back straight. Chin up. Don’t turn your head.”

  “I know. I’m doing all that.”

  “Stop talking.”

  “It’s good to see you, Georgina. It’s been a while.”

  “Please don’t distract me, my prince. Unless you want a sub-optimal application of my Skills?”

  Thanks to her his gear would fit better than they were designed to. Enough that all the armor and weaponry would feel like parts of him. A second skin indistinguishable from his actual skin and added limbs that felt natural.

  They’d also perform above maximum specs. Which meant blocking more damage and doing more damage.

  They quickly and calmly stripped him naked so that he could get into his undersuit layer.

  Thankfully, Georgina used her Skill to hide that part of the process behind a Skill that mimicked an impenetrable curtain.

  Not that he was shy, but rather he was modest.

  Plus, there were kids watching in wide-eyed wonder.

  Flexible armor went over his limbs.

  The breastplate was thicker and heavier.

  Weight wasn’t an issue for him, after all.

  Weapons systems went on next.

  A blend of magic, technology and magitech.

  Bladed armor went over his main wing bones.

  All the while one of Georgina’s staff held up a tablet for him to watch and listen to the intel briefing on the approaching threats.

  His part sounded simple enough.

  Engaged and delay for the fighter jets.

  But, it would be grand if he could deal with them all by himself.

  Just don’t die.

  “Alright, my children. Last checks! Hop to it!” Georgina waved her fingers.

  They did good work.

  He had never had a cause to complain.

  “I feel perfect! Like I can take on an entire squadron! Thank you for your expert work. Excellence as always!”

  Georgina tutted.

  “I expect no less, my prince. Now, one last thing.”

  He donned his helmet and instantly heard his mother’s voice.

  “You shan’t take unnecessary risk.”

  “Yes, Mum.”

  “Good. Now for your boons? What would you like?”

  “I imagine you have people in your ear concerning those.”

  “Yes, but they are merely my military advisers. you’re the one flying into battle. And I trust you to know yourself better than anyone else… expect, I humbly submit, perhaps, myself.”

  “Right, so, a handful of small ones or one big one? I’m feeling confident, dearest Mum. My time in the front really showed that I can handle the enemy’s fliers without your boons.”

  “Very well. Then one big one. My biggest. My darling son, I grant you the greatest boon a worried mother can give her child. We grant you freedom from death in service to crown and country. There. Fifteen minutes, Harry.”

  “Don’t worry so much, Mum. I’ve been taking these losers out for months.”

  “Seven aerial engagements and never alone. I keep up with the reports.”

  “Hear you loud and clear. Besides, you booned me with that! I’m in no danger now. Are you sure, though? The cooldown on that one is nearly three months.”

  “Yes. For one of my children.”

  “Thanks again, Mum. I’ll be back before you know it!”

  “Stop putting up flags, Harry! Please be serious.”

  “Aren’t I always when it comes to the stuff that counts?”

  “Just be careful and return to me.”

  “Promise. Bye, Mum. Love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  Georgina cleared her throat.

  “It’s that type of interaction that needs to be included in the biographical documentary.”

  “I don’t know about that. Mum’s already pretty accessible to everyone. Isn’t that what the polling usually says? That she’s seen as one of the people.”

  “I don’t mean for our people, but for the rest of the world. It’ll encourage immigration.”

  He shrugged.

  That wasn’t really his concern.

  Buoyed by the loving warmth of his queen’s boon he readied himself.

  “Unless you have any last minute concerns, I’ll be off.”

  “You’re wasting boon time,” Georgina said.

  Thus, he bid everyone goodbye with a smile and a wave.

  He locked eyes with Lera, who rolled her eyes, but acquiesced with a wave of her own.

  The Gryphon Prince leapt into the air.

  Not quite a skyscraper in a single bound, but high enough that the mighty flap of his wings didn’t disturb the countless people watching down below.

  He shot northward like a rocket.

  Higher, farther, faster, as he liked to say in his head.

  Far enough to use his hidden power.

  One only a few handful even knew existed.

  Everyone else thought that he was just a superhuman physical body, wings and senses like an eagle.

  He could do one other thing.

  He controlled the wind.

  Granted, it was a work in progress.

  He gathered the wind around him, focusing it in front and behind him.

  Push and pull.

  He imagined a tunnel.

  Blowing and sucking depending on which end one stood.

  Ha!

  Dickie and Trajan would’ve had a great laugh at that.

  Too bad they weren’t authorized to know about his wind control power.

  Then again, if they knew they’d probably bother him about sending a nice breeze underneath skirts in the summer time.

  Not that he’d ever do that.

  It was wrong and would disappoint and disgust his mother and sisters.

  The wind carried him faster than he could fly with his wings alone.

  He could almost see the walls of air forming in front of him as he picked up speed.

  A loud bang had him whooping with joy.

  That would never get old.

  A second bang followed.

  Then a third.

  The speed gauge in his faceplate had him feeling good about himself.

  “I just hit a new record!”

  “Gryphon Prince. Please restrict communication to mission critical matters.”

  “Well, I’m up here alone today and I get lonely, so I have to talk to myself.”

  “Understood, Gryphon Prince. Be advised time to contact in five minutes. Enemy skin remains resistant to radar tracking and scrying methods.”

  “I can see them fine. I count a full squadron. Eight fighters and two bombers. Standard formation. Moving to engage.”

  Enough talk.

  Distract them?

  Lead them away?

  Nah.

  He’d downed dozens of the enemy’s disgusting versions of planes in his time at the front.

  Barely took a scratch doing it too.

  He didn’t feel bad for the pilots.

  Felt bad for the planes.

  The poor things were alive or had been.

  He didn’t count their current state as truly living.

  They were once birds.

  Huge ones.

  About the size of those antique propeller fighter planes he saw in the museum.

  Iridescent alien colors and a few alien bits, like the nubs on their heads and the prehensile tail-tentacles that hid in their tail feathers.

  Apart from those they resembled parrots mostly.

  Oh, and the unholy machinery grafted into their bodies that allowed the enemy pilots to fly them from inside.

  He shuddered at the thought of the first time he had downed one and cut it open.

  A mix of tech and biomancy spells and Skills made taking out a large chunk of the poor creature’s organs to make space for the pilot.

  “Like goddamn parasites.”

  “Keep the channel clear of—”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  He fired minimissiles, dumping the drop launcher modules from his legs.

  They fired their missiles.

  Fire and smoke bloomed between them.

  Many kilometers, yet he ate the space quickly.

  He rocketed skyward, putting the sun at his back.

  The fighter birds split.

  Four stayed with the bombers on their course for London.

  The other half tried to beat him in the climb.

  “Stupid. Haven’t learned yet, have you?”

  He comfortably cleared supersonic speed.

  They couldn’t quite break the barrier despite the unholy things they did to their host birds.

  Spellfire streaked blindly up as they lost him in the sun.

  He dropped a Kynnro Sphere in their path.

  Two veered away just in time.

  Two plowed right into the laser trap.

  Red light. Red rain.

  He tucked his wings tight and dived with a powerful thrust of wind.

  The two split directions trying to force him to chase one.

  Spellfire raked across the great gap between them.

  His magic shield flashed, cracking and then failing under the barrage.

  He had to give them that edge.

  Their spells, at least, the more powerful, high-level ones used by their living vehicles had the decided edge over New Britain shielding.

  He sent a violent wind out in all directions.

  Aiming was hard when paired with power.

  The enemy twisted, flapping wings desperately to keep from being hurled through the air like a sparrow caught in a tornado.

  Naturally, it didn’t bother him because the wind was his.

  He sliced through with a mighty flap.

  Closing in a near-instant.

  The bird-fighter opened its beak to fire razor-tipped tentacles.

  Those were obviously a biomantic addition.

  He spun, cutting them to pieces with the bladed armor covering his wing bones. He kept going, extending his right wing to bisect the bird-fighter.

  “Rest in piece, birdy.” He caught a glimpse of the pilot in the body cavity as he did them right proper. “Rest in pieces, you sick fuck!”

  He’d be the first to admit that his battle trash talk needed work.

  Most of the splatter missed him, aside from on his wing.

  “Four bogeys down. Pursuing the rest.”

  “Copy.”

  The wind pushed and pulled under his command.

  Distance closed rapidly.

  The enemy bird-fighters completed abrupt direction changes impossible for their mechanical Earth analogues. They shrieked in anger or perhaps fear. The pilot’s emotions transmitted through the parasite bond and expressed by the hollowed out animal.

  One bird-fighter opened up its rib cage to fire a spread of eyeball tipped missiles.

  The large pupils dilated as they locked on to him and streaked across the sky.

  He had a fraction of a second to react as he and they closed the distance.

  He activated a bright flash of light from one of his magic gems and contorted his way through the barrage without getting touched.

  The blinded eyeball missiles trailed off into the distance eventually expending their fuel and falling harmlessly to ground.

  He disabled targeting with a cybernetic thought as he leveled his right arm at the bird-fighter.

  It was always good to practice using his natural gifts to aim. One never knew when magic and technology might fail.

  Flechettes ripped across the sky, plunging into the bird-fighters head.

  They tore feathers, beak and flesh, sending pieces raining.

  A few plunged right through the eyes and into the brain.

  It jerked violently, sending feathers flying everywhere as it beat its wings without any semblance of intent and coordination.

  It flipped over, exposing its belly just before it plummeted out of the sky.

  “Mark location. Possible prisoner recovery.”

  He knew from experience that the pilot’s chances of surviving a fall from any height was good.

  “Copy.”

  He did the rest of the bird-fighters the same way, emptying his flechettes as he flew circles around them like they were ponderous vultures rather than living planes that could outmaneuver Earth jets with contemptuous ease.

  They returned fire, scorching feathers.

  He barely felt them on account of a lack of nerves in the feathers.

  Less so the pounding his armor took.

  The Threnium held, but he eschewed impact absorption and deflection systems in favor of his body’s natural toughness.

  It said a lot about him that getting hit by projectiles that could punch through tank armor just felt like the punches he and his friends used to trade when they were younger and horsing around, pretending they were real fighters.

  In just a handful of seconds only two enemy fliers remained.

  The fat bird-bombers flew for all they were worth.

  Implanted thrusters fired, giving them a decent speed boost.

  He caught up and flew between them, diving at twice the speed of sound.

  The shockwave buffeted them, forcing them to flap their broad wings to maintain their course.

  He snapped his wings open and skimmed the building tops of the empty town.

  A bit too close for comfort.

  A hairy monster of some kind leapt like a cat aiming for a sparrow.

  He cut it two with a wing.

  Wind pushed and pulled at his command.

  Thousands of meters in a few blinks of the eye and he was cutting through the belly of a bird-bomber.

  Guts and bombs rained down.

  The latter left a trail of dark, mushroom-shaped clouds of fire and smoke through the town.

  The last bird-bomber’s belly opened up to drop its bombs.

  A vain effort to lighten the load as it turned back to the north.

  “You’re not getting away from me.”

  The wind blurred around him as he ripped the bird-bombers wings apart with the last of his spell gems.

  “Targets down. Repeat. All targets down.”

  “Copy. Please remain on station. Command cannot rule out further attempts. Until we know how they bypassed our lines—”

  “Understood. I’ll patrol and look out for more squadrons.”

  The skies were clear and he could pretty much cover the entire width of England with his vision and speed.

  He sighed.

  It appeared that he wasn’t going to get to go back to the festival any time soon.

  A shame.

  Things with Lera had been trending in a good direction.