the bars and hooked the lever. It moved, and the gate swung open with a faint creak. Sefer slipped through, pulled it shut behind him and was gone.
Silence reigned for a long time after he had left. The black griffin continued to hiss, but it seemed his defiance had been knocked out of him. Eventually he got up and drank deeply from the trough of water provided for him. That made him feel a little better.
As he lay down, sides heaving, he felt the strange feeling in his throat again. It was even more powerful now than it had been before, heavy and burning and awful, fighting to escape. This time he breathed in deeply and tried to let it out, but it would not come. His voice died inside him, leaving him mute and exhausted, and his head slumped to the ground.
“I told you that you could not get free,” Kraee said in weary tones.
The black griffin said nothing.
“What is your name, black griffin?” another voice asked, this one from the cage on his other side.
The black griffin raised his head slightly. “No . . . name,” he mumbled, and let it drop again.
“My name is Aeya,” said the other griffin, who sounded female. “Do you not have a name?”
“No name,” the black griffin said again.
“Why can he not speak?” Aeya said.
“Perhaps his mother died,” Kraee answered. “Where is your mother, black griffin?”
“Mother die,” said the black griffin. “When chick. Human come kill.”
Aeya shifted in her chains. “Humans killed your mother?”
“I live in mountain,” the black griffin managed. “No—chick die.”
“I had chicks once,” said Aeya. “Humans took them. So I killed them. Until the griffiners came for me and brought me here.”
“Want fly,” the black griffin said again, in a hopeless kind of way. “Want . . . home. Want hunt.”
“We all want that,” Kraee interrupted. “But we cannot have it. We cannot leave here. But we can hunt.”
“Hunt human!” another griffin yelled. “Kill human!” it screeched, and bashed its beak against the bars in front of it. Others hissed and snarled their agreement, but the sound died down before it became another bout of savage hysteria.
“Kill human?” the black griffin repeated.
“Yes,” said Aeya. “In the pit. We kill them. Make them die.” Her voice became low and bloody. “Break their bones. Tear them apart. Make them bleed.”
The black griffin hissed. “Want human.”
“And you shall have human,” said Kraee. “They give us that.” He hissed to himself. “I want to taste their blood again.”
There was silence, broken only by a savage muttering from several of the griffins who were within earshot. The black griffin lay with his head on his talons and thought about one human in particular. The tall one with the cold black eyes and the black fur on its head. The one called Arren. That human had run from him in fear at first, but later—later it had spoken to him. None of the others had, but it had, and it had shown no further fear of him, only hatred. When he had attacked it, it had fought back. It had conquered him.
He hissed to himself and dug his talons into the dirt.
“I am bored,” Aeya said suddenly. “Black griffin?”
The black griffin moved his head slightly in her direction. She must have heard the rattle of his chains, because she went on, “I want someone new to talk to. If you would like, I shall teach you griffish as your mother would have. Do you wish me to do that?”
“You . . . teach?” the black griffin said blankly.
“I will teach you how to speak,” said Aeya.
Comprehension of a kind dawned on the black griffin. “Want speak,” he said eagerly.
“Then I will help you,” said Aeya. “Listen . . .”
She spent much of the rest of that night teaching him new words, saying them slowly and making him repeat them. He quickly grasped this notion and recited strings of new words over and over again until he could say them properly. It was so strange, but he found he liked it. He liked talking to her, and he liked learning.
He spent the next few weeks in his cage, unable to move far or stretch his wings. The black-eyed human did not come to give him food any more, but now other humans did instead. They brought meat, plenty of it, and he ate it voraciously even though it tasted unfamiliar. It helped to restore some of the strength he’d lost during the journey.