Midnight Frost by Jennifer Estep

Author:Jennifer Estep
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: K-Teen
Published: 2013-07-30T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

The others started talking about the things we needed to do, what we should pack, and the route we would take up the mountain to get to the ruins. Rachel and Rory did most of the talking, with Ajax and Covington chiming in. Alexei also offered some opinions. Apparently, he’d done a lot of hiking growing up in Russia. Daphne and Carson put their heads together and started whispering, while Oliver once again pulled out his phone and started texting on it.

Restless, I got to my feet and started pacing around the conference room. Eventually, I found myself peering up at the large gryphon carving on the wall. I didn’t get the same familiar, comforting vibe from it as I did the ones outside the Library of Antiquities back home, but gryphons were protectors. For some reason, staring at the carving made me feel a little better about our chances of finding the ambrosia flowers.

After a few minutes, Covington drifted over to me. “You seem very interested in that carving.”

“I guess you could say that. What’s with all the gryphons?”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

I gestured at the carving and all the others in the room. “I mean, it seems like there are statues and carvings of gryphons everywhere on campus. On the walls in here, beside the library steps, on top of the rock waterfall in the middle of the dining hall, on either side of the main gate. We don’t have nearly this many images of them back home.”

“Oh,” he said. “That’s because there are actually nests of gryphons here in the mountains. Legend has it that when this academy was being constructed, the builders were quite inspired by the creatures. Even to this day, you can see them flying over the academy, although no one knows exactly where they make their homes. Maybe higher up on this mountain or on some of the neighboring peaks.”

“Do you have any contact with them?”

He shook his head. “No. For the most part, they avoid us, and we do the same, although every once in a while, a student or professor out hiking will be attacked by one. Rachel should have mentioned them when she was talking about things to look out for on the mountain. Gryphons are wild animals, dangerous, vicious, and completely unpredictable.”

I thought of Nyx. I wondered if Covington would think the same of her—that she was a wild, dangerous, vicious creature. Maybe she was, but she was my friend too, my family, and I loved her just as much as I did Grandma Frost and the rest of my friends. I felt the same way about Nyx’s mom, Nott, even though she was dead, murdered by Vivian, just like my mom had been.

“Of course, the Reapers don’t care how dangerous the gryphons are,” Covington added. “Rumor has it, Reapers come to the area several times a year to trap wild gryphons to add to the ones already in their service, although I don’t see how the Reapers manage to control them.

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