But what really stole every word from my lips was no feat of architecture, but the creature that guarded it. Like a living, breathing gargoyle, the beast reclined on a landing high atop the palace walls, its furred tail swishing idly as two glittering eyes skimmed the surrounding lands. A gryvern. I’d heard stories of them in school and seen their likeness stitched and carved into various materials around the realm, but to see one with my own eyes felt like walking into the pages of a fairytale. The spiked, scaled head of a sea dragon. The wings and front talons of an eagle. The body of a
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