Set soon after the Second Mage Storms and after Valdemar has been able to lessen the threats from its neighbors, Hardorn and Karse, this book starts off focusing on unrest in one of Valdemar's own border towns, Deedun. A Baron in the area has led to a conflict and possible succession, but he is doing so in an unlawful way by seizing the labors of local workers. During a particularly brutal fight, Valdemar's side is saved when a lone gryphon sent to scout the area swoops in and deals a heavy blow to the enemy. Unfortunately, Kelvren himself is badly wounded by the enemy weapons.
Kelvren is taken to the healers' tents, but the only tent big enough to house a gryphon currently contains a wounded officer named Hallock Stavern. Hallock agrees to share the tent with Kelvren and the two end up becoming fast and close friends. Hallock knows that his own severe injuries mean he won't last long, and Kelvren recognizes that the healers have no knowledge of gryphon anatomy. Both know that they are likely to die without seeing their loved ones again, but both are also willing to fight for their lives.
One morning Hallock wakes up to find he is feeling a lot better, only to realize that his new friend has used a lot of the gryphon's own personal magic to heal Hallock. Now Kelvren is even weaker than ever and even closer to death's door. With his renewed strength, Hallock gets word of Kelvren's deeds to Haven and the gryphon's ambassador there, Treyvan (a powerful and renowned gryphon in his own right) appears in the camps around Deedun to help fix the mess that Kelvren has done to himself by draining the last of his magical reserves.
While successful, the experimental ritual Treyvan performs on Kelvren leaves the wounded gryphon constantly sucking in magic from his surroundings at an alarming rate. If Kelvren doesn't continuously burn off magic he could, quite literally, burst into flames. Instinctively, Kelvren uses a simple Mage Light spell to bleed off the magic, and the result is that the gryphon now constantly glows with a white light.
Expecting a triumphant hero's welcome when he returns to Vale k'Valdemar, Kelvren is disturbed to find everyone distrustful of him and wary of his arrival. At first everyone is worried that he isn't actually Kelvren, but someone impersonating their fallen friend. Even when it's proven he is who he says he is, his friends and comrades are not happy with his presence. It seems that, not only are his heroic deeds being twisted by politics to make him seem dangerous, but his constant consuming of local magic is putting the vale at serious risk. Until Kelvren can learn to control the changes that have come over him, he must be very careful about his surroundings, so much so that a house is built for him outside of the k'Valdemar's vale lest he bring the whole thing down.
Kelvren's friend, the Hawkbrother Firesong, proposes to help teach the gryphon the necessary skills in order to help control his magical hunger, as well as an expedition that will take Kelvren away from k'Valdemar for a long time. The hope is that they will not only solve a mystery, but also give Kelvren time to gain control so he can return to his home. It seems that the Mage Storms didn't behave as expected when they reached the center of Lake Evendim and now there is a thick mist surrounding that area so that no one has been able to use magical abilities to see what is actually happening there. Kelvren agrees to both the mission and the training.
Now, if any long-time Valdemar fans have found that this story seems familiar, that's because it is. These events have actually been outlined before in a few short stories found in early Valdemar Anthology books, but it seems that Lackey and Dixon decided they wanted to tell this story in a way that doesn't fit well into short-story miniseries. The events described so far are only the first few chapters in Gryphon in Light. After these events, Kelvren not only starts to learn how to control his magic consumption, but the plans for the expedition come together.
What Kelvren assumes will only be a small group heading to investigate the lake, quickly turns into a rather large procession containing almost every type of sentient species he is familiar with. Not only will there be a few Hawkbrothers like Firesong and his mate along, but they will also have Hertasi, Kyree, Delhi and even a pair of Tervardi in their company. Haven also insists that it send representatives on the mission and they send the newly promoted Hallock as well as his wife Ginni, a healer, to k'Valdemar. Hallock ends up bringing along a couple of others that had befriended Kelvren during his time in Deedun, and a few other interesting surprise guests make their presence known before the expedition can actually get going.
While a large chunk of Gryphon in Light might be a rehash of older stories followed by build-up to the actual expedition, this book isn't slow or boring. These all feel like necessary steps in order to justify the trip itself. There is a ton of character development and growth in this first volume, and there is plenty of room for more before the trilogy reaches its conclusion. I, for one, enjoyed the deep dive into how gryphons work and how they process magic. It's interesting to see a somewhat scientific approach taken to explaining how a magical being like them could exist even, if there is still some hand waving around the magic itself.
Gryphon in Light: Kelvren's Saga - Book 1 does end with a major conflict to the expedition, and one that not all of their number will survive, so while a lot of this book is talking and planning, there is a climactic fight at the end of it. But all of that is just preamble to what the group is expected to encounter in the next two books.
I really enjoyed Gryphon in Light. Personally, I had not read any of Kelvren's story before this book. I know that he was a character in the Owlknight series, but I've only been reading Valdemar books for a few years now and I still need to go back and read a lot of the older works. So, as someone newly introduced to Kelvren, I found this book to be fun and a joy to read. Hopefully anyone who has read the original stories won't feel like the first few chapters are a bait and switch since they were already published works. It was necessary for those of us newer to the series.
