Nothing of note befell them in the Hills after I left them. I have never asked the prince’s son how much he told his father of his game of wits with the wyvern queen or of his vision in the womb of Alma—little, I think. Nor have I troubled to discover how they spent their half month returning over the Plain, save only that it was a good running and swift, without mishap.

I reached the Vale two days before them, and told the whole herd assembled how the prince’s son had saved the pilgrim band from wyvern’s jaws by battling their queen to the death below ground. The old king Khraa was much impressed, fairly burst with pride, calling his grandson a worthy heir.

But I noticed the gray king looked older than when I had seen him last, barely a month ago. He moved with a stiffness in his bones. Alma was calling him. He and I both knew it, and nothing lay within my power either to stem that call or stay his answering.

When the prince-son, his father, and the others returned home, two hours before sunset on the day of the full moon, that night each month which the unicorns of the Vale call Moondance, I was already a half day gone. Many of the mares the pilgrims had left in foal the month before now had new foals or fillies at their sides, Jan’s mother among them. And the king was dead.

So when the prince led his pilgrims home at last, he found, not a gathering of welcome, but one of mourning. Dagg’s father, Tas, took Korr apart to tell him of the gray king’s death. They had buried him the day before, unable to wait upon his son’s return, for the wheel of the world must turn, and time with it.

Hearing of his father’s death, Korr bowed his head and did not speak. Then he went off to the burial cliffs with a small circle of the highest elders to be made king before sunset, for the herd had been nearly two days without a king and were uneasy for want of one.

Jan stood amid the milling crowd, feeling lost and uncertain. Friends greeted the new-made warriors with joyous shouts and jostling. Others stood off quietly, recounting the death of the king. But in all the crush of kith and strangers, Jan caught no glimpse of his own dam, Ses. As he stood scanning for her, Dagg’s mother came up beside him.

“You mother bade me tell you she would wait for you at the wood’s edge, there.”

Leerah tossed her head. Jan gave her a nod of thanks, then sprang away across the valley floor. He mounted the slope, passing his own cave, and headed toward the line of trees. He saw his mother then, waiting at the wood’s edge among the long, dusky shadows. Her form was the color of beeswax, of flame. A filly not more than two weeks old stood pressed to her flank.

“What will you call her?” Jan found himself saying. He had come to a halt. The filly started at the sound of his voice, pressing closer to the pale mare’s side. His mother smiled.

“Lell,” she answered. “We’ll call her Lell.”

Jan came closer. Dark amber, the filly watched him. Her brushlike, newborn’s mane was blonde. Her brow bore but the promise of a horn, a tiny bump beneath the skin.

“Well met,” he heard his mother saying, “my bearded boy. You’ll have fine silk upon your chin by summer’s end.”

Jan felt a rush of pride. Already, he knew, the feathery hairs were sprouting along his jaw.

His mother said, “How was your pilgrimming?”

He shrugged, suddenly shy. “You have heard it all already from Jah-lila.” She nodded and laughed. He said nothing, looking off. “I had a dream,” he said at last, “upon the Mirror of the Moon. I dreamed the unicorns in mourning, crying, ‘He is dead. He of the line of Halla, dead!’ “ He looked at Ses. “I thought they wept for me.”

His mother laughed again, but very softly now. “I knew you would return to me. Korr feared you would fly off breakneck at the first opportunity—run wild Renegade across the Plain. But I did not.”

Jan frowned. “Why would he think that? My place is here, among the Circle.” Already he had forgotten ever dreaming himself outcast.

Ses nodded, murmuring, “You are prince now of the Ring.”

Jan gave a little start, then sighed. He had forgotten that. “Mother, I have seen other Rings than ours. I have seen gryphons that were brave and loyal after their own kind of honor, pans dancing to reed voices under the moon, and Renegades who were not hornless, solid-hoofed or godless things.”

“Aye,” she told him. “That is an old mare’s tale, about the Renegades.”

“And I have seen a Cycle that is wider than all our smaller Rings,” said Jan, “and includes them, and surpasses them. A place waits for me in that wider Ring, too. I have seen it, and cannot wake or sleep dreamless of it ever again.”

He saw a slow smile light his mother’s eye. “Then I am glad,” she said. “All that ever I have wished is to see you follow your own heart, and no other.”

She came forward and stood against him, laying her neck about his neck. Jan saw his sister, Lell, begin to suckle, butting his mother’s side. He leaned against his dam, watching. After a time, he felt her warm, dry tongue stroking his shoulder. He drew back.

“What are you doing?” he began.

“Getting the dust off you,” she replied. “Truth, how did you get so much into your coat? You look as though you’ve rolled in it.”

Jan stood off and shook himself. He had rolled in dust. His winter coat had shed upon the Plain, coming off all in an evening in thick mats of hair. And the color beneath had been darker than the old, not a trace of sable to it. For he was black as his father beneath the shed. The color at last ran true.

But he had felt strange in his sleek new coat, like a trickster, somehow—like a thief. So he had rolled in dust to hide the color from others’ eyes a few days longer. But there could be no more hiding now. He was home. He shook himself again. Dust rose like smoke from the glossy blackness of him, and hung in the still, sunlit air between the shadows.

His mother gave no indication of surprise. “And what is that upon your brow?”

He realized then he had shaken his forelock back as well. He had not meant to. He had been letting it fall thickly into his eyes this last half month. But there could be no taking that back, either. He went to stand before his dam.

She studied the new hairs, pale as hoarfrost, growing in a thin crescent where the rim of the firebowl had burned him. He had seen them for the first time only that morning, in a pool in the Pan Woods. But he had felt them these last dozen days, growing.

“Show me the heel where the wyvern stung you.”

Jan lifted his hoof and held it crooked that she might see the fetlock better. Since they had left the Hallow Hills, he had kept the spot daubed with mud on the healer’s advice; but they had waded streams in the Pan Woods that day, and he had forgotten to replace the mud. The new hair covering the little spot was pale as well.

“I am the Firebringer,” he said. He had not realized it until they were long out of the Hallow Hills, halfway home across the Plain. He had said nothing to anyone, till now. “I…I always thought it would be Korr.”

Ses laughed then. “My son, I love your father well, but he is no seer of dreams.”

Jan gazed at her. He could not fathom her unsurprise. Again she laughed.

“On the night of my initiation, long ago, I saw myself give birth to a flit of flame. And I have never doubted for a day what that must mean.”

Then Jan said nothing for a while, for he could think of nothing. His sister Lell left off her suckling, and crept around her mother’s side to look at him.

“Look,” he heard Ses saying. “I see Korr across the Vale, coming back with the elders from the kingmaking.” She looked at him a moment, and then off. “The sun’s almost set. We should go down.”