She started forward, out of the trees’ shadows. He did not follow. She halted, glancing back at him.

“Do you come?”

He shook his head. “You go,” he told her. “In a while.”

He watched his mother descend toward the valley floor, Lell stumbling after her on long, still-awkward legs. They joined the crowd and made for the rise at the center, which Korr was now mounting. His shoulders were daubed with the red and yellow mud of the grave cliffs, that marks the new-made kings among the unicorns. Jan turned and headed up slope through the trees.

He made his way to the lookout knoll and stood only paces from the wood’s edge there, from the treeless swatch where he and Tek had fought the gryphon more than a month past—it seemed a very long time ago. Jan gazed down at the milling unicorns, deep blues and scarlets mostly, a smattering of ambers, here and there a gold, a gray.

“There you are,” panted Dagg, coming up the slope. “I’ve been looking—everyone has.”

Jan nodded, not turning. He scrubbed himself absently against the rough bark of a fir. His new coat itched.

Dagg snorted and shouldered against him. “What are you doing up here?”

“It’s a good spot,” Jan answered. “I can watch the dance from here.”

“Watch it?” cried Dagg. “You’re always watching things. You never enter in.”

“I do,” said Jan. “I’m a better dancer than you.”

“You are not.”

They fell on each other, nipping and shoulder-wrestling. They snorted, panting—and broke off abruptly at the sound of a low, nickering laugh. Jan turned to see Tek watching from the trees.

“How did you find us?” demanded Dagg.

Tek shrugged, emerging from the trees. She turned to gaze toward the unicorns below. “I have long known all your haunts and hollows. They were mine but two years gone.”

Jan and Dagg came to stand beside her. The dusk deepened. None of them spoke. The evening sky grew red.

“We should go,” Dagg said.

Jan caught him back. “Not yet.”

The sky above was hinting into violet. Tek turned to Jan. “They want to make you prince before the dance,” she said. “It was why I came.”

Jan looked at her. “Will it matter to you, when I am prince?”

He heard Dagg’s laugh. His friend shouldered against him. “I never cared when you were princeling, did I?”

Tek shrugged, eyeing him with half a smile. “Princes put no fear in me.”

Jan almost laughed, then caught himself. The mark of Alma rode heavy on his brow. “But what if I were more?” he said. “More than prince—would it matter?”

Dagg looked at him. “Korr’s not dead yet,” he said.

Then Jan did laugh. He caught Tek studying him.

“What are you talking about, little prince?” she said quietly. “Tell us.”

The prince of the unicorns looked down, away. His white heel pricked him in the dark. He picked at the fir needles underfoot with that hind, cloven hoof. “Tomorrow.”

Above them, the sky shaded from wine to indigo, lying smooth and cloudless as still, clear water. Night settled. A line of silver peered over the slope across the valley from them, and the dark blue of the sky grew suddenly smoky and more light. The few stars pricking the canopy above paled. Jan watched the rim of brightness edging over the hills.

“Moon’s up,” he heard Dagg saying. “They’ll be starting the dance.”

Jan drew his breath. “Full moon tonight,” he murmured. “I’d forgot.”

The herd below had begun to turn, slowly, a rough, wide Ring drifting now deasil, now widdershins about the rise in the valley floor where the new king stood. Tek wheeled on Jan suddenly, gave him a smart nip on the shoulder, then bolted from beside him, tearing down the slope. Her light taunt drifted back:

“First down shall have the center of the dance!”

Jan sprang after, and heard Dagg barely a half-pace behind. They galloped breakneck, shouldering and kicking, as they raced to overtake her before she reached the bottom of the slope.

So it was not Jan, but I that night who watched the dancing from above. Though the others thought me gone, I had kept myself hidden on the far wooded slope where I had stood the month before. Thus I saw the pilgrims safely home, and the making of Korr into the king.

The circle on the valley floor below me grew gradually thinner, its members fanning outward to form a greater, more circular Ring. The young prince, my daughter, and their shoulder-friend rejoined the dance now moving deasil, steadily deasil, beneath the circling moon.

I departed, and left them to their dancing. And I have come among you these many years after, you who dwell upon the Plain and call yourselves the Free People, you who know so little of your southern cousins, the unicorns of the Vale.

I have told you this tale to remind you of them, for though you have forgotten it, all unicorns were once a single tribe, just as–though you may doubt it–my people, who dwell beyond the Summer Sea, were once like yours. But this tale marks only the first night of my telling. Come to me tomorrow evening, and I will tell you the rest.