Each new year, as soon as the forage had sprung upon the Great Grass Plain, the prince of the unicorns led a chosen band to the sacred well of their race. A few of the band were warriors, acting as escorts; the rest, initiates, those fillies and foals adjudged worthy of drinking from the well. In doing so, they would cast off their childhood and join the Ring of Warriors.

Jan and Dagg had hoped to join the Circle this season, together, though Dagg was younger than the prince’s son. Jan’s parents had held him back from Pilgrimage the spring before—it was not uncommon. His mother had said gently that he needed another year of colt’s play. Korr had told him more curtly that his hot head needed to cool.

Jan felt a sinking in his chest. Korr would hold him back again—the thought stung him more sharply than shame. He would be scorned, thought of forever not as the prince’s son, but as the young firebrand who had let the gryphons in and was not fit to be made a warrior. And he knew what became of those who never drank of the well in the sacred rite of passage. He had heard the fate of Renegades in singers’ tales.

They ceased to be unicorns. Banned from the herd, they saw their horns rot to the skull bone and fall away, their heels lose their fringe of feathery hair and their ears their tufted tassels. No fine, soft beards ever sprouted along their chins. Their cloven hooves grew together, each into a single toe: strange solid hooves that left round imprints in the dust. Renegades grew old before their time, and died young.

Jan started suddenly, coming back to himself. He saw Tek’s green eyes on him from the lookout knoll.

“He’ll hold me back,” he blurted out. “My father will keep me from the rite again.”

Tek’s gaze had lost its hardness. She nodded a bare trace and said quietly, “Aye, princeling. I think he may.”

Anguish welled in Jan. What could he do? Despair enveloped him and he felt himself sliding down its dark throat toward nothing. The prince would make no announcement. Nothing would be said at large—he would not be publicly disgraced.

But everyone would hear of it. His unworthiness would be revealed at last. It would be known—it would be known! Panic gripped him. Jan wheeled, clenching his teeth to keep from crying out, and bolted away into the trees. Tek called after him, but did not follow. Her shouts soon faded.

He found himself running along the ridge and plunged over the hillcrest down the wooded slope. He was on the far side now, the side that faced the Pan Woods. This was forbidden territory, even to warriors—but no matter. Better to wander the rest of his days in the goatling woods than to go back disgraced and face another year denied the Ring.

He halted suddenly and bowed his head, running the tip of his horn along the outer edge of each forehoof once, twice, a half dozen times in short, unpracticed strokes. This, too, was forbidden. Colts were banned from sharpening their hooves and horns. By Law, only the warriors were allowed.

But he was an outcast now, a Renegade, and must be his own Law. And if the pans came upon him in the woods, he meant to draw their blood before they dragged him down. He ran on then, blindly, fleeing a great, looming fear he could not name. He wished the earth might open and swallow him.

Without warning the ground beneath him shifted, gave way suddenly, and he was plunging. Rain-soaked soil crumbled about his legs and he slid headlong, dropping abruptly, and landed with a jolt that knocked the breath from him. Something tumbled past his head, struck him a glancing blow behind the ear, then thudded softly to the dirt beside him. A stone.

The place was very dim; he could scarcely see. Straining for breath, he shook his head. It was exceedingly quiet. The fall of earth and rock had made almost no sound. He lay a few moments, his legs folded awkwardly beneath him, a little stunned, and not at all certain what had just happened.

His head cleared. His breath came back, and Jan was able to take in his surroundings. He lay on a heap of earth in the narrow opening of a cave, a mere crack in the hillside, very close and dark. Glancing up, he saw some of the roof overhanging the grotto’s mouth must have collapsed when he stumbled across it. And a good thing, too, he realized with a start, or else in his blind gallop he might have run right off the cliff.

He picked himself up warily, still giddy with relief. None of his bones seemed to be broken. Only his bad leg hurt. He stood now half in, half out of the cave, and the sky behind him was brightening to flame. What rags of cloud were left were infused with red. A little of that light reflected off the lip of the entryway.

Jan peered ahead of him into the dimness, but could make out nothing. He listened, hearing nothing. The narrow space smelled old and goaty. But presently, his nostrils quivered as a new scent reached him, strange and musky—not one he recognized. Jan frowned, breathing deeper, and limped forward a few paces into the earthy darkness of the cave.

His eyes had grown accustomed now, and he discerned the uneven wall opposite the one near which he stood, the continuation of the grotto’s crevice back into the rock. He started forward again—but halted suddenly. A large mound lay at the back of the cave, just before where the chamber narrowed to a crack too close and dark to see beyond.

The half-light from the outside had grown warmer, redder as the unseen sun dropped lower in the sky. Jan’s vision improved: tawny fur and azure feathers. The musky odor swam in his head. At the back of the grotto, not five paces from him, lay some animal….

His heart contracted, jerking him back. Jan recognized a gryphon curled upon its side, wings folded, limbs drawn against its body. Its head was turned to one side, beak tucked beneath one wing. Its eyes were closed.

Its furred and feathered side rose, fell softly with each breath. There was blood upon its feathers, its talons rust colored with blood. Its wings looked battered, its fur muddy and wet. It lay still and bedraggled, like a newly pipped hatchling, as though the earth itself had just given it birth.

The formel. Jan started backward again as he realized. This was the formel of the pair that had attacked them—but she was dead! She must be. He himself—they had all seen her plunge out of the sky beyond the lookout knoll, surely to her death? He wondered now, his thoughts spinning. Perhaps she had struggled free of her dead mate at the last moment. Perhaps the drop had not been so great as it had seemed.

All at once a new thought brought him up short: Even his father had been deceived. If Korr had so much as suspected one of the pair had survived, he would have sent warriors to comb the woods and hunt it down. Once again Jan’s mind sprinted. If this wingcat were allowed to escape safe home, next storm she might return, bringing others of her kind, well assured how easily they might strike against the prince of the unicorns and live.

Jan eyed the sleeping formel. All thoughts of his self-made exile vanished; his coltish boasts to Dagg vanished as well. The wingcat was three times his size. Alone against her, he had no chance; but if he ran like wildfire, he might just have time to raise the alarm in the Vale and summon the warriors before dusk. Jan backed slowly toward the egress of the cave.

The sun must have moved very slightly in the sky. The light on the cave wall shifted. A ray of red sunlight eased across the gryphon’s eye, and Jan felt himself go rigid. The formel stirred, sighing heavily, then coiled herself tighter in her napping ball. Jan in midstep waited, waited, waited. The wingcat did not stir again. Jan put his hoof down very carefully and raised the next.

“Jan!”

He started. The voice echoed so loud in the close, oppressive stillness that for a moment he could have sworn it had sounded just beside him.