“His wings were broad and green, and his voice so lilting sweet. He vowed to return to us, come spring, and accompany us to the Vale.”

Sismoomnat nodded gravely as Lell halted and began to graze. The young pan bent to pull and collect grass seed in one upturned, hairless paw.

“You must introduce him to me when he returns,” she murmured. Tek turned her attention back downslope. They were discussing the gryphon Illishar. Still. The pied mare marveled at it, that the green-fletched wingcat could have so captured Lell’s curiosity. Nothing seemed to distract her from speculating when he would return, expounding the magnificence of his flight and the sweetness of his song. She would prattle thus to any who would harken until their ears well and nearly withered. Tek regarded Dhattar and Aiony, accompanied by Pitipak, the younger pan. The three of them had begun another game on the slope. She heard white Dhattar saying, “Nay, we’ll not see him at all this winter.”

Aiony added, “Save in dreams.”

Pitipak made a small sound, as of sympathy. Tek’s ears pricked, but she dared not interrupt with questions. Like as not, such would only quiet her offspring completely, or loose a torrent of observations too tangled for Tek herself to sort. Quietly, their dam eavesdropped.

“He talks to the one with the red jewels now,” Aiony was saying.

“She’s older than we,” Dhattar laughed, “and goes about things very slowly.”

Chasing him around Aiony, Pitipak nearly caught him. The black-and-silver filly dodged away now, as well.

“She’s been sleeping a long, long time.”

Tek turned her mind away, unable to follow their thread. Almost certainly, she knew, they were discussing Jan, but she lacked any context with which to make their words meaningful. Reluctantly, she contented herself with the assurance he was alive and hale. Ryhenna came up the hillside now, followed closely by her young one, Culu. With an affectionate nip, Dagg left the pied mare’s side. The coppery mare whistled a greeting to Tek before nuzzling her mate. The little foal began to suckle. Jah-lila and Ses came up the rear. They, too, spoke quietly as evening neared.

“I have often wondered where in the wide Plain he might be found, but of late the more intensely,” Ses was saying, head down, tone barely above her breath. “Then, of a sudden, to have news of him after so long, that he is well, a singer… I had always suspected—”

Her words broke off as she and the red mare drew close to Tek. Schooling her expression to betray nothing, the pied mare listened in surprise. Ses spoke of Jan, of course—who else? Yet, despite her obvious strong emotion, her words rang somehow odd in reference to her son. Puzzled, Tek glanced away and harkened without seeming to.

“Both you and I have forfeited much for the welfare of our young,” Jah-lila murmured to Ses.

The pied mare felt a telltale frown creasing her brow and dismissed it. Her own dam, she knew, had forgone a place in the herd for nearly ten years in order that her filly might be raised among them as Teki’s daughter. Tek—and all the Vale—now knew that the stallion whose namesake she was had not been her sire. To this day, the red mare continued to conceal that one’s identity. Some nameless Renegade was all the account Tek had ever been able to wrest from her.

Of her own dam’s sacrifice, the pied mare was well aware. But what of Ses? Did Jah-lila refer to the public repudiation of Korr by his mate when, during that terrible winter, his madness had threatened even Lell? Yet Tek had the strongest feeling that Ses’s unknown deed must have been to Jan’s benefit, not Lell’s. The pale mare’s eyes were closed, as if in pain.

“I count the days till Jan’s return,” she whispered to Jah-lila. “Though I could do no other and keep my offspring safe, I have held this silence far too long. By Alma’s eyes, Red Mare, I swear when next we meet, I’ll tell my son the truth.”

Jan felt himself returning. He became aware of the dragon’s den again, of the awful glare of the pool of fire, of its intense heat. Neither troubled him, though he was vaguely aware that he should long since have swooned. Dimly, in the back of his mind, he tried to remember what had caused this strange imperviousness—dragonsup?—but his thoughts were fluid, shifting still, and the query refused to come to the forefront of consciousness. Instead, a new need suddenly kindled there, bright and imperative: to learn the meaning of his mother’s vow. I’ll tell my son the truth. He had no inkling what she could mean.

“What is this?” he demanded. “What have I beheld?” Before him, the languid dragon stirred. Great lids slid down over garnet eyes, then up again. The pool upon her brow rippled and stilled. Her vast body stretched away across the chamber, enormous claws of her toes tightening. Her monumental, rose-colored wings flexed. The resulting gust fanned the steam of her breath in curling eddies about Jan. She chuckled very quietly, deep in her throat, at his sudden urgency, all trace of his former reticence gone.

“None but your home and friends, the unicorns of your Vale,” she answered, chiding. “I should have thought you would have recognized them.”

The dark unicorn let his breath out, chastened. “Your pardon,” he offered, then tried again. “What I meant to ask is: is what I see upon your brow that which is, or are these images your own inventions, conjurings…”

“Lies?” Wyzásukitán inquired mildly.

“Dreams,” Jan countered.

Again the red dragon chuckled. “You see what is. I see it, too, but it is no dream of mine. We dragons do not dream, in that sense. We contemplate that which is. The only conjurer here is you, invoking upon my brow those things you most desire to see.”

Jan frowned, unsatisfied. “But is it real?” he whispered. “Or only imagined by me?”

Wyzásukitán shrugged. Her massive wing moved, glittering. Her head remained perfectly still. “Does it feel real—or imaginary?”

“Real,” Jan answered, unhesitating.

The dragon queen nodded, closing her eyes again and inclining her head almost imperceptibly. The strange water upon her brow lapped, smoothed. “Then trust it as real, for I believe the truth, however harsh, is what you long to see above all things, even above soothing lies. A courageous wish, and a most unusual one.

Álmaharát-elár-herát, whom we call the Many-Jeweled One, or Her of the Thousand Thousand Eyes, has chosen you well for her purpose. You have seen what is and what has been. Come. Look again. I will show you now what is to be.”

Jan gazed deep into the dragon’s pool. The Vale lay below him in a gryphon’s eye view. He leaned closer, perception skimming lower through the air. Frost rimed the grass, brown stubble now. Wisps of snow sifted down, floating like feathers. Sky hung grey, early dusk drawing on. Jan watched his fellows gathering. When he spied the great heap of brushwood on the council rise, he knew the day could only be solstice, the start of winter.

His herdmates below looked well-fed, pelts thick and warm. Nearly all the many fillies and foals would be weaned by spring. When the herd must depart, Jan heard himself think, unsure if he spoke aloud in the distant dragon’s den. I must return by then, he thought. I must lead them. The notion filled him with dread, not of the task itself, but of the other that must accompany it: disclosure of Korr’s unspeakable secret.

Far below, Tek stood upon the council rise. She was a striking sight, bold black and rose, her particolored mane lifting in the slight, frigid breeze. The herd around her assembled joyously. How regal she looked, like a princess, like a queen. She is their queen, he thought. Leader of the herd now that Korr is gone—and not as any regent, but in her own right: undeclared princess of the line of Halla all the time that I have ruled.