A sudden drumming of heels brought Lell’s head sharp around. The crack of trampled twigs reached her, and the crashing of brush. From wood’s edge, scant paces from her, rang out the battle-whistle of a warrior. A moment later, the black prince of the unicorns burst from the trees. Snorting, ramping, he cast fiercely about as though seeking a foe. Lell whinnied and reared, thrusting her young horn toward the empty sky.

“Jan! Jan! Did you see him?” she cried. “My gryphon! He says his wingleader will come parley with us—at summer solstice, Moondance.”

The solstice night fell still and clear, with sky above transforming to the dark, even blue of deep water. The round moon, burning silver as it climbed, paled a heaven pricked with summer stars. Pied Tek, the prince’s mate, danced in the great ring of unicorns cantering under the moon. White Dhattar and painted Aiony frisked beside her, pummeling one another with their soft weanlings’ hooves. The dancers trampled the thick, fragrant grass, kicking and scattering turf. Night breathed warm with coming summer and the panting and sweating of unicorns.

All around her, Tek watched her fellows bowing and turning their heads to scratch their flanks with keen horntips, then reaching to prick the flanks of their fellows. Each full moon since equinox, they had done the same, ever since her mate had spoken of his battle with Alma’s serpent and of the magic in his blood. He had vowed to bestow it upon the entire herd. She herself had been the first. Each Moondance since, those already scratched had mingled their blood with the blood of others until after this night, all—from youngest newborn to most venerable elder—would by Alma’s grace stand forever proof against serpents and their stings.

The pied mare shook herself for sheer exuberance and danced. She gazed at her weanling filly and foal traipsing ahead amid the swirling rush to butt at Lell with their blunt, barely sprouted horn-nubs. Laughing, the older filly chivvied and nipped at them. They sought refuge behind their granddam Ses. Pale cream with a mane and tail of flame, the mother of Jan and Lell never faltered in her step while the three colts cavorted, playing peekover and tag. Tek whistled Aiony and Dha back to her side.

She spotted Jan ahead of them, emerging from the dancers. He ascended the council rise, a low mass of stone thrusting up from the valley floor. Around it the great moondance circled. Reaching the top of the rock, the young prince halted, his lean stallion’s form just entering its prime etched in shadow against the moon-washed hills. What a wonder I pledged as my mate, Tek smiled to herself, scant three years gone, by the Summer Sea. She admired the crest of his neck, length of his horn, his fine runner’s limbs.

Around her, the dance began to subside, moon halfway along its journey to surmount the sky. She halted, gazed about as one by one, unicorns circling her and her offspring strayed to a stop, stood cropping grass or lay down on soft, cushioned earth. Tek, too, lay down with Dha and Ai, not far from Ses and Lell. She sensed the others’ expectancy from their skittish prancing, their restive whinnies and snorts. Her own mingled anticipation and trepidation made the pied mare’s skin twitch.

On the rise above, her mate tensed suddenly. A ripple passed through the herd. Heads lifted. Necks craned. Gazing into the seamless silver sky, she, too, caught sight: gryphons, a dozen of them in a hollow wedge sailing the moonlit air, dark as cinders, silent as haunts or dreams. Tek’s herdmates shifted, jostled, murmured uneasily as the vee descended. A huge wingcat formel occupied the point, the intense blue of her plumage discernible even by moonlight. All were formels, the pied mare realized, save for one flanking the leader’s wing, the tips of his green tercel’s feathers nearly brushing hers. Scarcely smaller than his fellows, the lone male glided.

Closer they drifted, and closer yet. Their shadows swept the silent herd. Tek felt the hairs of her pelt stiffen and lift. The thud of paws on rippled rock sounded in the stillness as the gryphons alighted on the council rise, first the wingleader, then the tercel beside her, then all the other blue-and-tawny formels of the vee. Tek felt her fellows tense, recoil ever so slightly. Only her mate stood at ease before their enemies, still fanning the air.

The pied mare’s ears pricked. “Do you see him, Mother?” she heard Lell whispering. “The green one? My gryphon.”

Tek saw the pale mare stroke her daughter once with a motherly tongue. “I see him,” Ses murmured. “Be still.”

On the rise, the gryphon leader crouched before Jan, her blue feathers sheened with moonlight. Her monstrous wings thrashed vigorously. Tek felt their buffeting even here. The musky odor of raptors and pards reached her, making her flesh draw. Above, Jan stood quiet, waiting until the formel subsided, lashing her lion’s tail against one tawny flank. Her feathers roughed, then lay smooth.

“Hail, Jan, prince of unicorns.”

The pied mare started. The formel’s voice was surprisingly cat-like, throaty and smooth, with none of the raucousness of eagles’ cries.

“Hail, Malar, wingleader of the gryphons,” the prince replied. “Be welcome in our Vale.”

Tek heard him perfectly. His words traveled to the rocky slopes, rang ever so softly there. The formels behind their leader stirred, muttering, their green eyes glinting. Only the tercel remained impassive. The gryphon leader cocked her head, eyeing Jan with one cat-slit eye.

“This was our Vale once,” she said, “entrusted to us by the sky goddess Isha, fold to the sacred flocks of her consort Ishi. Your kind’s coming drove those flocks away.”

Again, the formels behind her shifted, snapping bills. Tek thought she heard a low-pitched growl. Her own people moved restlessly. She caught sound of a snort, a stamp, a toss of mane. Dhattar and Aiony leaned sleepily against her. Tek bent to nuzzle them, her eyes still on the rise.

“And at our departure,” the prince answered Malar firmly, “it is my hope that your wind god’s sheep and deer will abundantly return. My people took refuge in this place centuries past. Driven from our home, we never knew we trespassed here. But now our goddess tells us to reclaim ancestral lands. We must depart, but we would not go as enemies. Hear the tale of our first coming to the Vale. My mate would sing you that lay of our long exile and the treachery of wyverns. Ho, Tek! Will you come?”

Tek felt her heart thump. This was the moment she had awaited all evening and dreaded all spring. The warm odor of wingcats filled her nostrils as she rose. Dhattar and Aiony slept. The pied mare’s hooves grated on the hard, worn stone as she ascended the council rise. She and her mate exchanged a glance. Jan pressed his shoulder to hers, but said no word. His presence steadied her. The gryphons’ beaks and talons glinted. Their moon-shot eyes gleamed.

“Greetings, Malar, queen of gryphons,” Tek hailed them. Her voice sounded even enough. Within her ribs, her heart bucked and churned. “I have met your kind in battle time and again and never dreamed to stand at peaceful parley with you. But my mate assures me that two years past, he and your cousin set aside their enmity.”

She glanced toward the green-winged tercel flanking the queen. He acknowledged her gesture with a nod, but spoke no word. His wingleader kept her eyes fixed on Tek.

“I stand ready to make that same peace with you, Queen Malar,” the pied mare said, “though we children-of-the-moon have suffered much at the claws of wingcats.”

She inclined her head toward her sleeping young, nestled side to side on the grass below, and glimpsed the gryphon leader’s headcrest rear, subside. Malar’s bill snicked shut. Tek felt her mate’s side pressed to hers. He was holding his breath. Behind their queen, the gryphons shifted. One of the formels hissed, but at a sharp glance from the tercel, fell still. Tek felt Jan’s breath let out and dared to breathe.