The shadows took her. Her form vanished. Ears pricked, breath short, Calydor gazed into the moon-mottled grove. The hairs of his pelt lifted as though he were cold. Night breeze blew balmy. His long, silver whisk tail swatted one flank. He snorted, tossing the pale forelock back from his eyes, and picked at the loose soil near the riverbank with one hind heel. Before him, a figure coalesced, a mare of moonshine and smoke. With a curious mixture of purpose and hesitation, she moved forward. Unseen, many leagues distant, Jan recognized her instantly. The star-lit stallion called her name. Turning toward him, Ses halted. He drew near, choosing each step.

“Too long,” he breathed. “Too long, my one-time love.” She eyed him sadly. “Perhaps,” she murmured. “I, too, have felt the years.”

“Why did you not come to me,” he entreated softly, voice scarcely steady, “as once I begged? Were your Vale’s walls so high, so fast you could not win free till now?”

Again, her sad-eyed gaze met his. “I had a daughter and a son to rear. A mate with whom to keep faith.”

“A mate who betrayed you, and all your folk,” the seer rasped, “who nearly destroyed his own herd, then tried to do the same to mine.”

Ses cast down her eyes with a bitter sigh. “He was not always mad,” she breathed. “I loved him well. Why did you not come to me, if you were so determined?”

Her words were a plea. She turned, unable to look at him. He gentled, drew closer.

“Knowing my coming could spell death for us both?”

She moved away. He gazed across the dark, motionless pool, every lumen of the sky mirrored there.

“The Red Mare brought me word of you,” he murmured. “At long, odd intervals: that you had borne fine foals, that you seemed happy. She would not bear my messages.”

Ses gazed at the shadows. “Jah-lila never told me she had found you—I suspect she knew I could not have borne such news. Parts of my life in the Vale brought me great joy: my children, aye. But always there was regret.”

The cream-colored mare with the poppy-red mane turned to face him. “I never dreamed she brought you word. She did not speak of her journeys to the Plain. I never asked her to find you or speak of me. I thought you had forgotten me.”

Again he moved nearer. “I have spent my life remembering you.” This time she did not draw away. Still he only gazed, as though not daring to touch lest she vanish, a dream. After a time, he said, “She bore me only bits and snatches, as though hearsay, claiming she was exiled from the Vale and did not know more.”

“She was exiled,” Ses murmured. “But she is a seer and knows far more than what her own eves tell her.”

The silvered midnight stallion sighed. “I, too, am a farseer. A fine one. Yet I could never find you in my dreams. Still all these years, I never lost hope that one day you would come to me.”

The pale mare’s laugh was bitter. “I asked Jah-lila to contrive this rendezvous that I might appeal to you to keep your distance. None yet know the fate of my mate…”

“What of it?” Calydor cried, voice hoarse with astonishment. “You cast him off! Three years hence. The Red One told me this.”

“Because his madness endangered my child. That does not leave me free to pledge another. We of the Vale do not treat lightly the swearing of eternal vows.”

Calydor whickered, in bafflement and despair. “Here we make no such pledges. You could leave your folk…”

“Do not say it!” Ses hissed. “Not while my youngest remains a child. Calydor, do not tempt me.”

“Your herd poises on the brink of war,” the farseer replied. “Of course I will tempt you. I will tempt all your folk. Do not go! Do not hazard your life. Remain with me upon the Plain and what need then for your hallowed Hills? Let the “wyverns have them.”

The pale mare’s countenance hardened. “You forget the wrong done my people so many years ago.”

“Centuries. To unicorns who are all long dead.”

“Lynex of the white wyrms is not dead,” she answered. “He holds the Hills in triumph still. For the righting of that ancient wrong my son was born.”

“Had you but left your folk and come with me,” Calydor besought her, “then he had been our son.”

Ses started, turning. “Ours?” she whispered, barely audible. “Do you not…?”

But the other ran over her words. “A dozen nights and days Jan and I spent in one another’s company, trading our peoples’ tales. All I learned of him I have sung across the Plain. What good-will you find among us now is due largely to news of his peacemaking. Sooth to look at him, save for his color, one would never guess him to be scion to that warmongering sire. Would he were my son!” Calydor exclaimed. “Would ever I had sired a son so fine.”

The pale mare stared at him for a long, long while. Her chestnut eyes revealed nothing. At last she spoke:

“Rest sure that once this war is done and Lell is grown, I will turn my thoughts to the Plain and to you. I promise no more. Until then, I beg you, keep clear.”

The blue-and-silver’s reply was quiet and full of pain. “Here we stand on the verge of summer, just three days’ journey from the Hills. On the morrow, Tek and her warriors press on, leaving behind colts and fillies too young to fight, elders too frail, nursing mares and the halt and infirm to shelter with us at oasis till your messengers return. This much my folk have promised yours. And if a few hotheads have joined your lackwit crusade, as many among your own ranks mean to desert: those who have lost their stomach for this war or who, like us, cannot comprehend its end. You could be one of those, my love. The pair of us could be away before your sentries were aware.”

Firmly, the pale mare shook her head. “Not while my son lives. Not while Korr’s fate remains unknown. Not while my daughter is too young to fend for herself.”

Calydor smiled. “That last will not be long,” he mused. “A precocious one that.”

“Like her brother.”

“She reminds me of the bold young filly in the lay of the mare and the pard.”

Ses’s head snapped up. “Mare and pard?” she inquired testily. “What mean you by that?”

The farseer only smiled, reciting offhand. “ ‘She who saw her enemy couched in the grass, and loved him for his beauty and his grace, and charmed him there, despite himself, and lived to tell the tale.’ You might do well to keep one eye upon your fearless daughter, love,” he said. “Young as she is, I think her heart already stolen, and the thief yet unawares.”

A little silence grew up between them. Moon moved across heaven and the waters ever so slightly. The sky rolled a hair’s breadth, tilting the stars.

“How can you go?” he asked. “How can you fly to war with your son not even here to lead the fray?”

“Have you seen him?” she queried. “Have you seen Jan in your dreams? If Jah-lila sees, she will not say. The twins see him, but all they can say is that he speaks with one all covered with jewels, deep within the earth or sky. I know not what they mean. Do you?”

Calydor shook his head. “I have not seen him.”

Ses snorted. “Fine seer you.”

The star-strewn stallion tossed his head. “I foresaw the dark destroyer, and the peacemaker who followed. I foresaw you, so many years ago. And I have seen much of weather and pards that have threatened my people over the years.” He shrugged. “I know not why I cannot see your son. One viewer cannot behold everything. I am but one among Álm’harat’s many thousand eyes.”

Ses gazed at the camp, dimly visible through the dark line of trees bordering the pool. “I must return,” she sighed. “Three days’ hard travel lies ahead, and beyond that, battle. The twins vow Jan will return at need. I trust soon to see my son again.” Already she was moving toward the trees. “Go hale and safe, Calydor, that we may meet again after this war.”

“Swear you will come away with me then,” he whispered, “so I may bear the wait.”