The red mare smiled. “From the shores of the Summer Sea,” she said. “We watched the narwhals calve…”

Her words were cut short by a long, harsh wail more like a wolf’s cry than a unicorn’s. Sismoomnat, Pitipak and the foals halted abruptly. Around them, their elders started and wheeled. A haggard figure appeared on the near slope of the Vale, emerging from a dark hollow in the hillside. Jan’s heart jolted. He felt Tek beside him sip her breath. Once massy and robust, the tall unicorn at the cavemouth showed sunken flanks, his ribs visible, limbs bony and starved. Black as storm cloud, he loomed in the grotto’s entryway. Before him, the herd recoiled.

“Gryphons,” the emaciated stallion roared. The cave amplified and echoed the sound. “Wingcats in our midst! First you dance the serpent’s dance, then don the quills of our sworn foes. Now you welcome the beardless wych. Traitors!”

He drew nearer, descending the slope half a dozen paces. With shrills of terror, the youngest colts galloped to their dams. The whole herd fell back. Jan spotted Lell standing before young Ai and Dha, pressed close to the pans. He glimpsed Tek’s gaze of fury and loathing as she watched the dark figure on the hillside. The prince of the unicorns clenched his teeth and advanced.

“Aye, night past we danced the serpent’s dance,” he called, “to make ourselves proof against such stings—in honor of That One who made both serpent and the unicorn. We treated with wingcats to win peace ere we depart this vale. And Jah-lila is our honored guest, dam to my mate and midwife to the herd.”

He left unsaid the other, bitter truth: that the skeletal figure above was responsible for the deaths of countless fillies and foals before these. Their elders had not forgotten, could never forget, that terrible winter two years gone when this stallion had seized power in Jan’s absence and allowed half the herd to starve to death.

“If Alma stands defiled, it is not by us,” the young prince continued. “Cry traitor elsewhere.”

Jan heard his people’s mutters of assent.

“Poison in your blood!” the haunt on the hillside before him shrieked. “You’ll never scratch my flank. No serpent’s taint to sully me!”

The rumble from the herd grew louder. Dark clouds appeared above the edges of the Vale. Dawn wind blew stronger, gusting now. Sun flickered and flared, backlighting the shadowy thunderheads that moved to encircle it. Jan’s ears pricked at restless snorts and whinnies. He heard a mare’s voice call out, “Tyrant!”

A young stallion’s echoed: “Murderer!”

“Rout him,” another shouted. “Cast him from the Vale.”

Jan felt hairs lift along his spine. He spun to face the herd. They shouldered and jostled about the council rise, seething with anger, eyes fixed on the hillside above. The young prince reared, struck the sparking stones of the rise with his hooves till they clanged.

“Hold,” he shouted. “Hold! Think you that banishment can heal madness? All the herd ran mad that terrible winter—and those who meekly submitted to Korr’s tyranny must share his blame. No ruler reigns without the consent of his folk. Had we not rather seek to drive madness from our own hearts? Only then may the herd know peace.”

The unicorns subsided uneasily, eyes cast down and askance, unwilling to face him anymore, or each other, or the figure on the rise. Sires gathered their daughters to their sides and nuzzled them. Dams stroked their tiny foals. Drawing breath, Jan turned once more to the figure on the hillside.

“Father—” but the bony stallion cut him off.

“You are not my son!”

The black prince of the unicorns stopped short. Korr’s words tore him like a wolf’s jaws. Pulse pounding, Jan fought for calm, dismayed that even now, after all this time, his sire could still spit barbs to rankle him.

“You were never my son!” the mad king snarled. “Wild, unschooled, spurning tradition at every turn. Then you pledged with that strumpet, pied daughter of a wych, and got twin horrors from her womb. I never sired you! You’re none of my get—”

“Enough!”

The word burst from Jan, its force bringing the other up short. The young prince of the unicorns shook himself as though to clear a swarm of gnats from his hide. Illishar’s feather batted softly against his neck.

“Enough, I say! Two years have you railed against my mate, calling our progeny abomination, yet offered no justification for your charge.”

The wind quickened, humming, full of moisture. Storm clouds gusted around the dawn-red sun. Jan snorted.

“Where were you, my sire, when I was but a foal and needed your care? Off ramping with the warriors, haranguing them to endless clashes with gryphons, wyverns, and pans! It was I you shunned then. Not one word or deed of mine was ever worthy of your note.”

The old resentment, so long unspoken, roiled up in him now. Jan cavaled.

“Always it was Tek! Her you showered with praise. Tek the warrior, pride of the half-growns, model to all the younger fillies and colts. A stranger would have thought her your get and I the fatherless foal. Yet when we pledged, marrying our fates, a bond unshakable under the summer stars—suddenly she was not to be endured, her crimes uncounted, our offspring monstrous. Why?”

The wind blew steadily now, grey clouds obscuring the sun. Jan scarcely heeded it. His smooth summer pelt riffled, teasing his skin. The long hairs of his tail flailed his flank.

“In Alma’s name, father, what drives you mad and turns you against me, my mate and young? Speak! If you will but speak, perhaps whatever torments you can be allayed.”

The mad king stood gazing at him, eyes wide, rolling.

“Nay,” he whispered. “The red wych has cozened you, telling you lies!”

Wind buffeted about them, slapping Jan’s forelock into his eyes.

The Vale lay in shadow. Thunder growled like a hillcat. Dams and stallions bent over their young, shielding them from the coming rain—but none moved to seek shelter, all eyes fixed on the prince and his sire. Jan glimpsed Jah-lila leaving her daughter’s side.

“Korr,” she called, “you know as well as I that I have revealed nothing. I have pledged never to speak of the history we share while your silence holds. I honor that pledge still—unlike the oath you once swore me…”

“Never!” the haggard stallion gasped. “You bewitched me there upon the Plain. I was too young to know my own heart—”

“But not too young to give your word.” The red mare spoke softly. Her black-green eyes gazed at him without hatred, only sorrow. “Speak of what befell us. Your own silence lies at the root of this madness, not the conduct of any other. Only speak! Be healed.”

The gaunt stallion reared, scarcely darker than the storm clouds that towered above. Sudden lightning clashed, followed by deafening thunder. Korr flailed at nothing.

“My mate!” Ses cried. Wind stole her words. “Come back to me. Reveal what troubles you!”

Rain spattered down, stinging as hailstones. Ses moved forward to stand beside the red mare.

“She troubles me!” Korr thundered back. “My mate—she is my woe. She stole my heir with her sorcery. Wych!” he shouted above the gale, eyes flicking to Tek’s dam, then back to his mate. “You knew. You knew all along. From the time we pledged—you held your tongue and watched…” Again his gaze wavered. “I have no mate, no heir, no son!”

His words had grown so wild Jan could no longer tell to whom the mad king spoke: the red mare or his mate. But the young prince had no time for thought. The king had already launched himself, charging down the rain-slicked slope straight at Ses—or perhaps at Jah-lila. The two mares stood nearly shoulder to shoulder now. Lell cried out and sped forward, as though to fling herself in front of her dam, defend her somehow by coming between her and the mad king’s charge.

“No!” shouted Jan.