“Sooth, lord,” she exclaimed, “ye must be winged, to have sprung such a height with such ease—and from a standing start!”

The dark unicorn shook his head, amazed. These hornless daya must be puny jumpers indeed if they found such low barriers any impediment.

“Tell me,” he asked her, “why did you suffer that other to use you so? No warrior of my race would have stood for such—”

“Warrior!” the young mare whickered. “Lord, I am no warrior, only the least of the First Stallion’s consorts—so new he hath not even claimed me yet. Only the First Stallion is warrior here, and he hath reigned four years running, defeating all comers at the autumn sacrifice—yet ye overcame him in a trice….”

Drawing near, the two-foot clucked. The mare turned meekly, as from long habit, and started to go to him.

“Wait!” Tai-shan exclaimed. “Will I see you—you and your sisters—again?”

The coppery mare hung back, seemingly torn between the desire to stay and an obligation to accompany the two-foot. He clucked again. The coppery mare shrugged.

“If our keepers so will.”

The overcast hung very low and grey. Feathery flakes of snow, the season’s first, had begun to float down through the darkening air. Reluctantly, the coppery mare turned to follow her two-foot escort.

“Hold, I beg you!” the dark unicorn cried. “Tell me your name.”

For a moment, glancing back over her shoulder, the other’s chestnut eyes met his. She nickered suddenly, despite the obvious pain of her injured leg.

“Ryhenna, my lord Moonbrow,” she called back to him, “that meaneth fire.”

She limped slowly, three-legged, beside her escort toward the opening in the wooden barrier across the yard. Tai-shan turned to find the daïcha deep in debate with the chon. She stood directly before him, forepaws resting on his upper limbs, which encircled her middle. Purple-plumes surrounded them. The ruler listened, frowning, seemingly reluctant to accede to whatever it was the daïcha was insisting upon. The dark unicorn saw him twice shake his head.

In a bound, Tai-shan sprang over the wooden barrier again and was surprised once more to hear exclamations of astonishment from the two-foots. The chon and the daïcha both turned, startled. Tai-shan whickered to the lady and made to approach. The ruler’s clasp about her tightened protectively. His purple-plumes tensed. At his sharp command, they raised their pointed staves and hurried to block the dark unicorn’s path.

Tai-shan halted with a puzzled snort. Turning in the chon’s grasp, the daïcha protested. Reaching out one forelimb to the dark unicorn, she continued talking to the chon. The two-foot ruler eyed the young stallion suspiciously, but at a cautious nod from him, his purple-plumes fell back, staves still at the ready. Tai-shan went forward to nuzzle the daïcha. She crooned to him and stroked his nose.

Releasing her, the chon laid one forepaw briefly upon her shoulder, then turned and strode away across the yard in the direction the mares and the stallion had taken. His purple-plumes marched after him. Dusk had fallen. The snowfall was coming down more thickly now. The daïcha’s female companions arrived, carrying firebrands. Tai-shan held himself still as, by their flickering light, the lady ran her slender forepaws gently over his nicks and bruises. She dabbed them with a pungent salve from a hollow vessel that was the color of soft river clay but rigid as stone.

The chon returned, striding across the yard once more with his purple-plumes. He bore in one forepaw the same silvery adornment the umber stallion had lately worn. The long, trailing straps had been removed. Its dipping, crescent browpiece gleamed, flashing in the darting firelight.

The chon handed his prize to the daïcha, who accepted it with a delighted laugh. Curious, the dark unicorn bent forward to examine the thing more closely. It smelled of skystuff and bitter oil. Holding it up in one forepaw, the daïcha caressed his muzzle and cheek. Tai-shan had no notion what the purpose of such an odd device might be, yet he felt not the slightest misgiving as, moments later, the lady of the firekeepers fastened it securely about his head.

The first weeks of winter had proven arduous. Sa shivered hard, frigid wind gusting her flank. She moved painfully, limbs aching. Sharp little crystals of ice seemed to have formed in her joints, making them ache. In all her many years she could not remember a winter so cold.

The weather worsened by the day. Forage grew steadily scarcer and ever more difficult to uncover beneath the hard-frozen snow. King’s scouts no longer reported newfound forage to the herd at large. Korr alone decided who should learn of such. Those who gained his favor were led to the spots: those who earned his displeasure were left to fend for themselves.

The grey mare clenched her jaw. The shame of it: her son playing favorites when a mouthful of withered grass might mean the difference between starvation and survival this winter! Unicorns were dying now, herdmembers frozen or starved to death—nurslings and weanlings first, followed by the oldest stallions and mares.

Sa shook her head grimly as she picked her way over the rocky trail, eyes alert for any patch of green among the constant grey. Next it would be the older, uninitiated fillies and foals. Then the half-growns. Finally the warriors in their prime. The weather remained too harsh even to permit the proper funeral dances for the dead.

The grey mare’s innards rumbled hollowly. She had not eaten since the afternoon before. Hunger had driven her high up the slopes, far from the constant wailing in the valley below: mothers discovering their young dead in the night, warriors stumbling across aged sires and dams too weak to rise. The Council of Elders had been devastated: three of its members already dead, five others gravely ill.

Korr ordered the herd assembled daily now, holding them for hours, captive to his rantings. He spun wild tales of the will of Alma, who mercifully punished her beloved followers for their transgressions. It was all absurd. Exposed to the elements, unable to move about for warmth, the herd listened to their mad king’s tirades under the vigilant eye of his chosen Companions—“wolves,” as many now called them when out of range of their ever-pricked ears.

Yet others, weak and weary, starving and cold, swallowed down the king’s words as though they were sweet graze. The grey mare snorted, shaking her head. To be sure—standing dumbly rapt took far less energy than plowing through the cold, pawing hard-packed snow in search of forage, or breaking the hoof-thick ice of streams to snatch a sip of freezing water, Sa mused bitterly.

Her vitals growled again. Thinking not of her own ills, but of Tek’s, Sa felt her brow furrow. As the pied mare’s belly continued to swell, she kept more and more to herself these days, foraging far from others’ eyes, wary lest they deduce her condition and bring the news to Korr. His eye, Sa noted when it fell upon the healer’s daughter, remained dark and full of fury still. At Korr’s rallies, Sa insisted that Tek stand between her and Dagg, in hopes of disguising the younger mare’s burgeoning belly from the king’s watchful gaze. Did he know? Did he guess? She could not tell.

The grey mare’s only consolation was in noting that her granddaughter Lell was no longer forced to attend: Ses’s influence, surely. Silently, Sa thanked the flame-colored mare for standing up to her mate. Korr had stopped referring to the nursling princess almost entirely, no longer calling upon his daughter’s title as the source of his authority. It was all Alma now: often it proved impossible to discern if the will he spoke of was the goddess’s or his own.