Fortunately, she, Dagg, and Tek had managed to scout out a few others of rebellious mind. Approaches had to be cautious, much discussion slipped into brief spaces, since the king’s wolves maintained close tally on who associated with whom. To her surprise, many of the old traditionalists who had so resisted her grandson’s innovations now spoke with longing of the “fair old days” of Jan’s brief reign.

And yet—infuriatingly—most of the herd continued meekly to submit to Korr’s tyranny. They followed as in a daze, too weak or ill or spiritless to turn away. Disgusted, the grey mare snorted and pawed the frozen earth. Did these poor fools not realize that every waking moment must be devoted to forage if any were to survive to see the spring? With or without Council approval and despite the king’s fanatical personal guard—steps must be taken and soon to quell her son’s worsening madness, or he would starve them all.

A flash of green caught her eye suddenly. Sa halted along the rocky trail. The cliffside fell away sheer to one side of her, more than a dozen stridelengths to the slope below. Not far beneath the drop off, clinging to the cliff, rose a tiny spruce, its slender trunk leaning out over open space, its spindly branches tipped with dark, succulent needles, half a dozen mouthfuls at least. The grey mare gazed at the tempting forage, all thought of Korr’s madness and the Vale’s dire plight slipping from her mind as her empty gorge cramped in an agony of hunger.

Cautiously, she moved to the edge of the precipice and leaned out, nostrils flaring to catch the delicious, resinous savor of the greenery. Her long neck reached scarcely halfway to the little fir’s tender tips. No wonder no unicorn had yet managed to claim this prize! Carefully, she inched nearer, straining. The pungent scent of pinesap made her dizzy for a moment. Her hooves skidded. She jerked back from the icy dropoff, tossing her head hard for balance, and managed to catch herself.

Think! She must think. How to get at that marvelous food, the first she had encountered since wolfing down a few old, dried thornberries and the bitter thorn they had hung upon the day before. Not until after she had finished had she stopped to consider—and realized she ought to have taken half back for Tek.

She had returned to the grotto that evening to find her grandson’s mate huddled shivering—having turned up nothing that day. Now, standing at the edge of the precipice, gazing out at the little spruce, the older mare steadied her resolve. She would pluck the fir, but she would eat none of it. Not one twig! Her belly growled again in protest, but she champed her teeth against the grinding pain. Tek’s unborn needed this nourishment far more than she.

Wind gusted harder, nearly overbalancing her on the treacherous ice. Her bones ached. She cavaled awkwardly to regain her equilibrium. She would need to use the greatest care—but she must get the branch. A mere scrap in summer, its foliage made a rare feast in these lean times. Sa champed her teeth again, against the aching stiffness in her joints this time. Once more she approached the cliffside’s edge and leaned out.

She reached once, missed, reached again—striving to grasp the branch where it grew slender enough to break. The thin bough wavered in the wind, almost within range of her teeth. She braced her hooves and tried again. The wind whistled, numbingly chill. The icy stones of the cliffside clicked, cracking with the cold. The branch bobbed so near she felt it brush the whiskers of her nose. She snapped and missed.

The wind soughed, tugging, shoving at her. The little branch nodded and danced. She had it! All at once, she had it in teeth. The grey mare felt a rush of triumph as she strained the final infinitesimal distance to capture the elusive twig. Moisture rushed to her mouth. Scabrous, aromatic bark abraded her tongue.

Then without warning, the icy surface beneath her gave way. She jerked in surprise, hooves skidding. The treacherous wind whipped her mane stinging into her eyes. The limber branch tore free of her grasp and sprang away. She tried to rear back, scrambling wildly, but could find no purchase on the crumbling stone. Then she was hurtling headlong through empty space. The hillside below rushed up to meet her.

Winter deepened. Snow fell almost daily, piling in great drifts beside the two-foots’ wooden dwellings and along the high timber wall. Now when the daïcha led him from the warm enclosure, Tai-shan trotted at once through the cobbled passage into the wide, unpaved yard where the coppery mare and her flatbrowed sisters waited. Rather than springing over the barrier of poles as he had done before, he schooled himself to wait until the daïcha had swung wide the wooden panel to let him pass.

“Ryhenna!” he had cried out joyfully, trotting forward toward her on the day following their first meeting. A long strip of white falseskin wrapped the young mare’s injured foreshank.

“Emwe, im chon Tai-shan,” she answered boldly. “Greetings, my lord Moonbrow.”

Whickering, the dark unicorn shook his head. The silvery adornment felt odd about his muzzle still, but he was fast growing accustomed to it. It jingled softly when he moved. “Speak, I beg you,” he bade Ryhenna. “Tell me of this place.”

Their conversation proceeded in fits and starts. Every other sentence, it seemed, he had to ask her to explain some unfamiliar word or phrase. The two-foots’ vast settlement, he learned, was called a city, this walled complex housing the chon and his retinue, a palace. The daya themselves dwelled in a shelter known as a stable. By the time daylight waned and the daïcha beckoned him to return with her to his quarters, the dark unicorn’s head was spinning.

As the days passed, he asked Ryhenna to teach him as much as she knew of the two-foots’ odd, guttural tongue. Gradually, over the passage of weeks, he began to pick up other phrases on his own: tash for “no”; homat for “stop”; apnor, “enough”; himay, “stay” or “stand still.” To his rue, the daïcha remained as oblivious as before to his clumsy attempts at speech—but failure only sharpened his resolve to persevere. Eventually, he vowed, he would make himself understood. Chafing, Tai-shan practiced and bided his time.

Among the flatbrows in the yard, it was mostly the coppery mare to whom he spoke. Her sisters remained unaccountably shy, casting their gazes aside deferently when he spoke. Yet all seemed eager to gambol and frisk. Though most were full-grown mares, not one had any more skill at arms than a nursling filly—but they gladly learned the dances and hoof-sparring games he managed to recall from the haze of his past, and they taught him their own versions of nip and chase.

Theirs seemed an utterly carefree existence, their every need met by willing two-foots, who appeared to ask nothing in return. Meanwhile the daya, he noted, followed their keepers’ lead in everything, coming promptly when called, going docilely where directed. Indeed, he did not recall ever glimpsing any of the daya moving about the palace grounds without a two-foot escort. Truly an odd arrangement.

While nervous of speaking directly to him, Tai-shan noticed, the da mares spoke much of him among themselves. One morning he overheard two mares and a filly discussing him when they thought his attention elsewhere. Unobtrusively, the dark unicorn listened.

“Our new lord seemeth a far sunnier consort than our last.”

“Indeed! So even-tempered, so gentle and mannerly.”

“A great one for sport.”

“Ah, child, but how long ere he tireth of these gambols and seeketh better sport?”

Light, nervous laughter

“Soon, I hope!”

“To be sure, child. Give it but a whit more time—”