Dusk had fallen by the time she reached the Vale. The deep snow and heavy cloud-cover, which had seemed so dark by day, now faintly glowed in a shadowy half-light that was brighter than true night: enough to find her way by, barely. Wind and snow continued to blow. Heaving, half-frozen, Tek stumbled into her father’s cave, nearly trampling a grey roan filly lounging just within the narrow entryway. The healer himself lay at the back of the crowded little cave, surrounded by his other acolytes, half a dozen fillies and foals well past weaning but too young yet to be called half-grown. The young ones looked up in surprise as the black-and-white stallion broke off the lay he had been reciting. Tek recognized it from even such a brief snatch: “The Mare of the World.”

“Daughter,” he exclaimed. “Is someone ill? Wind outside will be a blizzard soon.”

The pied mare shook her head. The sudden warmth of the grotto’s small, close space unbalanced her. She swayed where she stood.

“Sa is dead,” she panted. “Fell…on the slopes. I found her. Two of the king’s Companions say I murdered her.”

Teki pitched to his hooves. His acolytes scattered. The pied mare sidled in agitation.

“They know I am in foal.”

The healer’s eyes widened. “Hist,” he said over his shoulder to one of the fillies, “keep watch and let me know at once if you see king’s Companions or any other.”

Tek’s eyes sought his, searching his face as he came forward to stand breast to breast with her. His nearness warmed and steadied her.

“Now tell me, daughter,” he continued, “did any see you come into the cave?”

The pied mare shook her head.

“Good. Snowdrift will soon cover your tracks.”

Champing, the healer ducked his head, deep in thought. Expressions curious and alert, five of his acolytes stood huddled to one side: three reds and two blues, the grey once more posted at the entryway.

“Mark you,” he instructed them all. “What now befalls must remain our secret. Breathe no word of it, not to your sires and dams, not to anyone. We never saw Tek this night. She did not come here. You understand?”

Solemnly, the acolytes nodded. Standing so near him, Tek noted all at once how small the healer was. More slight than most unicorns, Teki’s value to the herd had always lain in his knowledge of herbcraft and lore rather than prowess in battle. What the pied mare had not fully realized before now was that she stood taller at the shoulder than he. Being longer both of rib and shank, her robust, lank-limbed frame was of altogether a different sort than his.

How odd, she mused, her thoughts careening wildly. Unicorn colts almost always resembled their sires more than their dams, not only in the color of their coats, but in size and build as well. Yet, though pied like the healer, her colors did not precisely match his, being rose and black, not white and black. And though they had always gotten on famously from the day her dam had left her in the healer’s care, their temperaments, too, were dissimilar: Tek’s passionate and bold, Teki’s contemplative. Indeed, it struck her now that were a stranger to view them at this moment, side to side, surely that one would never guess them to be scion and sire.

Strange, she mulled. I never noticed this before.

“You must flee, daughter,” Teki was saying, glancing up. “Nowhere in the Vale is safe for you now. And this is the first place the king’s wolves will come sniffing when they find Sa’s grotto empty.”

The pied mare felt her skin grow cold. Teki called a name, and the grey filly at the entryway pricked her ears.

“Go at once to the cave of Leerah and Tas. Fetch their son here as quick as may be. But mark you!” he called as the filly wheeled. “Do not say why I need him. Be certain Leerah and Tas know nothing of Tek’s presence here. Though Dagg is our ally, his sire and dam remain loyal to the king. Do you heed?”

Hastily, the filly nodded and dashed off. A blue foal stepped to take her place at the entryway. Gravely, the healer shook his head.

“Flee?” Tek pressed him. “Father, where am I to go? The king’s wolves will hunt me down even on the far side of the Vale. If I hide on the shelterless outer slopes, I will freeze. The Pan Woods beyond are full of vicious, hungry goatlings, and the Great Grass Plain too distant to even hope for….”

Her breath ran out, her agitation rising. The Vale was her home, the children-of-the-moon her people. She could never live content in the solitude beyond the Vale as her mother did beyond the reach of the Ring of Law as the Plainsdwellers did. If she fled now, she would be declared a renegade and barred forever from return. Jan’s heir could never inherit.

“Come, daughter.” The healer turned and herded his acolyte away from the rear of the cave. “Eat of this herb. It will fortify you against exertion and the cold.”

Tek stared at the little clump of withered leaves drying on the low ledge bordering the grotto’s wall, each three-lobed leaf nipped to a spiky point. The musky, bitter scent wrinkled her nose. Her skin grew taut, for she recognized the grey-green clump: an herb so perilous that even her father—for all his healer’s skill—had always eschewed it. Though it temporarily masked hunger and numbed one to cold, its aftereffects were ravenousness and utter exhaustion.

Sometimes those who ate of it fell into such deep slumber they could not be roused. Others, tasting repeatedly of the herb, grew stark-eyed and wild, spooked by every bird and leaf, their ribs standing out like the bones of dream-haunts. Soon, even if they wished to renounce the herb, an irresistible craving compelled them to seek it out and devour it again and yet again. Eyeing the shriveled leaves, the pied mare shuddered.

“Would you poison both me and my unborn?” she whispered.

“List, daughter,” the healer returned. “No more than two mouthfuls, and only that small sup because we are desperate.”

He snorted unhappily, and the chill in Tek’s breast eased to realize that he regarded her sampling the herb with as little relish as did she.

“Your dam, Jah-lila, brought these sprigs to me,” he continued softly, “summer last while you were courting at the Sea. She would not tell me what purpose for them she planned, only that I should know their use when the hour befell. I suspect now that her seer’s gift must have foretold your need to her.”

His tone grew urgent.

“Great risk attends, to yourself as well as to your young—but even greater risk if you refuse it and remain here, or if you flee and have not strength enough to outrun your pursuers. I pray you, make haste and eat!”

Full of trepidation, Tek reached to nibble first one mouthful, then another of the shriveled wort, desperate enough to undertake even this to protect her unborn. The herb’s bitter taste made her mouth draw, puckering her lips tight against her teeth. Her eyes watered. Her nose stung. Teki stood watching her. Presently she felt a tingling invade her limbs, moving in waves along her ribs. Her shoulders twitched. The grotto felt uncomfortably warm. She cavaled, lashing her tail, a sensation like summer flies swarming her flanks. What lay in her womb seemed to quicken and shift. The grey filly stumbled through the cave’s entryway, and Tek jumped like a deer. Dagg followed, shaking heavy snow from his winter shag. He stared at the pied mare in surprise.

“What’s amiss?” he asked. “Tek, I see white rimming your eyes.”

Tek fidgeted, her heart racing. The herb kept it hammering against her ribs. She champed, trying to wash the unsavory taste from her mouth, but her tongue had turned to sand, her lips too numb to let her speak. Her throat closed up as she tried to swallow. Dagg’s puzzled look changed to one of alarm.

“What’s happened?” he demanded.