Stinging sea-jells did indeed lie beached downshore as the windriders had warned. Jan kept his people out of the waves until the next tide swept the bladderlike creatures with their trailing tendrils away. Summer passed in a headlong rush. The young prince felt himself growing, bones lengthening, muscles massing. He was ravenous and glad of the freely abundant forage. The sky held mostly warm and fair.

He devoted a good part of his day to chasing the other young half-growns and setting them to races and mock-battles, dances and games. Herons brought news of shifts in the wind so that Jan could whistle his band to shelter in the tangled thickets well before any storm. What time he did not spend tending the band he passed with Dagg, exploring inland at low tide along the Singing Cliffs, stopping now and again for a furious round of fencing.

Tek’s admirers, he noted testily, were even thicker this year than last. Yet she seemed to pay them as little heed as ever. Once or twice, he even noted her ordering some overly bold young stallion smartly off. More and more, the young prince observed, the healer’s daughter sought him out, teasing him away from the band—even from Dagg—to run with her along the wet, golden beach, dodging through dunes, or up onto the highlands above the cliff-lined shore.

Though he knew she could only be doing so to gain respite from bothersome suitors, Jan found himself increasingly willing to be led away. The pied mare’s every word, her every move fascinated him. He loved to brush against her smooth, hard flank in play or simply prick ear to the cadence of her voice.

Long summer days ambled lazily by, the starry evenings fleetingly brief. With each passing moon, the high sun of summer gradually receded toward the southern horizon. Now it shone nearly directly overhead at noon. Nights lengthened: soon they would overtake the days in span. Equinox, marking the summer’s end, crept up on the young prince unawares.

He and Tek chased across the high downs above the shore, wind whipping their manes and beards. Overhead, herons soared, diving like dropped stones into the shallows of the Sea, fishing for squid. Tek laughed, plunging to a halt at cliff’s edge. Frothed with foam, the surging green waters below shaded into ultramarine at the far horizon. Shouldering beside her, Jan was surprised to find himself now taller than she. Had he truly grown so in these last swift months?

Tek tossed her head. The rose and black strands of her mane stung against his neck. The Gryphon Mountains stood barely within sight across the vast bay, but Jan spared them scarcely a thought. Never had unicorns summering upon the Sea been troubled by raiders. Wingcats attacked unicorns only within the Vale, and only at first spring. Spotting his shoulder-friend on the smooth beach below, in the thick of a group of sparring warriors, Jan felt a sudden chill.

“We should go back,” he said. “We’ve left Dagg.”

The healer’s daughter shrugged. “He is with companions”—she eyed him coolly—“and seems content.”

Jan snorted, champing. “We leave him much alone these days.” Even so high above the shore, he still caught the faint click of parrying horns. Wind gusted and sighed. Farther down the strand, another knot of young half-growns frisked, fishing fibrous kelp from the waves and playing tussle-tug. Salt seethed heavy in the wind. Abruptly, Jan turned to Tek.

“You are ever luring me off these days, even from our shoulder-friend. Will not Dagg’s company do as well as mine to keep your admirers at bay?”

Tek laughed. “Dagg may be my shoulder-friend as well,” she answered, watching him aslant. “But he is not the one I am courting, prince.”

Jan felt surprise slip through him like a thorn. He stared at her. She could not have knocked the wind from him more thoroughly if she had kicked him.

“What, what do you mean?” he demanded. “I’m far too callow—”

“Are you?” the healer’s daughter asked. “So speaks your sire! But what say you?” She sidled, teasing, nipping at him with her words. “Three times before have I come to the courting shore—each time only to depart unpaired. The first two summers, I was newly initiated, just barely half-grown. Last year, it was the one on whom I’d set my eye who was just freshly bearded, unready yet to eye the mares. This year, though, while young yet, he has wit enough to know his own heart—and I count him well grown.”

She shouldered him. Jan looked at her, unable to utter a word. A sudden fire consumed him at her touch.

“Hear me, prince,” the pied mare said, “for I begin to chafe. Long have I waited for you to catch me up.” She shied from him, circling, leading him. The dark unicorn followed as by a gryphon mesmerized. “Surely you do not mean to make me wait forever?”

Trailing after Tek, Jan felt himself growing lost. Her eyes drew him in like the surging Sea. In their jewel-green depths, he saw of a sudden possibilities he had never before dared contemplate: Tek dancing the courting dance with him under the equinox moon, the two of them running the rest of their days side to side, unparted by any other—and in a year or two years’ time, fillies, foals….

“I—I must think on this,” he stammered, stumbling to a stop, and cursed himself inwardly for sounding like a witless foal. Tek only smiled.

“Think quickly, prince. Equinox falls in only six days’ time. Five nights hence, we dance the dance.” She snorted, shaking her mane. The scent of her was like rosehips and seafoam. “Remember my words,” she said saucily, “come equinox.”

She sidled against him, nuzzled him, her teeth light as a moth’s wing against his skin. Jan shivered as Tek broke from him, flying away across the downs, skirting the cliff’s edge and heading for the steep slope angling down toward shore. Dumbstruck, the prince of the unicorns stared after her. By the time he had gathered both wit and limb, she was already gone.

“So you’ve decided,” the dappled warrior remarked. Jan and he trotted along the narrow strand flanking the Singing Cliffs. Tide was out, affording them passage. The sea breeze hooted and sighed through the twisting canyons.

The young prince halted, unable to mistake his shoulder friend’s meaning. “How did you know?”

Dagg whinnied. “I’ve known since spring. I wish you both joy.”

His mirth had a strangely painful ring. Hearing it, Jan became suddenly aware that Dagg had no young mare like Tek with whom to spend his hours and dream of one day dancing court. Jan shook himself. The thought of making the pledge himself and leaving Dagg behind, unpaired, made his skin taut.

“Hist, nothing’s decided until the eve of equinox!” he cried, shouldering against the younger stallion. “Come, you’ve time yet to make a choice—any number of mares would spring to pledge with you. What of that filly I saw you sparring with the other day? The slim, long-legged blue…”

“What—Gayasa’s daughter, Moro?” Dagg laughed again, in earnest this time. “She’s barely got her beard; she was only made warrior this spring past—far too young.” He shook his head. “And so am I. Another year.”

Turning, he broke into a trot. Jan loped after him. “It doesn’t have to be,” he said urgently.

Dagg halted, stood gazing off across the green and foaming waves. “She’s not among us,” he said at last. “She’s not yet here for me to pledge.”

Jan frowned, not following. The dappled warrior turned.

“Do you recall,” he asked quietly, “the night of our initiation two springs past?”

Jan nodded slowly: the night when initiates to the Ring of Warriors became, for one brief instant, dreamers, to whom Alma granted glimpses of their destinies.

“Tek says she saw the foretold Firebringer,” continued Dagg, “moon-browed, star-heeled.”