Tek paid scant attention, gazing instead at the young pan beside her, who sang and murmured while she herself stared blearily, trying to focus her eyes. A warm tide of relief flowed through the pied mare suddenly as she spotted the tiny, newborn unicorn lying suckling beside her. She felt exhausted and euphoric and utterly light. The little creature struggled, shifting the hay. Tek felt its toothless gums again, nipping insistently at the teat. Deeply, she sighed.

Not ill-omened, she told herself. Miraculous. Full of mystery and joy.

But was it filly or foal? She could not tell. The heaped straw and crouching form of Pitipak obscured her view. Her nursling seemed to shift and blur. The pied mare blinked. At times her doubled vision saw twin images: one dark, one light, so that she could not be certain of her young’s true color.

“Hear me, comrades-of-the-deep,” the Red Mare murmured. “My fellows are weary and in need of rescue. Do not let them perish, I beseech you. Buoy them up against the waters that would claim them.”

The words continued, urgent, ceaseless—just at the threshold of Tek’s hearing. She ignored them, too spent to listen, to puzzle them out.

I must think of a name, she thought languidly. A truename for my child.

As dam, she alone could fashion her offspring’s secret name and whisper this first and most closely guarded gift into that newborn ear alone, never to be repeated to another unless the greatest of trust lay between them. Jan had told her his own truename—Aljan, Dark Moon—on his pilgrimage of initiation, two years gone.

And that was when I knew, she thought, knew beyond all doubts and shadows that this young firebrand was the one for me, even if I had to wait years for him. And he was worth the wait. As this moment has been worth the wait, to feel our young suckling at my flank.

“Unicorns-of-the-sea! Unicorns-of-the-sea!” her mother chanted softly, tirelessly. “Fierce, fearless single-horns—you who are also the beloved of Alma and who, like us, also call yourselves children-of-the-moon. Bear my fellows safe to land!”

Tek drifted, as on gentle swells. Sleep was dragging at her. She could not remain afloat a moment more. Return to me soon, O my love, my Dark Moon, she found herself thinking, as though her mate somehow floated beside her, able to hear her thoughts. Return and share my joy in the birth of your heir. Sleep rose like a wave and overwhelmed her. Unresisting, she let herself slip down, down into the darkest depths, devoid of light and sound and dreams.

The driving rain no longer fell, but stormwind continued to batter. The dark unicorn panted with effort, churning with all four limbs just to keep his head above water. Waves heaved and tossed. Land lay nowhere in sight. He could not tell if the darkness were that of storm alone or of night. It had all come back to him now: his people and their Vale, his title among them—Korr’s son, prince of the unicorns. He remembered his journey to the Summer Sea at solstice time, the long months of mock-sparring and wooing. A flush of warmth suffused him as he recalled the courting dance on equinox eve. Memory of Tek blazed up, and wild longing filled him to return to his fellows and rejoin his mate.

Too weary to fight the riptide anymore, Jan lay in a daze as the cold, gusting stormrain began to abate. His limbs felt violently jolted, his ribs badly bruised. After he and Ryhenna had sprung from cliff’s edge toward the storm-high surf below, strong ocean currents had dragged them far from shore. Alongside him, whenever the wind fell, he heard the coppery mare’s panting breath as she, too, struggled against the fierce, running sea. After a time, her thrashing roused him.

“Don’t…,” he managed, slinging a wet draggle of mane from his eyes. “Don’t fight the waves. Breathe deep, and keep your nose just above water. Use your limbs as little as possible.”

Eyes rolling and wide, the coppery mare turned to him with a gasp of relief. “My lord—great Dai’chon—ye stir!”

Jan shook his head weakly. “I am no Dai’chon. Ryhenna, I am Aljan, prince of the unicorns. I have remembered my own truename at last.”

“Alj—Al-jan?” she stumbled, still flailing frantically. “But—I saw the divine fire spring from thy hooves and horn….”

Again the dark unicorn shook his head. Breathing hurt his ribs. He had suffered some injury in the fall. The pain weakened him. “Don’t swim so fiercely,” he urged her. “You’ll spend yourself.”

Reluctantly, Ryhenna slowed her vigorous paddle. She seemed fearful of sinking without the constant motion of her limbs.

“Call me Moonbrow, as before, if you wish,” he said, snorting cold seawater, “though that is not the name by which my people know me.”

The coppery mare gazed at him. “Tell me of thy people, my lord Al-jan, Moonbrow,” she whispered, “and whence thou comest.”

Jan told her of his people, the children-of-the-moon, and of his life among them in the Vale. He spoke until his voice became ragged, rough. Ryhenna’s breathing calmed. Her efforts at remaining afloat grew more steady. She paddled determinedly now, no longer desperate, and listened, hushed, as he described the free lives of unicorns.

“Ye have no keepers,” the coppery mare murmured, awed, “and yet ye do not starve? Ye find your own shelter against the cold and wet, and defend yourselves from harm? And ye follow your own god, this Mother-of-all, this Alma?”

Jan nodded, talked out, spent. His tale had taxed his waning strength. He let himself drift, treading the waves as slowly as possible, saw the coppery mare watching him, trying to do the same. The grey sea had calmed somewhat, though the sky remained windblown, dark. Abruptly, she turned away.

“I have no such loving god to watch over me,” she murmured bitterly. “My god was a sham, naught but a mortal two-foot in a mask. Oh, Al-jan—Moonbrow—if only I might see this marvelous Vale of thine and meet thy fellows and know the blessings of thy goddess Alma, I might die content.”

Jan stirred uneasily, thinking of his dreams. He remembered only snatches—of killing winter cold and starving unicorns; his own father with a false moon painted in white clay upon his brow, ramping and shouting as one mad; Tek and Dagg fleeing together through driving snow, pursued by haunts or wolves. The dark unicorn shivered. All around, the cold waves heaved and chopped.

“Where are we?” he heard Ryhenna beside him asking, her voice plaintive. Clearly she was beginning to tire. He himself felt drained and chilled, at the end of his strength. How long had they been in the sea—all day? Was it dusk now? Evening? He saw no stars overhead, but the sky was so dark, he was not sure if it were night or only cover of cloud.

“Near the coast still, rest sure,” he answered, forcing his own voice to sound reasoned and calm. “The storm can’t have taken us so very far from shore. If only we knew what direction, I imagine we could swim it.” Seeing her casting about worriedly, he added, “Sooner or later, we’re bound to drift back toward land.”

He turned away for a moment, fearful to catch her eye, and told himself that his words were not a lie. He had no doubt that eventually they would wash up on shore—but he knew that could be days, even weeks hence: long after their spirits had leapt free of the world to join with the Mother-of-all, leaving only bloated corpses on the waves.

Great Alma, save us! he cried inwardly, fighting his own panic down.

Jan shook himself, paddling as much for warmth now as to remain afloat. He saw Ryhenna scanning the horizon intently. Underneath her seeming composure, he sensed she was terrified still, nearly exhausted. The sea began to grow rougher again. Waves pitched and slapped at them. As darkness deepened, Jan realized that true evening must be falling at last, that the grey dimness encompassing them before had been only storm-shadowed daylight. The wind rose, gusted, but with no sign of rain.