Behold.

The dark unicorn started, stared as a brilliant red streak arched burning across the sky in the far, far distance. A dark wisp of vapor or dust blossomed up leagues upon leagues away, beyond horizon’s western edge. Long seconds afterwards, a faint concussion reached him: the earth trembled.

Head west, the inner voice instructed him. Along the shore.

The dark unicorn staggered, nearly fell. Standing took almost more effort than he could muster. “What is my name?”

West, the voice reiterated. When you have found my fire, you will once more know yourself.

The voice faded, faint as a gull’s trill on the wind. The dark unicorn blinked dizzily. Shelter, food, and water—he must find them soon, or he would die. Painfully, he dragged his hooves across the low, white dunes, heading westward toward the distant, tangled trees.

The sky spanned clear, the air crisp with the breath of fall. Tek shook her head. Had they been but three days crossing the Pan Woods, returning from the Summer Sea? It felt like dozens. Solemn half-growns straggled around her as they emerged from the trees onto the Vale’s grassy lower slopes. Tek beheld the waiting herd below: mares and stallions, fillies and foals milling expectantly. Her heart froze as she spotted Korr, the king; his mate, Ses; and their yearling filly, Lell: princess of the unicorns now. The pied mare shivered, glad Dagg had come forward to walk alongside her.

“What has happened?” thundered Korr as they reached the bottom of the slope. “We awaited your return days since! Why do you, healer’s daughter, head the band instead of Jan? Where is my son?”

Heartsick, she met Korr’s gaze.

“Jan is not among us,” she answered. “Gryphons took him. He is slain.”

The dark stallion’s eyes widened. Around him, the whole herd started, shying. Tek heard shrill whinnies of astonishment. Before her, the king reared, snorting wildly.

“Gryphons?” he demanded. “On the Summer shore?”

Tek nodded and listened, mute, while Dagg recounted the wingcats’ attack, unicorns and herons searching, finding only dead gryphons among the cliffs.

“They’ve killed our prince,” he concluded, voice hard. “It’s war. When spring returns, we must strike back.”

“Aye, vengeance! War!”

The whole herd took up the cry, whinnying and stamping in a frenzy of mourning. Korr tossed his head, pawing the air and smiting the ground. Ses wept softly. Lell looked frightened, anxious to suckle, but her mother fidgeted, too distracted to stand still. Withdrawn into herself, Tek scarcely heeded the clamor until all at once, Korr spun on her.

“So, healer’s daughter,” he demanded furiously, “how is it you alone keep silent? All around you mourn and rage against the gryphons’ treachery, yet you stand there cold.”

The pied mare stared at him.

“I have been three days weeping in the Pan Woods, king—as have all the band—and three days before that searching the Summer shore. I’ve wept me dry. I’ve no more tears to spill. My mate is dead! What more would you have of me?”

She found herself shouting by the end of it. She wished that she might shout until she dropped. The king drew himself up short, eyes white-rimmed suddenly.

“Your…mate?” he whispered.

Baffled, Tek nodded. “Aye.”

“My son?” cried Korr, voice rising. “My son—your mate?”

“Aye!” Tek flung back at him, angry and confused. “We danced the courting dance and pledged—”

Only then did she realize Dagg had begun his recounting on equinox morn, never mentioned who had paired with whom the night before. The king continued to stare at Tek, his breathing hoarse.

“You?” he choked. “You beguiled my son?”

“He chose me,” Tek answered. “And I him.”

Abruptly, she remembered the preceding spring: Korr’s odd but unmistakable disapproval whenever he had glimpsed the two of them in each other’s company.

“Seducer!” screamed the king, bolting toward her through the press of unicorns. “Cursed mare. Daughter of a renegade!”

Tek shied, crying out in astonishment. She had to scramble back to avoid Korr’s hooves as Dagg and his father, Tas, lunged to turn the huge stallion. Korr shouldered into Dagg, nearly knocking him to the ground. Tas, as tall as Korr, if leaner, threw his full weight against the king’s side and forced him to a halt.

Other unicorns crowded forward: her own father, Teki, as well as the king’s mate, Ses, and Dagg’s young dam, Leerah. The healer’s daughter looked on in consternation with the rest of the herd as the king, still shouting, strove to plunge past those who boxed him in.

“Temptress! Betrayer! Because of you my son is dead!”

“What are you saying?” Tek gasped. “I loved your son!”

“Liar! Outlaw’s get. Four summers unpaired, you lay in wait to destroy him!”

The pied mare shook her head in dismay as the king fought on, struggling to reach her, the look in his dark eyes murderous.

Not even Ses could still him.

“Alma will wreak her revenge—”

“Enough! Enough of this, my son.”

Startled, the king whirled, and the uproar around him abruptly ceased. Those blocking his path fell back a pace as Sa, the old king’s widow, emerged from the crowd.

“What means this frenzy?” Dark grey with a milky mane, she faced him, her expression full of pain and dismay. “You revile your slain heir’s widow as if she were your foe.”

The grey mare’s son stood panting. His dam waited. “Speak,” she said. “Why do you fly at one who has done you no injury?”

Panting still, Korr turned on Tek. Clearly he longed to fall on her even yet. Alert, watching him, the pied mare held her ground.

“No injury?” he growled. “You left my son to die upon the shore.”

The king gazed with open hatred at the healer’s daughter. “You should have stayed with him! Died with him—died for him. You were his…his mate!”

He choked on the word, as though it tasted filthy in his mouth. Fury sparked in Tek. She felt her eyes sting, her ribs lock tight. She had thought she had no tears left to shed.

“My son, you shame me.” Once more she heard the grey mare’s fierce rebuke. “You shame yourself and the office you hold. Tek is blameless in Jan’s death. Have done, I say.”

Swiftly, pointedly, she turned away. The king’s jaw dropped. The herd milled in astonished silence. Abruptly, Korr wheeled and bolted across the Vale. Unicorns scattered from his path, then stared after him, stunned. Tas glanced at Ses, but the king’s mate shook her head.

“Let him go,” she murmured. “Only time can cool him.”

Tek shuddered. She felt the pressure of Dagg’s shoulder solidly beside hers and leaned against it gratefully.

“Pay him no heed.” The dappled warrior spoke gently. “Our news came too suddenly. He’s mad for grief.”

“Come, child”—the late king’s widow turned to her—“my granddaughter now by Law. You are spent from tears and journeying. Rest in my grotto, until the dance.”

Trembling, Tek closed her eyes at the thought of Jan’s funeral train to be danced at dusk: a great slow procession used only for those of the prince’s line. The mourners, all smutched from rolling in the dust and hoarse from wailing, would call out, “He is dead! He is dead! He of the ancient line of Halla, dead!”

“He was my prince,” she muttered as she stumbled after Sa through the crowd toward the grey mare’s cave. “And faithfully I fulfilled his command—to get the others to the trees.” Her father, Teki, nuzzled her. Dagg flanked her other side. Tek swallowed hard. “Now Korr despises me.”

“Not so!” Dagg insisted. “How could he?”

They had reached the far slope of the Vale and started to climb. Sa glanced back as though to assure herself that they followed. The crowd behind them had begun to pull apart, the sound of their lamentations floating upward on the still morning air, making the pied mare shiver. The dappled warrior snorted.