Foreign Eyes
      "Find out what's going on," I say to Silfie. The vixen nods and leaves with Bobwhite, and I watch them go. I could have been specific about how I wanted the lurkers handled, but part of having a good second is trusting her to make useful decisions. I wonder how Silfie will handle this situation, and hope it's harmless enough to support mistakes.
      Magwen exits his tent with bowls, stirs the soup and then ladles me a generous portion.
      "I suppose you're going to tell me to eat it all," I say.
      "At least make the effort, Mistress," he says. "You need your strength."
      So I dig in, and it's succulence itself... rabbit, I think, with pungent herbs and giant chunks of potato and something green and small. When I look up from my portion, already half gone, it's to the sight of Magwen also helping himself to a bowl. He looks so deerlike I almost ask him if he feels comfortable eating meat, but such questions are the height of impropriety. Instead, I say, "Where did the game come from?"
      "I shot it on the way here," Magwen says.
      I blink. "You came with a bow?"
      "And several other useful items, yes," Magwen says. "It is my honor to serve you, Mistress, and to do so I require a wide range of skills and supplies."
      "I see," I say. My last steward was useful, but he'd had too much hoofed blood in him to understand just how much I am restored by fresh meat. And I didn't even have to tell Magwen that! I hope he'll continue to be this handy.
      I'm just finishing off a second bowl when Silfie reappears, flanked by a mongrel and a soldier. The latter has dusty boots, and I know he's the scout before he glances at Silfie, who says, "They have a report for you, Mistress."
      I nod to them.
      "We found a hillswoman," the scout says. "She would like to speak with you."
      I cant my head. "A single woman? No others?"
      "None," the scout says, and the mongrel nods. I don't recognize this particular individual. Nor the soldier, for that matter. One of Donal's men, perhaps.
      "Bring her here, then," I say.
      "Your pardon, Mistress," the scout says. "She refuses to come into camp before speaking with you. She's asked us to lead you to her, to talk." He pauses. "Alone."
      Readers decide Angharad should go out to meet the woman accompanied by Silfie.

Ghost in the Hills
      "This is the place," the scout says. I nod to him and he vanishes, leaving me standing with Silfie in the cool evening air. The breeze ruffles through my loose hair, tickles my feathers. It blows curls into Silfie's eyes. I imagine we're quite a sight, two women in leather armor standing alone among the black silhouette of the rocks. The wind smells like rosemary, and spiced flowers.
      A ring of my scouts watches us, hidden in the dark. I'm as alone as I'm going to allow.
      Our moonlit shadows creep closer to us. Silfie asks, "Do you think she'll come?"
      "I don't know," I say, because it has been a while. "If she doesn't show up soon, I'll head back. I still haven't talked to the men."
      "They're in good spirits," Silfie says. "The hard march didn't give them time to dwell on their worries."
      I laugh. "I suppose there's something to be said for honest labor, then."
      Silfie sits on one of the nearby rocks, her long tail spilling over it in curls that glow a pale orange in the moonlight. How I used to play with that tail when we were younger, one of the few things that survived from her equine great-grandmother! I can still remember its unexpected texture, soft as satin. She used to brush it every night before bed, a hundred strokes. I wonder if she still does.
      By all that's holy, I'm caught staring at that tail when our hillswoman coalesces out of the dark like a ghost. Silfie starts and I'm halfway through my turn when the stranger says, "I told you to come alone."
      Her voice is a husky alto, the words faintly accented, softening some of the consonants.
      "My apologies," I said. "This is my second in command. She takes part in all our decisions."
      The hillswoman is some sort of cat... no, I can't be that kind. She is a leopard. A snow leopard, I'd say, or a clouded leopard: she's that purely blooded. She has a heavy jaw, a lot of fur, and no proper head-hair at all, but rather a wild white mane smudged with spots. Her eyes shine in the dark like an animal's. She's wearing a long, decorative panel in front of her hips, beads and feathers... but nothing else. I have never ever seen anyone so obviously pure-blooded whose gaze also held that much intelligence. Is she an anomaly? Or is she typical of Shraeven?
      "She," the hillswoman says, interrupting my thoughts, "is a mother."
      I must not have imagined the wariness in her voice, because Silfie replies in a hard voice, "Not willingly."
      Another pause. Then this wild creature looks at me and says, "And you are?"
      "Angharad Godkin of the Sunblood Cliffs," I say. "The new governor of Shraeven."
      "You are heading to the capital, then."
      I nod.
      "I want to go with you," the woman says.
      Readers want Angharad to find out more about this woman before saying 'yes' to her.

Ragna
      The woman steps into the informal circle Silfie and I had created. The closer she comes, the more it strikes me... how beautiful she is, but beautiful in a way that unnerves me. Her beauty is an animal's. She moves with an animal's grace, not a person's. And as the rays of the triple moons strike her eyes, the pupils in them narrow to bestial slits.
      "My name is Ragna of the Clan Hegwar," she says. "My people hold the mountain pass further west along this road. I know these mountains. I know the people in them, and I speak their many tongues. I could be of use to you."
      I hadn't even thought about languages. I'd assumed, with the arrogance of someone from a kingdom with a lingua franca, that everyone in Shraeven would know our trade tongue, or at very least, a single trade tongue that I could learn and use with all the varied groups. This unexpected weakness in my plans makes me feel like a fool, and suddenly makes Ragna's offer very appealing.
      But I don't trust this woman who looks like an animal.
      Before I can question her further, Silfie steps up to my side. "How did you know that I was a mother?"
      "You smell different," the woman says. "Fecund. Plowed." The last word with a disgust that yanks half her whiskers up. I haven't met a person with whiskers before, but I am not so distracted by them that I miss Silfie's shudder.
      "And why does that matter to you?" I ask, wanting to draw the woman's attention away from the helplessness I sense in my second.
      Do I imagine the heartbeat's pause before the answer? The hillswoman's steady eyes, pale as ice in the moonlight, remain unblinking as she says, "Because I hear that the Godkindred are civilized, and allow choice to all their people, man or woman or beast. I am curious if this is so. If you bring us enlightenment, as the old governor used to decree the few times he was brave enough to send heralds into the mountains."
      I don't sigh out loud, but I do wonder what my predecessor was thinking. If all these hillsmen are this strong, leaving them to their own devices doesn't sound wise.
      Readers thing Ragna can come along with Angharad now, but that Angharad should ask her questions about Shraeven.

Proper Coin
      "There is the matter of payment," I say.
      For the first time, I see surprise on the hillswoman's face. "Payment?"
      "Your offer to guide us through the mountains, to serve as a language interpreter--how many languages can you speak, by the way?--it would be mete to offer you some form of payment for your services," I say.
      "Food," she says after a moment. "Board. And the right to remain with you until I choose to leave."
      "Peculiar coin," Silfie interrupts in a cool voice. "One might almost think you were fleeing something, Meg Ragna."
      "You do not yet have the right to ask me difficult questions," Ragna says without heat. The wind ruffles her heavy fur. "But if it will calm you, know that I do not bring danger with me." She looks at me, then, and continues, "I speak seven of the country's tongues, and understand two more. In addition to knowing your own, Lady."
      ...Seven!
      Country?
      "Do all of you still think of Shraeven as its own country?" I ask, trying to ignore the growing sense of unease that tightens my chest.
      "Everyone knows Shraeven is still Shraeven," Ragna says. "Save its conquerers."
      Oh, glorious powers that be. Huzzah for my new post. "I see," I say. "Would you mind giving me a moment with my second?"
      Ragna is still for a moment, studying my eyes; then she nods and backs away until the night engulfs her. I wonder if she's still in earshot and lower my voice when I say to Silfie, "And how many languages do you speak?"
      "Only the border tongue," Silfie says. "I won't be able to tell whether she's translating exactly what you say if we run into people who don't speak it." Her ears flip downward. "I don't think this a good idea."
      "I've already decided she's coming with us," I say. "The question is whether I'll pay her as she wishes, or give her something more conventional."
      Silfie frowns. "I don't like that she'd be free to follow you even when you don't want her around anymore."
      "I'm the new governor, Silfie!" I exclaim in a soft voice, exasperated. "They're now my people! Should I send them away on a whim?"
      She sighs. "No. I just don't like it. Pay her in coin, but don't let her harness you to her whim."
      I glance at her askance. "That's rather harsh."
      "Maybe so," Silfie says. "But it's my opinion, and you are entitled to it, Mistress."
      Readers think Angharad should compensate Ragna as she asks.

The Righteousness of the Govenor of Shraeven
      "I am entitled to it," I say, "And I thank you." In a louder voice: "Ragna?"
      The hillswoman returns to stand before me, and I measure her now in light of my new--and crazy--plan. I like the way she stands. I like the proud tilt of her chin, the way her tension doesn't seem bred of fear, but rather of caution. I mantle my wings. "There is only one way I can accept your offer with honor," I say, ignoring Silfie's puzzled frown. "Among the Godkindred, we do not pay for services rendered with only food and board, as if to a slave. Unless."
      "Unless," Ragna echoed, watching me with her pale eyes.
      "Unless you become esquired," I say, "and promise to serve me and defend my personal honor. Then I defend you and your honor. Do you have such pacts in Shraeven?"
      Silfie draws in a breath, but doesn't interrupt. She wouldn't dare, not on a discussion of an oath this sacred.
      "I have heard tell of such things," Ragna says after a moment. Her voice trembles, and I welcome this sign, at last, that she can be shaken. "But they were never for us. Never for the savages of the hills."
      I almost smile a feral hunter's pleasure. I have touched her quick. I had hoped I would. "Would you swear such a thing, Ragna of Clan Hegwar?"
      "I... I would need time," she says. "Time to understand what it would mean."
      And just like that, I now have enough space to breathe, to study her at length and see if she will suit us. "I would grant that time. Travel with us over the mountains, and then say whether you will make the pact."
      "You might desert me there," Ragna says, ears flattening. "Once we are over the mountains, much of my usefulness to you will be done."
      I shake my head. "Ragna, if you truly believe so poorly of the Godkindred, then I need you to stay that long. If only to convince you that we are not monsters."
      Her tail lashes once, but she doesn't look away quickly enough for me to miss that it's shame, not anger. "We do not believe you to be monsters," she says in an even voice. "Just the opposite. You believe us to be monsters, and have treated us accordingly."
      "Perhaps your old governor did," I say, and I am surprised to find the heat of anger in my voice, "But I--I am Angharad Godkin of the Sunblood Cliffs, the new governor of Shraeven, chosen and appointed by the Godson himself, and I will not treat you thus!"
      Ragna and Silfie are both staring at me now. My wings, I realize, are spread. I wonder what I look like, moonlit with my triple shadows, with the cold flame of righteousness on my head.
      "I will go with you," Ragna says softly.
      "And you will obey me?" I ask just as softly, because that is part of the pact of an esquire: the trust that one's mistress will never command through foolish whim.
      Ragna shies just a touch, like a mount against the reins. Then she ducks her head and says, "As I can."
      "Go down to camp," I say quietly. "I must have words with my second."
      Ragna nods and melts back into the dark, spots first. I watch her go, surprised at the heat in my heart... not as surprised at my headache. I turn to Silfie, challenging her with my eyes.
      "It's your right," Silfie says, instead of whatever protest was on her tongue.
      "Yes," I say, filled with my own ferocity.
      Readers are tied over whether Angharad should kiss Silfie in the passion of the moment.

Firebrand Fox, or How the Martial Becomes the Personal
      I set my hand on her chest, just where her collarbones meet beneath the rough white linen of her shirt. I bend toward her. This too is mine.
      And then I stop, beak parted alongside her muzzle, breathing soft, warm breaths, my heart hammering against my ribs. No. This is not mine. Not anymore. I still love her--oh, gods! How I still love her!--but she is not mine to take. In that heart's pause, my mind rules my passion and I begin my retreat.
      Except I forget, in my arrogance, that such actions are born of two people. As I pull back, Silfie follows, and her hot tongue laps at the edge of my mouth, where the skin is soft and sensitive. She learned, eighteen years ago, how to kiss a griffin--we both did, and discovered it amounts to a lot of mess and licking. We used to laugh about it. I'm not laughing now. Gods, I can't even hold a coherent thought. It's been so long!
      ...and I can tell. Because in those years, though I rarely admit it, I was amazed to be loved by someone like Silfie, and she made a gentle but definite aggressor. This Silfie, though, for all that she claimed what I did not finish, is not. Her body, lightly touching mine, is pliant. In her lifted throat and closed eyes and in her dedicated attention, there is something of supplication. I remember without bidding a Master Commander I served once who took his pick of his inferiors and gave them no recourse, and I am struck with revulsion... one that if I show, she will take completely amiss.
      So I nuzzle her cinnamon curls, distracting her, and say, "Now, now... what happened to my firebrand fox?"
      She laughs, a touch huskily, and I would melt if I wasn't suddenly so on guard. "Your firebrand fox hasn't changed. It's the caramel griffiness who's gone and become a war hero."
      "I must have slept through that battle," I tease. "I don't remember becoming a war hero."
      "That's not what the men from Kendrick Caves say," she replies, without meeting my eyes.
      Ah. Now I see. "And just who did you meet from that inauspicious fight?" I ask gently.
      "Two of my company rotated in from Kendrick Caves... once they'd healed enough to move again." Silfie glances up at me. "They say they would have died without you."
      The Battle of Kendrick Caves was not one of the Godkindred's finer moments. We waged a bitter war on the people of Ulnith, so bitter that their hatred of us was iconified in the war leaders that opposed them. Their hatred of me was so personal it suggested a weakness, one I took advantage of the night of our retreat--which I covered, alone, by clever flight staying just out of reach as I led them away from my limping, beaten people. I almost died that night. I remember nothing heroic about it. I remember being covered in gore, crippled by an exhaustion so deep it was a screaming white pain and seized with a fear so intense I thought I would die of it.
      I went back, two months later, and took Kendrick Caves. The second fight was so glorious they named it the Battle at the Undercaves, just so no one would remember the ignominious retreat that laid that groundwork for it.
      "We all almost died," I say, and smile wryly. "I think luck was a deeper part of that than any soldier likes to think."
      "That's not what I heard," Silfie says, twisting a lock of my crimson hair. "I heard you singlehandedly saved the company."
      "No one singlehandedly does anything of that magnitude, and well you know it." I touch her cheek. "Silfia. Don't tell me you're in awe of me. I'm still the same Angharad who accidentally bleached your underwear in splotches."
      That surprised a squirming laugh out of her. Heartened, I kept going. "And I still trip over the hems of my dresses. Wine glasses are my bane. And gods above, if you sat on me with your wing trick I still wouldn't be able to get up. I hope you haven't taught it to anyone!"
      By now she was laughing in earnest. "No, no, no, I haven't taught it to anyone," she says, wiping her eyes. And then she lets out a long breath and looks up at me. "But you're more than you were, Angharad. Panty-bleaching and all."
      "And so are you," I say. "So don't make me carry that burden all by myself."
      "Yes, Mistress," Silfie says, and finally I allow myself relief. I wouldn't stand for my second-in-command to be in such awe of me--how could I work with someone who thinks I'm a god? But Silfie! To have her fear me would be more than I could bear.
      "You know," she says after a moment, "Ragna's going to arrive at the perimeter and be challenged."
      "Not if I get there first," I say, and pull myself onto the rock. "I'll see you at camp, Second."
      "Aye, Mistress," Silfie says, standing back as I leap upward with a crack of my wings. The first few moments of flight are always a struggle, but once I claw my way into the air the wind bears me up and I sail toward camp. It is cooler up here than it was on the ground, with a faster breeze. My hair whips behind me and beneath my stiff feathers. From my vantage, the camp is well-ordered and enclosed in a circle of lights. It reminds me that the night is well advanced already, and I still haven't made my rounds... but I don't want Ragna to be stopped either.
      Ragna first, the readers vote.

Walking the Camp Fires
      It is trivial to glide to one of those lights and touch down near one of my people. A few moments of instruction, and I provide for Ragna's safe entrance into camp, a guide to hand her to Magwen and directions for that heavily crowned worthy on what I want done with her.
      After that, I make my rounds. The company is not so large that I can't spend a little time at most of the fires I see; what few I don't have time for tonight I can visit tomorrow. It's a little after supper, but I'm still early enough to catch most of the men dicing or talking over tonight's mug of ale.
      I worry a little about provisioning, but I don't allow that to distract me.
      The soldiers who have campaigned with me before are expecting me, and they inform the men who've filled the gaps in the units since Glendallia what I'm about. Still, there are enough new people that I can bring out the good questions. "Where are you from?" is my favorite beginning, for I love the tales of the Godkingdom's many lands, and I've been lucky enough to visit quite a few of them myself. "Tell me about your family," is another good one, because it's what I'd be doing at home, caretaking the people of the Sunblood Cliffs, an endeavor that requires me to know them and the family histories that have wedded them to my land.
      But Donal's men and Silfie's cavalry aren't expecting someone as rarified as the Mistress Commander to come calling for a mug of ale and tales of home. That's plain from the first camp fire in the former's unit.
      "Mistress!" they all say as they leap up, an uneven chorus. This fire has a collection of six men, all from Donal's unit. I find the highest ranking man there just before he says, "What can we do for you, ma'am?"
      "I'm just wandering," I say. "I don't know any of you so well and thought I'd remedy that."
      Uneasy looks. One of them says, "Oh," in a way that sounds distinctly disappointed.
      I arch a brow--I can't help it. Of all the possible responses, I wasn't expecting one that makes me feel like I should have come dressed in dancing skirts and belled heels. "Is there something else you were expecting?"
      "We thought you were here to talk to Donal about... you know," a pause. More significant shared looks. Then the soldier looks back at me. "The magic." He hisses it softly, as if afraid someone is listening.
      "The magic?" I ask. Apparently I'm not superstitious enough for them, since they all wince at my nonchalance.
      "Yes, Mistress. The cap, he was supposed to tell you about our report."
      "That was less than an hour ago," one of the others says. "He might not have gotten to her yet."
      "He hasn't," I say, perplexed.
      Readers want Angharad to talk to these men directly before finding Donal.

The Dawnpiper at Sunset
      "Tell me about this magic," I say.
      They glance at one another, as if trying to decide if I'm trustworthy. I wait without fidgeting until they reach their tacit consensus, and then their leader says, "There's a few of us who have the sense, ma'am, if you understand. They say the feel of this place is different. That it enters their dreams."
      "And there have been omens," another says. "The dawnpiper flying at sunset, looking as if it were aflame, singing when it should be sleeping."
      "And the cookpots have rusted between here and the border," a third adds.
      "Peculiar indeed," I say. "I should talk to Donal."
      Again, the relief. I take my leave without ever showing my incredulity. Magic is a myth, of course; such abilities are reserved for gods, and the Godkindred are nowhere near godhead yet. As for this place, given Shraeven's tattered and contrary beliefs I doubt they're hiding a god in their mountains. Still, such coincidences can be distressing to the men, and when I find Donal near his tent my question is more about their morale than about their superstitions.
      Except I never get to ask my question.
      "Mistress," Donal says, bowing to me. He wears worry on his face, and it's a poor garment with his puppy-dog ears. "I've been looking for you. There's a problem--"
      "So I've heard," I says. "Magic."
      "You know about it!" he exclaims with relief. "So you'll get a wizard to do something?"
      "A... wizard?" I ask. "Donal, there's no such thing as magic."
      "Aw, you don't need to shelter me, Mistress," Donal says. "I know there's magic and I know it can be dangerous. If you're going to take care of it in your own way, well, that's good. I trust you!"
      I succeed in not staring at him, but just barely. "Your men," I manage, "they said something about dreams, omens and cookpots. Is that the extent of it?"
      Donal nods. "The dreams are the worst bit. If they keep going, I don't know how Gwen and Kerry are going to get any sleep."
      "I'll take your report under advisement," I say, which lights Donal's face like a campfire. He has confidence in me... well. Very good. I wander back to my own tent, skirting the orange fires and their camaraderie. I had just partaken of that camaraderie and yet I'm already alienated from it. How many of those faces, talking, laughing, believe in Donal's magic? How many of them would sleep poorly tonight if they thought the land was somehow mystically aligned against them? I get tired just thinking about it.
      In my tent, I find my sleeping clothes folded on my cot. There's a sprig of wild mint on my pillow, and a single cup of tea is sitting on the fold-out table, still steaming.
      "Magwen?"
      His horned head appears in my tent flap. I admire his hearing. "Mistress?"
      "Magwen, do the men believe in magic?" I ask, exasperated. "And what kind of tea is this?"
      "It's greenwillow," he says. "And that would depend on the man. Though I strongly suspect most people do. We are the Godkindred, aren't we?"
      Readers want Angharad to ask Ragna about local traditions in magic.

Trust and Sea Green Eyes
      I sigh. "Bring me Ragna, please."
      "Yes, Mistress."
      "And Magwen?"
      "Mistress?"
      "Perhaps you could walk around camp," I say. "See if the men are more willing to speak of fear to a steward than they would to a war leader."
      "Yes, Mistress," Magwen says. It's debatable whether his horns and muscles make him any less approachable than me--he's so obviously nearly Godkin--but it's worth a try.
      While Magwen is out, I slip into my more comfortable sleeping pants. I'm tying the shirt on when I hear the rustle of fur at the tent portal. I'm curious what she'll make of finding me at ease, so I don't turn to greet her.
      A few moments later, I smell the musk of her, touched with the lingering scent of evergreen needles. Her larger fingers take the ties from my thinner ones and finish anchoring my blouse at the small of my back, beneath my wings. If I had a bodyguard, he would probably have fainted at how close I was allowing this random native to come to me, but this is now my province and these are now my people to govern.
      I let her run a finger over my feathers, near my back, then turn without urgency, lifting one pinion over her head as she ducks. She has good reflexes.
      "Thank you," I say. There's another cup of tea on the table now, so I continue, "Take a drink with me... Meg Ragna, I think Silfia called you?"
      "Yes," she says. "It is a sign of respect for a country woman. I think you would say 'goodwoman' or 'goodwife.'"
      "Do either of those apply?" I ask.
      Ragna studies me. By the candle's light I can now see that her eyes are a complex sea green, completely unexpected, very person-like save for the pupils. "Not precisely," she says. "But I come from a small and insular group that makes its home in the mountain peaks. Our customs are not those of the borderfolk."
      "What would they call you?"
      "Od Ragna," she says. "Which is to say, 'Woman without children.'"
      Given her aversion to Silfie's state, that doesn't sound like something I want to touch yet... but it does present me with an opportunity for my question. "While we're on the topic of customs... some of my men claim that there is magic here. Is this belief also held in the mountains?"
      "Magic?" Ragna looks thoughtful. I had expected ominous agreement or my own nonchalance about the matter, not a considered expression, as if the beliefs of different people fascinate her intellectually. Perhaps they do. Why else would someone bother to master quite so many languages? "The Ketrakeen--the folk who dominate the mountains--do believe in magic and have several magical traditions. But the most they would attempt would be to curse you, if they cared to, which I imagine they wouldn't."
      "Why not?" I ask.
      "Because you are crossing the mountains in early spring," Ragna says. "You will not be over them before the first of the great trade fairs. No discerning eye will have missed that you are soldiers without caravans, food and furnishings of your own. They will want your coin, and on the borders Godkindred coin is exchanged as often as Shraevenaese."
      "And I should not be surprised that you still have your own currency," I say.
      "You learn quickly, Mistress," Ragna says, her whiskers arching. Something in her eyes makes me think she's laughing.
      "That does leave me with the issue of the magic," I murmur.
      "If your people are worried about being cursed, they may well want the services of a shaman," Ragna says. "I can find you such a person to perform a banishment of evil spirits, or a lifting of the curse, if you do not care to do it yourself."
      "Me?" I ask.
      "Among some tribes, the power vested in the leader of the tribe by its members' trust and respect is considered magical, and power enough to perform any magical aids deemed necessary," Ragna says. "I have seen such ceremonies, well enough to describe how they are done."
      "The problem with me doing a ceremony like this is that if the strangeness doesn't stop, my men will think less of me," I say.
      "That is true," Ragna says. "But that is when you say that the curse is actually a blessing in disguise, and that the omens are sent by good spirits whose messages are meant to help you."
      I stare at her, then start laughing. "Tell me, Od Ragna, are all women of the hills of Shraeven this worldly?"
      "Just this one, your humble servant," Ragna says, arching her whiskers again. I suddenly realize she's amused and wonder if this business with her whiskers is her way of showing it. Does she laugh aloud?
      So, the magic. What to do?
      Angharad should gather information, perhaps find a local shaman, but do nothing yet.

Thoughts From a Lofty Perch
      "I'd appreciate it if you would find such a shaman," I tell Ragna. "I'd like an interview."
      "As you will, Mistress," she says.

First Engagement
      I have just about decided to fly down and consult Colblain on the finer--and grosser, for that matter--points of rulership when the white shape on the opposite cliff waves to me, as clear a summons as I could ask for. I step off the outcropping and glide lazily to the opposite side, my shadow dappling the heads of my people below.
      I land in an easy crouch beside Ragna, who is gripping the rocks. Her perch is not so stable as most grounded people would prefer, but she seems not to notice. The breeze ruffles her thick mane.
      "Over the ridge," she says, jerking her chin upward.
      I pull myself up and turn to offer her a hand, which she accepts. Looking behind me, I find the top of the cliff and in the distance a collection of buildings. "A town? Up here?"
      "In the middle of no place, you want to say," Ragna says. "But this road is well-traveled, and the people here prosper in their quiet way. Here I can find you a shaman. Do you prefer to come with me, or shall I bring them to you when we make camp?"
      Readers send Angharad to check it out now with Ragna.

The Village On Top of the Stone
      "Let's go," I say, and Ragna nods.
      The village is larger than I expect for a collection of people clinging to the top of a plateau: a good ten large buildings made of gray stone and yellow mortar, plus fifty smaller ones scattered unevenly in a circle around them. Nor are these dwellings lacking in sophistication . . . there are potted plants and brightly colored scarves decorating their edges and windows, and it makes for a festive sight.
      The people don't look all that different from those on the other side of the border, though they're dressed more warmly and they seem to have a distinct taste for braids threaded with ribbons and pretty stones.
      Ragna leads me into the village, and people scatter away or stare. I am disturbed that I can't understand anything they're saying, but they point at my wings and that is language enough. I spread them just a little and earn some wide-eyed looks from passing children. While Ragna stops to ask a few questions of a woman with a basket at her hip, I entertain some of these gape-jawed urchins by stretching my feathers outward and toward them. They giggle. They even touch. I'm grinning -- it's a beautiful day, sunlit and with a sweet breeze, and it's good to see a child smile.
      "This way," Ragna says to me, but her sea-lit eyes don't miss my reluctance to leave my growing audience behind. Still, I follow and she takes me to one of the large buildings. We wait together at the door until it opens for a clear-eyed man of indeterminate species. He has a beautiful brown coat and clear hazel eyes, which I admire while Ragna again speaks to him.
      "Ah!" he says when she finishes, the words heavily accented. "Visitors from the country of the crazed. Very good, come in."
      The country of the crazed? What stories have these people been telling one another? I follow Ragna inside, ducking my head and folding my wings against my back. The ceiling is very low, and the gloom is deep. Only after my eyes have adjusted, aided by the few strands of light that sneak through the ceiling, do I see two more men sitting at the back of the hall on a rug.
      "Pedeel, headman of our village," our hazel-eyed doorman says, "and Negrat, our priest."
      "This is Angharad Godkin," Ragna says. "She comes to replace the governor at the City of Sacrifice."
      "Welcome, headwoman," Pedeel says. His accent is lighter than his foreman's.
      I feel keenly that I lack the appropriate grounding in protocol to do this well, but Ragna seems to be steering me correctly, so I dip my head. "My thanks. My men are traveling past your village. I feel it may please us both to mingle for a night, if you are amenable."
      "They are soldiers," Ragna adds. "Disciplined and light on their feet."
      "This fascinates," the headman says. "Perhaps we can meet you below. We can bring food, drink... fancies that your people may like."
      Truly money is the common blood of the Kingdom. Perhaps even of our species. "That would be welcome," I say. "And if there is anything we might do for you? We are quick hands at mending broken things."
      "We have no such needs today," Pedeel says, though from the light in his eyes my offer has pleased him.
      "Then I would be honored if you would visit us tonight, and particularly if you and the principals of your village would dine with me," I say. "Ragna, perhaps you might stay and guide the goodfolk to our camp later?"
      She nods.
      "We look to it with pleasure," the headman says.
      And so, in short order, Ragna and I are outside again. I am about to tell her that I'm pleased with how it went and that I'll see her later when I notice that there are tiny faces peeking at me from nearby buildings. It seems my admirers haven't scattered after all.
      Angharad should play with the children!

The Children of the Plateau
      I crouch down and make a 'come' sign at the closest face. One by one the curious children, some followed at a distance by parents, form a circle around me.
      "How do I say 'Hello?'" I ask Ragna.
      "Emfa," she says.
      So I say emfa to the children and spread my wings for their examination. "Tell them they can touch and ask questions, but not pull," I say. While she translates, I concern myself with studying these little ones. They look healthy and are well-dressed for provincials in clothing that's for the most part well-mended. They're also of suitably mixed species, some so mixed I can't place them at all, so I reason they can't be of one of these peculiar religions Silfie mentioned.
      "One of them asks why no pulling," Ragna says. That question must be from the boy with the green eyes and messy stripes over the bridge of his nose.
      "Tell him my feathers are... well, like strands of hair. Sometimes they fall out naturally, but most of the time it hurts to pull them."
      That wins me some giggles, so I say, "My turn! I want to ask why none of them have any of those beads and braids, like their parents."
      A little girl answers, her sweet high soprano a strange descant to Ragna's lower purr. "Because the braids signify major life events, and they won't be able to claim any major events until after their rite." Ragna adds, "These border villagers often have rites of passage into adulthood."
      "Fascinating," I murmur. I wonder if Ragna went through a similar rite.
      After that, I get a deluge of questions. Can I fly? Yes. What does it feel like? It's like running in a strong wind, if the earth had fallen away. Do I molt, like wild birds? Yes, but the feathers are bigger (a laugh). How did I come by such a long neck? I had ancestors who were cranes.
      Then one of the parents asks something, and Ragna pauses before she murmurs, "Who are you, and why are you here with all your soldiers?"
      "I am Angharad Godkin of the Sunblood Cliffs, and I am your new governor," I said after a heartbeat.
      "And what does that mean? What will you do for us?"
      Readers vote for Angharad to say "I don't know. What do you need from me?"

Paying for Past Arrogance
      "What do you need me to do?" I ask, Ragna's words syncopated against my own.
      The woman who asked speaks again, and her words make the adults near her flatten their ears or bristle. Ragna's translation is slower to come, her voice a reluctant rumble. "We need you to leave us alone, take yourself and your arrogant ways back with you."
      "I'm sorry to hear that," I say before I can think too hard on the words and cage them, "and I hope one day you will tell me what made you think so poorly of us and how we might rectify that."
      The woman turns and leaves after Ragna's translation. One of the men beside her speaks, and his apology is evident even before I understand the words: "Pardon her, Godkin. Her brother died in the war."
      After that, the children wander off and Ragna escorts me to the edge of the village. "I will stay here," she says, "and see how many others resent you. You will make camp at the usual time?"
      I nod, keeping my face smooth and my feathers unruffled. "Thank you, Od Ragna."
      Ragna inclines her head. I turn and run into the air, wondering if any of the children are watching. My delight in the idea is gone, though.
      I spiral down to rejoin my train near Silfie, who pulls up her mount so that I can walk alongside without rushing. The sunlight is still kind to her. The flowers still perfume the warm breeze. People around me are still smiling. My people. Not Shraeven's.
      Silfie says, "You have a long face."
      "We'll have visitors tonight from a local village," I say. "We'll have to pass the news. I want everyone to be on their best behavior, but to enjoy themselves as well. Our brightest hospitality on display."
      "I'll tell the others. Still . . . you don't seem very happy, Angharad."
      "We have a lot to do," I say, almost musing aloud. "A lot of sorrow to mend before these people will accept us."
      "And if they never do?" Silfie asks.
      They'll just have to do their best, readers think.

My Steward's Horns
      "We can only do our best," I say, struggling with my melancholy. "Tell the others for me. I'll be ahead with the scouts."
      "Yes, Mistress," Silfie says.
      "And find Magwen when you're done and tell him you and I are hosting the village elders for supper when they arrive."
      "As you wish, Mistress," Silfie says.

Not One of Us
      "We have no complaints."
      I am planted on a pillow outside in a blue-violet night lit by splashes of orange fire. The pops and crackles of burning wood are counterpoint to the shrill song of crickets. Silfie and I are sitting across from Headman Pedeel and Honored Negrat with Ragna between us. On Magwen's suggestion, I decided to have our dinner outside and I'm glad of it . . . the temperature is perfect. The wine is warm enough to truly smell its body. The food is outrageous--I have no idea how Magwen managed it.
      And so in full view of my people, who are busy examining the wares brought by our guests, playing dice with them or having their bones read, I am having this feast and asking my questions.
      "There's nothing at all you would have your governor do for you?" I ask. "Surely there's something. Patrolling the roads for brigands. Increasing trade. Lowering taxes. Building waterworks. Something."
      The headman traces the bowl of his wine glass. "We are a private people, Godkin. We pay no taxes. We defend our own villages. We solve our own problems." He rests his pale eyes on mine. "The mountain gives us what we need. The rest is for us to do. Not you or your soldiers. Not even our fellow countrymen from the valleys."
      "It sounds as if you don't care who's in charge," Silfie says.
      "It doesn't matter, no, so long as they leave us alone," Pedeel says. "Do not mistake me, Godkin . . . I appreciate your coin and your offers. We enjoy the holiday that is meeting outsiders. But you are not one of us."
      And that was the bulk of our conversation. They complimented us on our food, on our wine, on the fine displays. They were courteous in the extreme. But we are outsiders, not truly of Shraeven, and so they smiled and held us apart. When we parted, I found that even a fine meal can leave you unsatisfied if the conversation you had over it accomplished nothing.
      My men, on the other hand, had a grand time. That night I walked the fires and found most of them in high spirits, showing off their newest purchases, discussing their fortunes, musing on variations of games of chance. I returned to my tent and changed into the night clothing Magwen had left for me. Finding myself too agitated for sleep, I called for bran tea and my advisors.
      "Are all the mountain people so insular?" I asked Ragna as she and Silfie made themselves comfortable on the pillows Magwen set out for them.
      "No," Ragna says, then amends, "But more so than the valley folk, they'll seem, yes. It is a matter of geography."
      "He said 'you are not one of us,'" I muse.
      "I don't think you'll ever find a way around that one," Silfie says, passing me the tray of condiments.
      I pick a mint leaf off it and drop it in my cup with a frown. "If you strip away my uniform, could people really tell I'm from the Kingdom?"
      "Not necesssarily," Ragna says. "But they have no idea to tell that you're from Shraeven either. On that matter, you might consider asking a priest for help."
      "What could a priest do to solve this?" I ask.
      "There are rituals to induct individuals into a clan," Ragna says. "There are rituals to acquaint a person with the land. You might consider undergoing one of these."
      "Sounds harmless," Silfie says. "How would people know she's done it, though?"
      "Many traditions give you special jewelry, or markings... tattoos. Dyes. It depends."
      I cup my tea in my hands, uncertain. "But would that make me one of them, or simply make me an outsider trying to force my way into the culture?"
      Ragna shrugs. "People will think what they will think. But at least you will have made the effort."
      Readers think Angharad should choose one of these rituals and do it.

Divine Right
      "I worry," I say, "that in choosing one religion, I will alienate all the others. It wouldn't do to show favor to any single religion. No doubt some of these traditions--faiths?--consider the others wrong. Yes?"
      "Yes," Ragna says, seemingly unconcerned. "But you cannot please everyone, Godkin Mistress."
      "Mistress?" After the quiet of women's voices, Magwen's bass is startling. I look up to find him doing the antler bit again with the tent flap. Silfie is hiding a snicker, I think. With a sigh for his punctilious courtesy, I say, "Yes, Magwen?"
      "The Honored Negrat is outside asking for you."
      I step outside and indeed find the priest with his yellow eyes and black fur, wrapped in dark blue robes studded with spots like stars, joined by lines.
      "Godkin," he says (and how I tire already of the use of "Godkin" as a title), "You had need of me."
      "Did I?" I ask.
      "The stones wanted to be read for you," he says.
      "He means divination," Ragna says. I'm not sure when she and Silfie stepped out of the tent to flank me--they're just there, all of a sudden.
      "You require it," Negrat continues, "for your uncertainty is obvious and your role too important to be left to such uncertainty."
      I lift a brow. "I have no uncertainty. I am the Godson's hand and voice in this province of the Kingdom, and I will do his will, bringing prosperity and safety to a troubled place in the process."
      "The land does not like you, Godkin, and you know it," Negrat says. "You need not lie to me. I see you in the sky and know you stay there because the winds blow from the realm of the God-arrogant, and so they are kind to you. The land, though, does not welcome your incursion. It crawls beneath your feet."
      It sounded so ridiculous, so dramatic, but every word he spoke made the hair on the back of my neck rise. Worse, my feathers were bristling, something anyone with half an eye could spot.
      "Come with me, and let the stones speak to you as they dearly desire," Negrat said. "It will help put you on the path, Godkin. If truly you want this land to answer your hand on the reins."
      He must be crazed if he thinks I'm going to take a bunch of carved stones seriously. But Gods before us, the breeze feels colder, and the night feels darker and attentive. A more superstitious person might have thought something was watching me. Staring at me. Waiting for a choice.
      Readers send Angharad with Negrat, and want the girls to go with her.

Reading of the Bones
      I'm kneeling, rump resting on my heels, in front of Negrat, wings tucked neatly behind my back. My hands are spread against my knees; my hair is a long red ribbon down my back. I can feel the wind tugging it against my right wing, then releasing. This is the proper posture for religious services, but this is more than a religious service. I could try to deceive myself into thinking otherwise, but I would be wrong.
      Silfie is seated behind me at my right, downwind . . . I can't smell the spice of her trail soap, but I can sense her nevertheless. Ragna is mirroring her at my left, smelling of pine and musk and primal things.
      Negrat has spread the stone tiles before me. He hands me the bones.
      "Throw, Godkin."
      I throw.
      The thin warm wands clatter onto the tiles, their knobby ends resting on select stones. Negrat studies them, seeking connections, then points at the six in order. "You. Your company. Your challenge. Your future if you decline. Your future if you accept. The end of all things."
      I take a deep breath and surprise myself by shuddering on the exhale.
      "You." He flips a tile. "The phoenix."
      No surprises there. Still, I feel a tremor. Negrat glances at me and I nod, and he continues. "Your company: the thunderstorm."
      Another chill. It seems harder to breathe, but I ignore it. This man means me no harm. There is no evil here. The wind-swept ledge Negrat led us to has no room for enemies, no room for spies, barely room for the four of us. Everything is well.
      "Your challenge: the betrayal."
      I lose that breath. I give up telling myself that I'm not frightened because my heart is racing and my chest is tight and it's become hard to swallow.
      "Your future if you decline--" He flips the tile and his voice lowers. "Death."
      My head is pounding. If he keeps going, I think I might die. This is ridiculous. This is just a reading of the bones... nothing's going to happen to me, nothing--Gods, I'm going to die, I need him to stop, what's wrong with me?
      Readers want Angharad to pause the reading before she chokes.

Firespice Woman
      I hold out a hand. My throat is so dry. Am I swallowing? I can't feel it.
      "You feel the land now, its malice," Negrat says. "Do not fear, Godkin. You will not be harmed here in my care."
      I feel strange.
      "And so you should. This is a strange time. No, firespice. Do not move closer. You cannot protect her with your body."
      "C-continue," I say in a flutter of a voice. At least, I think I'm speaking out loud.
      "As you will," Negrat says, watching me without blinking. He reaches for the next tile. "Your future if you accept." A twitch of fingers. "The Quest."
      I shiver. "And the end of all things?"
      His fingers brush the final tile. "The end of all things," he repeats, and turns the stone. "Sovereignty."
      "I don't understand," I say.
      "I do," Silfie says, and I can hear her flipped-back ears in the growl of her voice. "He's trying to push you into treating Shraeven like a country instead of like a province. It's all a trick, Angharad."
      "Silfie--"
      "We should go," she says, and reaches for me. Her hand brushes one of the tiles, tipping it. Silfie freezes, staring at the stone.
      Negrat leans forward and uncovers it. "The Lover."
      Her ears flatten even further against her cinnamon curls. I didn't think she could grow more tense, but she does.
      "Perhaps I was arrogant to believe that a reading could be done for you alone," Negrat says to me. "But you Godkin, as flawed as you are, have still learned the virtue of cooperation, of unity. Your firespice is part of this . . . as is your beast-lover. I will turn their stones as well." He collects the bones and presents them to Silfie, who stares at them as if they're poison. "Throw, firespice woman, lover of the phoenix."
      Silfie glances at me, copper eyes wide.
      Readers want Angharad to advise Silfie to follow her heart.

Me Versus the Land
      "Do as you will," I say to those copper eyes, and when she draws breath to answer I reach out and let my fingers light, soft as snowflakes, on her breast. "As your heart wills. Not your mind."
      Her fingers spasm around the bones and she looks away, curls shaking on her shoulders. Then with her face set, she throws them. They tinkle on top of the tiles already turned for me, pointing to several new ones. Negrat leans down and flips the one nearest the Phoenix. "The Mother."
      Silfie grimaces. Negrat continues, his fingers drifting over to a tile near the Thunderstorm of my company. He turns this one. "The Standard-bearer." Her bones have fallen near my Quest, but he pauses over them. "This . . . this is strange. The bones point to a tile, but it is overlapped by another."
      A whine starts building in my ears, as if I'm trying to shut out the sound of his voice, of Silfie's breath catching. I start feeling wobbly again.
      "The Broken Wand," Negrat says. "It crushes the Seed."
      Silfie makes a strangled noise. I feel sick, sick enough to lean forward and rest my palms on the earth to steady myself . . . only that makes me feel worse. My breath feels narrow, as if my throat has tightened too much. I try to speak and only manage a squeak.
      Negrat leans forward, touches my wrist. "Godkin. Look at me."
      I do. His eyes are shadowed brown. I can't find a glint of light in them. "I cannot continue this," he said. "The world fights me for you."
      That doesn't sound good. "What did I do to it to deserve this?" I ask, fighting not to wheeze.
      "You have come with invasion in your heart and it knows it," Negrat says. "You must fix this, if you are to survive your journey and rule with an easy hand."
      It sounds crazy, but Gods before us I feel like I'm going to die. Is it panic for your breath to come so hard, for your chest to clutch so it feels as if your ribs will smother your heart? My body aches from the force of it. "What do I do?"
      "Go up to the top of the cliff and wait there for the dawn," Negrat says. "If the world wants you, it will have what it will of you. Your open heart will see you to the other side of night."
      A vigil. I've done those before. I haven't liked them particularly in the past. I'm not at all sure about doing it now. There's a fast wind up there, and I am barely dressed for the cold. And I'm terrified. Honestly, truly terrified. I've faced battles with more equanimity than I'm showing now, shaking in my own linens.
      For the first time, Ragna leans into my field of vision. "He speaks wisdom, Mistress. You have nothing to fear if you have no ill intent."
      Of course, what might seem good intent to me might be something completely different to Shraeven.
      Listen to me, talking as if the land is alive. The superstitious talk down in camp must be getting to me. I glance at Silfie, expecting her to tell me this is nothing, to relax, to calm down, to blow it away with the wind. But Silfie is staring at the tiles, one hand chafing the opposite arm just the way she used to when she was so unsettled she couldn't bear to sit still, but couldn't bear to move either.
      "Silfie?" I ask.
      She looks at me, ears down. Then says, "Maybe he's right."
      Readers think that Angharad's senses are trustworthy in the matter of whether the land is alive or not... and definitively want her to take the vigil.

Humble to the Vigil
      "I will go up," I say. "But I need more clothing than this. I'll be no good to anyone, friend or foe, if I freeze."
      "I'll get your cloak," Silfie says, but Negrat holds up a hand.
      "Take my robe," he says, sliding it off his own back. The contellations on it seem to glimmer.
      "It's too small, and I have wings--"
      "--it will fit," Negrat says . . . and so it does. For some reason the shoulders and upper sleeves are roomy enough that the back easily drapes beneath my wings. Negrat helps me with it, trapping my hair down the exposed area of my back. My mane will make a cold cloak but it will do, and the robe itself is warm and smells of stone and herbs.
      "Go," he says. "Climb until you can find no higher place--don't fly, Godkin; your humility will be repaid--and there the wind will know you."
      "The wind already knows me," I say.
      "The wind out of your country knows you," he says. "Tonight it is the wind from the heart of Shraeven that blows. Now go."
      I glance once at Silfie and Ragna. The former says, "We'll wait for you here."
      The mountain path makes no pretenses. I barely have a chance to walk. Within minutes I'm reduced to climbing, wings half-spread for balance. Climbing isn't one of my better skills . . . I never had cause to practice it. My hands grow sore and my thighs ache and even my neck hurts from craning at angles to avoid scraping my cheeks or my bill. And the wind . . . I have always had cause to believe my senses, and I could swear the wind was trying to tear me off the cliff. One particularly bad gust finally inspired me to snarl aloud. "Stop! I'm trying to meet you partway on this! Let me get to the top at least before we start the conversation!"
      After that, the wind softens. It sends shivers down my back.
      I climb until I run out of rock and find myself on a high plateau, barren of sheltering stone. I drag myself into the center of it and curl onto my side, too tired to sit upright. When I finally have the energy, I twist my head and look up . . .
      . . . up . . .
      . . . up into a dazzling sky, a deep, intense dark blue lit by no moon, with a milky haze of stars spread across it like a veil of jewels. I am awestruck by the beauty of it, so cold, so clear, so large. I have never seen so many stars at once.
      And then the wind starts again. I huddle into Negrat's robe. I invited the wind and now that I'm concentrating I can taste the difference in it, the hardness, the fragrance alien to my nostrils. What have I done?
      As the voices of the wind, readers give Angharad several pieces of advice.

The Cruel, Wild Wind
      The wind is scouring my back. I worry that my feathers will separate. I worry for every strand of hair it pulls free of the robe, as if intent on exposing my flesh for the whip. It comes and goes in gusts I can't predict, so I flatten myself against the rock to present as little impediment to it as possible. And still it rips at me.
      I swear I hear voices in it. I could swear they're wondering why they shouldn't just pluck me off the mountain and cast me to a broken-limbed ruin. I think I must be imagining things.
      No, that really is a voice, made of curls of breeze and snarls of gust. "Why shouldn't we pluck you off the mountain and cast you down to die?"
      "Because I can do good for this place," I say. I'll castigate myself later for talking to figments of my imagination. Right now the voices sound real and answering them seems like a good idea. I notice my hands are gripping cracks in the rocky floor, and that the tendons on the back of my hands are trembling, visible cords.
      "Your good, not ours," the wind hisses into one ear. "You follow a fool. Do you belong to us or him?"
      "The Godson is my master," I say.
      "Then we want nothing of you!"
      "--but that doesn't mean he doesn't have your best interests at heart!" I cry out as the wind drags me partway down the plateau. I'm bargaining for my life, I realize. My life is actually in danger.
      All right, then. The Wind is real.
      "You think you can turn us into a tame extension of your petty little kingdom?" the winds whisper from both sides at once. "We are wild. Free. Different. We have a voice. We don't like you, little griffin."
      "I can see that," I say. "But if you kill me, the Godson will just send someone new. Someone who doesn't care as much."
      "And you care?"
      "I care," I say firmly. I think that's true. "I care, and I'm willing to change."
      "Are you?" the winds burble. They tickle the fur along my cheeks and shoulders. My head and wings feel exposed, cold, chapped . . . thank the gods for the robes that are hiding the rest of me.
      Readers vote that Angharad is willing to change.

The Sweet and Vicious Wind
      "Yes!" I cry. Then quieter, exasperated despite myself, "Yes, I'm willing to change. Isn't that obvious? I have a mongrel unit. I ride a mongrel mount. I have a native guide. I respect your traditions!"
      "How can you know our traditions? You barely know yourself," the wind hisses. And then softer, from a different direction, "So many scars, pretty Godkin. You have potential."
      I liked the sound of that even less than the anger in the first voice. "Potential for what?"
      "Wings . . . wings are sacred," the breeze purrs into one of my ears. "You could save us--"
      "Do you need saving?" I ask, ignoring the chill down my back. I hated the idea of being the target of someone's worship.
      The wind moans, and my chills intensify into shivers. "What do you think? We are oppressed. We are in discord."
      And then a gust blinds me with my own hair, red everywhere, red whips in my eyes. "We don't need help from some pervert who will corrupt our people into crossbreeding!"
      "I have no intention of changing your ways," I say, scraping my fingers across my face. "I only want to help. Tell me how I can help."
      The softer wind whispers again, "Kindness to our elderly, our children, our mongrels. Can you do that?"
      "Of course!" I say, angry at the intimation that I would mistreat the most vulnerable.
      "You cannot afford to fear the darkness," the softer wind whispers. "Within or without."
      "No," I agree. The harsher wind is silent for once, and I can actually lift my head enough to look west. The stars in that direction dazzle my eyes . . . the sky seems a deeper shade of blue, almost black.
      "Are you strong enough to face the most difficult things in your life?" I can't tell which voice that one is. I start to reply, but the breeze tickles my throat. "No quick answer, little griffin, Coatl's Daughter." I freeze. How could they have figured that out? "And no shame if the answer is no. We want to help you, but there is a time for help and this may not be your time."
      Readers say Angharad can take it.

Parade of Stars
      "I will face what I must," I say. "I can handle what I must."
      Abruptly, the wind ceases. My hair falls on either side of my face. My wings relax from a tension I hadn't even realized was stiffening them. I am left alone with only the stars for companions . . . but, ah! What companions!
      I wait, expecting the winds to return with whatever horrible news they expect me to bear. After a while, I tire of holding myself erect, ears straining toward the west. Arranging Negrat's robe around my body, I settle down cross-legged with my hands on my knees. This is the part of the vigil I understand. No strange voices. No fighting with reality, wondering if you're hallucinating or if the world is really out to kill you.
      I pass out of fear and into pleasure. My worries about Shraeven and the Godson's motives slip away. My gnawing concern about the Sunblood Cliffs eases out of my limbs. I bleed stress into the stone and sink into a well of serenity. Above me the stars process, solemn as a triumphal parade, pulling the milky veil after them like a gossamer standard.
      I breathe in calm, exhale knotted worry. It seems a poor trade but I'm happy to make it.
      There's a touch of green in the eastern sky when at last my fur bends beneath the tickle of a breeze. It seems a happier touch than the night's first offerings. I wonder if I've appeased Shraeven. It seems prudent to ask.
      "Will you let me pass?" I ask, looking down at the air that plays with one of my scarlet locks, as if I can see it.
      "For now," the wind seems to whisper. It seems content.
      "And that is all you want to tell me?" I ask.
      And now the gusts tickle my feathers up against the grain, blow my hair around my face, almost as if laughing on the way out. "You will have a child in Shraeven, little griffin. Choose your course wisely."
      "A what?" I ask, startled. "Where? When? What do you mean?"
      "Choose wisely!" the wind whispers, and then it's gone. Everything settles. A few moments later the wind resumes, but from the east this time. It's a friendly wind. I know it. I've flown it.
      A child! I wonder, hope, that it's a metaphor. Somehow I get the feeling they mean it literally. I climb back down the mountain, step by careful step, and only when I regain the path do I wonder why I bothered; I could have glided down and saved myself the time. As it is, the dawn is well and truly begun, a smoldering purple edge on the horizon.
      Silfie stands as I take the final step off the path and onto the ledge. So does Ragna, though more slowly, dusting off her trousers. Negrat remains seated, but even he looks at me with curiosity. They want to know how it went.
      Readers think Angharad should turn over one of the stone tiles, mysteriously.

Trial By...
      I crouch in front of the stones, lean forward with wings spread for balance, and turn over a stone. Any stone. The one that my eye first seizes.
      "The Trial," Negrat says, as if my reading hadn't been interrupted by several hours' worth of vigil.
      I nod, somehow not surprised, and stand so I can slide the robe off and give it back. Negrat stops me with a touch to my tail-tip. "You are not done."
      If the priest says you're not done, you're not done. I settle back down, the robe sighing as it crumples around my body. After looking at us both, Silfie sits too. Ragna says, "The dawn is here."
      "She's not done," Silfie says. "The camp will run itself without her for a little while longer."
      The camp had better run itself for a lot longer than a few hours without me, or I'd have to have a discussion with my captains about proper delegation of authority. I hoped Magwen wouldn't say anything indiscreet about my absence, though. The last thing I needed was a well-meaning "rescue."
      "Your fingers are wiser than the bones," Negrat says. "Or perhaps it is the bones in your fingers that are wiser." A flash of a grin. "Turn over another stone, Griffin, so that we can say what the trial will be."
      "I had thought that trials were self-explanatory," I say dryly.
      He studies me with dark eyes, then awards me another grin. My coming down alive from the plateau has changed his opinion of me, I think. "They tend to be, yes. But a little warning on what to expect, that I can give you, and should. Turn a stone, lady, any one you like best."
      I let my eyes drift over the spread. The bones Silfie threw earlier, the tiles we already turned over, everything's just as I left it. Which means this should be easy... but it's not. I'm not afraid yet; it's too early for that. But I know what I got up there on the plateau was a reprieve and that the land wants me to prove my intentions. I've always hated tests.
      Still, it's time to turn a stone. I reach for one of the tiles.
      It's to be a trial by love.

Money Issues... Challenges... Problems.
      I turn a tile with cold fingers. Even I can read the picture on it. Some symbols, I suppose, are universal.
      "Love," Negrat says. "A trial of love."
      I stare at the intertwined circles. At home, the sign for love is two interlocked circles. Here it's four. The set formed by the middle is marked with a dot. I feel as if ice water is falling down my back, and my wings spread. Four circles. A dot in the middle. It seems significant beyond its right. I look up at Negrat.
      The priest's dark eyes are satisfied. He says, "I will tell my headman."
      "You will tell him I came down with the wind's favor," I say.
      Negrat nods. "The winds can be fickle. But if you lived at all, then they have interest in you. And so we shall." He scoops up the tiles and replaces them in his bag. He holds out his arms for his robe, which I deliver back to him. It fits him perfectly, though he's shorter than I am. Odd, that.
      "Thank you," I say.
      "We will watch you," he replies. Which is not the reassurance I was hoping for, but it would do.
      Ragna and Silfie are remarkably quiet on the way down the cliff. I enjoy the warmth of their presence, so much more real than the wind's. When we arrive at camp breakfast is already done and the tents are going down. Magwen surprises me with tea and trailbread spread with butter and goldberry jam. He asks no questions, which pleases me. He doesn't even argue me into a bath, but brings me my cloak and helps me don it.
      I mount Honeydipped and lead the men forward, on the ground this time. Ragna scouts ahead; Silfie ranges behind me and to one side, where I can see her. But it's Donal who trots up to talk to me, and in the cool morning sunlight his foppish ears and silly expression don't add up to quite the same ridiculous sum.
      "Did the men enjoy the evening?" I ask.
      "Aye, that they did, Mistress," Donal says. "And even more the chance to sleep in a few minutes longer. That was kind of you."
      "Did you win a few dice games?"
      He laughs. "Oh, no, ma'am. I know better than to play games of chance. I'm so clumsy my luck trips."
      I laugh with him then. I feel expansive, as if I could encompass him and everyone else within an invisible embrace. I feel mighty and small. How does that work?
      "No, but I had a question, Mistress," Donal says. "The games were good and the spirits were good and the company was good . . . I think the men liked the natives just fine and the reverse seemed true as well. But if we keep havin' evenings like this, no one's going to have any money left."
      I arch a brow. "Despite their stipends?"
      "Stipends meant for a campaign marching from isolated town to isolated town," Donal says, surprising me with the observation. "But there's a God's thousand clans in these mountains. If we end up doing any more hosting we're going to have nothing in our pockets--or our pay wagon--in a fortnight or two."
      An interesting problem.
      Readers think it's time to delegate: ask the captains for opinions.

Distractions
      "An interesting problem," I say. "Tell your fellow captains I want them to present me with some possible solutions within... hmm. Three days."
      "Right," Donal says, and takes that correctly as a dismissal.
      That night at camp I send a bird back home with a request for more funds. I'm curious as to what the Godson will say.

Stormfront
      A yell from outside perks both of our ears. I pull back the tent flap to find Magwen's backside in my way. The man is guarding my tent, I swear. "Magwen, move your behind, please."
      "Pardon, Mistress," the deer says, and steps to the side as Silfie peeks out. I exit the tent to hunt for the source of the yell, but I'm immediately distracted by the giant clouds crowding the now yellow sky. Thunderheads the dense gray of storms ride the winds that have picked up since Silfie and I took innocent shelter for tea. As I watch, flashes of white illumine the underside of these monsters. I smell the water and the acrid scent of lightning as the gusts snap at my hair, dragging it off my shoulders and whipping my wings with it.
      "I suppose the yell was about the weather," I say to Magwen.
      "The men are concerned about the river if it rains," he says. "Someone found flood marks well up to the camp-side."
      I eye him. "That can't be the sole reason for their concern. We've slogged through storms before."
      "They think it's magic," Magwen says simply.
      I look up again, wondering, doubting . . . but the winds aren't from the west. The storms are blowing in from the Kingdom. Did I do something wrong on that plateau? Gods forgive me. I'm no traitor just because I've talked to the land. Shraeven's a part of the Godkindred's realm now!
      Not everything's about magic, though. I squint into the tangle of people moving to and from the tents. "Where's Ragna?"
      "I'm not sure, Mistress," Magwen says. "I can go find her for you."
      "Please," I say.
      He jogs into the fray; I watch him long enough to notice how supremely unconcerned he seems. Is it a front, or is he really not all that worried? Weather can be dangerous whether you're superstitious or not, and these storms . . . well, I mislike the cast of the sky. I hate yellow skies.
      "That's an angry-looking line of clouds," Silfie says, stepping up beside me. The wind blows her curls into her mouth and she shakes her head to dislodge them. "You think we should move?"
      I glance up and down the length of the cut we've been traversing. We're pretty far up the mountainside, but the high walls bordering our path remind me uncomfortably of a canyon.
      Readers say: move to higher ground. They also decide the campsite will be flooded, but that the storm is no magical thing.

Flood Warning
      "Move the camp," I say and trust Silfie to see to it. She's gone before I even spread my wings. I leap into the wind and ride to the nearest cliff--I let the wind choose which. This is not the kind of weather I want to fight unless I have to. From a high vantage I can oversee the movement of the camp, but more importantly I can decide where we should set down next. Anywhere out of the cut is fine, but if I can find a place where we'll also get some shelter from the coming rain I'll take it.
      We are going to get rained on. Those clouds won't be denied.
      Our best choice isn't great, but it's close enough to get to in time and the overhang should allow some part of the camp protection from the worst of the weather. The wind is now so heavy with the impending rain that my hair is beginning to stick to my neck and shoulders. I glide down, buffeted most of the way, and tell Silfie how to get there. The tents are already down and the wagons are being loaded.
      Magwen stops me then. "I can't find her, Mistress."
      Alarm shoots through me. "Ragna?"
      "Her tracks stop near the base of that cliff," he says, pointing against the wind. "But I can't climb it."
      "I'll go," I say. "Help Silfie."
      "Yes, Mistress."
      So I take to the wind, trying to climb over its bumps and whorls. It's like swimming in an angry ocean, with the same vast waves that throw your whole body back and the same stinging and slashing at your eyes and face. My wings ache as I thrash against the gusts. Why did Ragna have to pick that cliff?
      I manage to crest the top of the stone and start skimming the surface, searching. The pard is clinging to the stone on the inside of a seashell curl, where the cliff folds back on itself.
      "Come on," I say, holding out my arms.
      She stares up at me, and despite the appearance of control her pupils are dilated and her eyes wide and wild. "This place is safe."
      "This place is low," I object. "I can get us both to the new camp."
      She eyes me. "You are frail. Your limbs are like sticks."
      My ears flatten against my wet hair. I'm not sure what insults me more, the intimation that I'm weak or the one that I'm ugly. "Sticks can turn a river if joined together well. We can make it."
      Thunder shatters the sky and still she doesn't come. I grit my teeth. "Come on, Ragna. Before the lightning gets closer. I can fly through wind and rain, but I don't want to be a lightning target."
      Reluctantly she releases her hold on the rocks and holds out a hand to me. She's shaking, just a little tremble. The thought that there would be anything in the world that would scare this self-possessed young woman is startling.
      I am her Mistress. I won't fail her.
      And readers decide she won't, but that there will be set-backs.

Griffin on Stormwinds
      I admit some part of me wondered when I met Ragna, just a little, what all her luxurious fur would feel like. But I was imagining it dry and soft and warm as an impression gleaned in passing by a hand on the shoulder or a touch on her arm. I hadn't honestly expected to cradle her entire body in my arms with her back pressed to my stomach. And definitely I'd never imagined sneaking in my touch when her fur hung limp and heavy and damp with the humidity. Beads of water clung to her guard hairs. She weighed twice as much as Silfie, at least.
      Bearing a load I didn't bother to fight the winds. My job now was to pick the ones that would get us to the right place without having to work for them. I glided out of Ragna's hiding place and into the storm. The clouds had caught up with us, runners of gray tumbling over each other in advance of the wall of rain I could hear as a background hiss. The air stinks of lightning, and all my hair stands on end at the feel of it. I've known people who died flying in storms, falling from the skies after too close an encounter with lightning.
      There's a cross-breeze blowing against the prevailing winds, one heading the direction I want . . . falling, but in the right direction. I take that one, my wings already aching from the strain of keeping them steady. The air chafes my feathers.
      "We're heading down!" Ragna yells to me, as if I've somehow failed to notice.
      "I know," I say. "Trust me!"
      She shudders in my arms. I don't blame her much. She's never flown in her life. How can she understand what I'm doing?
      And then a gust smacks me off my steady course and we tumble down. Fire floods my back as one wing wrenches against the muscle. I fight for stability and see only the ground lurching toward us.
      With a foot, I catch the edge of one of the cut's stone walls and push us back up into the air. A lucky breeze is there for me to ride, this one rising away from the cliff I need to approach. Ragna doesn't scream but she's so stiff in my arms I almost can't hold her.
      The hiss is growing more distinct. I want to climb out of this mess before it strikes. I hunt for a wind I can use to get us to camp and find one . . . just as the rain smashes into us.
      Gods, how I hate rain. I curl around Ragna to try to keep her dry, not just for her sake but mine as well; I can only imagine what all that fur will do to her weight if saturated. Squinting into the gray wall around us, I lose sight of the camp. My wings want to give. My back hurts so much I'm not sure that there aren't tears in my eyes as well as rain.
      My father told me that our bloodlines confer to us the ability to sense the directions of the world. I pray he's right. I head north, challenging the winds the entire way. There's no time for the easy route. If we don't get out of the rain, I won't have the strength to get us to the cliff. I won't even have the strength to get us above the flood level.
      I think I'm smashed around a few times. I don't remember all those times, only the last time and the gust that back-handed us onto the top of the cliff . . . right next to camp.
      Ragna gasps, her fur instantly matted by the rainfall as she rolls away from me.
      "That way," I croak. I don't know if she hears me, but she does head in the right direction. I crawl onto my knees and follow more slowly. Gods, my wings. Gods, my back. I can't feel the tips of my fingers. My body feels like a giant bruise.
      But we made it.
      Readers decide Ragna's glad it's over.

A Glorious Sort of Slavery
      "That was crazy of you," Silfie said as Magwen went over my wings feather-by-feather, hunting for breaks.
      "The rain would have gotten her," I said, too tired to be feisty. I added, "She didn't even say thank you, though."
      "It probably wasn't the best way to introduce her to flying," Silfie said with a wry smile.
      I glanced at her. "Would you like to go flying one day?"
      "If you can find me a pair of wings of my own."
      I said nothing.

A Glorious Sort of Servitude
      "Wrong, is he?" I ask, studying my steward's antlered head.
      When Magwen nods the cords on his neck strain at his skin, as if the effort of righting that crown of horns is more than you or I could imagine. I wondered how heavy they were. But ah, he's talking and I'm not paying attention: "--and I have not regretted even that small gift. It does not give me the perspective that a fully-promised noble might have, such as Captain Colblain, but I did many of the duties he speaks of."
      Not fully-promised... ah, so Magwen must have cut his heel for the soil. If the noble in charge of a province feels they need their children's aid now rather than later, they can induct them partially by making a cut at their heel (or for the hooved individuals, at the base of the frog) so that the land "will know who walks it loves it."
      "And you found meaning in it that Colblain has not?" I ask.
      "Much," he says. "There is contentment to be found in the role of a mediator . . . surely you know it, Mistress."
      "I suppose," I say. "I can't say I fancy the notion of being stoned when I fail to prevent a town fire."
      Magwen's tail lashes once. "I haven't actually heard of such a thing being done, Mistress, though the law says it is the people's right."
      Neither had I, truly. Perhaps that explains Colblain's bitterness. If the people in his province actually do tie down their noble masters and torture them for accidents of fate and nature, I too would hate my lot in life and all the people in it.
      "Were you much help to your parents, Magwen?"
      "They would say so, Mistress . . . at very least, they kept me quite busy," Magwen says. "How well I discharged the duties they assigned me was theirs to decide . . . and the people's."
      "But no one complained," I say.
      "No," the man replies. "No more than usual, at least."
      I glance at him. "Have I done a bad thing, taking you from your duties?"
      "You didn't take me from my duties, Mistress . . . I removed myself," Magwen says. "Only after I was sure my parents wouldn't miss me overmuch. I have a brother and sister; my brother stepped into my role when I decided to re-enlist."
      I nod. I feel suddenly tired. "I thank you, Magwen. It is good to hear other opinions. I'd caution you not to give others cause to think you too cheeky, though."
      "Of course, Mistress," Magwen says. I get the feeling he's horrified that I'd think him capable of doing anything to embarrass me. After he falls back, I examine the source of my spiritual exhaustion.
      Readers decide Angharad is now grumpy because she's been reminded that her own lands are behind her, and that the Godson is not proving himself deserving of her service.

Family Matters
      For a moment, memory sweeps away reality, and I am back on the highest point in my province, the Lip of the Sun, an amber cliff so tall you could almost feel the weight of the sun on your back when standing at its apex. From the edge of that cliff, the sheer drop to the lace-edged aquamarine waves is so long you can barely see the tawny rocks that stir the waters there. For any creature approaching the edge of that summit is folly.
      Almost any creature. But I . . . oh, I can fly.
      Shaking myself from the smell of salt and warm winds over rock, I realize that I'm heading west, not south as I should have been. The Godson has taken my province from me, and whether my people chose to punish me for drought or not that destiny was mine and some part of me had been relying on it. I wonder at how I could stay my course with any trust.
      But here I was anyway.

Lying With Whiskers
      I will not chase my own subordinates if they're intent on evading me. I've seen other commanders do so and they look ridiculous, like they can't maintain discipline. So Ragna flees and I let her . . . but I watch from my vantage on Honeydipped's high back, and not long after her flight I see her scaling the sides of the cliffs, scouting as she's promised. At least I know this is not a matter that will deter her from her duties. I appreciate such devotion in my people.
      Still, it was not my intention to upset Ragna. That evening after my tent goes up, I tell Magwen to find her for me before settling in. She enters after I've shucked my boots but before I've started on my tabard, and she stands at the tent flap, watching me with solemn eyes.
      "It must be difficult," she says, lifting her chin toward my wings. Getting out of my clothing sometimes draws such questions.
      I smile. "Not that difficult. And the alternative doesn't appeal." I fold the tabard and set it on my cot. "Od Ragna, I apologize if I gave offense this afternoon."
      "It is as nothing, Mistress," Ragna says with a faint arch of her whiskers. Somehow I see this as a smile that doesn't reach her eyes.
      I turn from her so her face can be her own as I ask, "If it is as nothing, why did you run away?"
      As expected, Ragna doesn't immediately respond. I continue to undress, letting her find her words. After a while, she says, "Things are not for us as they are for you, Godkin woman."
      "So you've said before," I reply. Magwen's left me a clean set of sleeping clothes, bless his patterned hide. I don the light blouse. Ragna says nothing as I do this, so at last I add, "But the mountain folk are now my folk, and I will need to know them."
      "I will keep that in mind," Ragna says, and turns away.
      Readers think Angharad should extend this conversation!

High Places
      "Pick a clan," I say to her retreating back, "before we leave the mountains, I will want to meet them."
      Ragna stops at the tent flap. "I am not certain that is wisdom, Mistress."
      "And now you will give me a reason, no doubt," I say, sitting on my cot. "Something more useful than 'they're different from you,' which I'd already surmised."
      She glances over her shoulder with an expression I have a hard time reading. Not frustration, entirely, nor a measuring look. Something of both. "The high mountain clans are religious fanatics, Mistress. The Godkindred are considered unclean, unworthy, permissive and libertine."
      "Quite a litany," I say. "Are these the people who want to become animals?"
      Ragna's tail curls just a little. Is that a suppressed lash? "Some of them do, yes."
      "Do you want to become an animal, Ragna?"
      "What I want or do not is immaterial, Mistress," the pard says. "I am what I am, and wishes will not transform me either way."
      "But you will make a choice for your child," I say.
      "As we all must," Ragna says. "Will you choose a new bloodline for your infant, Mistress? Or is it enough to be called Godkin? Have you mixed your family enough?"
      I can't tell if this is honest interest or a jab, so I assume the former. "I will choose a new bloodline. Having the title of Godkin only means that you've reached enough of a mix to be a sister or brother to gods. It does not grant you divinity . . . which is our aim. And you can fall from the title if you breed true too often."
      "How can they tell?" Ragna asks, canting her head.
      "We keep records," I say. "Public records of marriages and species. One consults the books when choosing an appropriate mate."
      "And you wed this mate," she says.
      "Of course," I say.
      "Of course," she says and shakes her head. Before I can pursue that, she says, "I will find you a mountain clan to meet if I can, Mistress. They're elusive."
      "I have every confidence in your abilities," I reply.
      She glances at me and steps out. This time I let her. My frustrations are high but I don't want to push Ragna. She's still too new to me, too difficult to read. Using the power of my position to force answers from her unwilling mouth . . . one does not win loyalty that way. I finish donning the rest of my sleeping gear and decide to work the irritation out of my body with a walk. My blanket is of fine enough quality to double as a cloak, so I pull it up around my body, beneath my wings, and hold it closed over my chest as I step out of the tent.
      "Mistress?" Magwen asks.
      "Just restless," I say. "I'll be back shortly."
      He nods and I pad past him on bare feet. Perhaps it's my imagination, but the pebbles in the ground no longer seem to find the most tender bits of my heel to dig into. The grass seems softer, warmer. It's a clear night, a black so deep it looks pettable, like the finest fabric. It shades to a paler purple where it touches the veil of stars in the sky, bright white, friendly yellow, distant red. It doesn't take long for this vista and the exertion of my walk to calm me.
      As I stand on a small outcropping of stone, the wind comes down the run, warm, tangling my locks, ruffling my feathers.
      And the wind says: Trial of Love, Godkin. Trial of Love.

Trial of Love
      The walls of the cut fall away and we walk over mounds of stone into a rumpled valley dense with new flowers, white and honey-pale gold. The air is sweet and dense with the perfume of spring. I stand on a grassy hill and watch my train of soldiers advance toward the colorful buildings of the next town on our road. But mostly I am intoxicated by the beauty of the place. Perhaps it was the rain a few days past that washed the fields and turned them this brilliant sap green . . . or perhaps Shraeven is always thus in spring in the mountains. We camp a day out from the village and there's not a man in my regiment, yeah verily, nor a mongrel or a woman either who does not have high spirits.
      I sit among flowers, letting the wind ruffle my feathers and tickle my nostrils with pollen and the scent of burgeoning things. I am soothed and yet I feel divorced from it.
      "Mistress," Silfie says, "Magwen sent me with supper."
      I open my eyes and find my burnished copper vixen with a basket resting on one hip. I wonder suddenly if she would look the same at a river, washing clothes brought in a similar basket. I wonder if she could ever love such a life. I wonder if I could.
      "That man," I say at last, righting myself. I don't remember lying down. At least it wasn't long ago . . . the sky is still lilac with the sunset. "I swear he casts incantations to know where I am at all times."
      "It's his job," Silfie says, amused. "He's your steward."
      "And I am completely undeserving," I say. "Come, sit. It's a beautiful evening and for once everything is right. No storms, no mysterious winds, no disgruntled subordinates, no knife-eyed natives."
      "A very pleasant change," she agrees. "And look, the moons are up. Who would have thought they'd look so bright before nightfall?"
      I unpack the basket with her help. Magwen has sent lover's food . . . small rolls of flattened meat or long-leaf cabbage stuffed with cheese and herbs. The kind of food you feed to one another . . . and wine, to boot. I look at the selection and am impressed by his ability to make dishes of this caliber with only the supplies packed on our wagon and what he can forage, but I am not entirely comfortable with the not-so-subtle suggestion.
      "I am glad I am not our supper," Silfie says, snitching one of the cabbage rolls. "The look you're giving it would wither lesser men. Prithee tell me, Mistress, what has it done to offend you so?"
      I start laughing despite myself. "I think my steward is meddling."
      "And so he must, for that's one of his sacred duties," Silfie says. "Maybe he thinks you need some relaxation."
      "I have been relaxing every night," I say.
      "The kind of relaxation that happens after pleasant exertion," Silfie says.
      I sigh . . . I should have known better than to think it wasn't obvious to her as well. "He is meddling."
      "Yes," Silfie says, and her voice sobers. "He doesn't know you as well as he believes if he thinks a little food will inspire you to casual exercise. You are not a casual lover."
      "No," I say. And here we are in a conversation I'm not comfortable with. Still, if I cannot talk with Silfie who can I talk with? "I am unsettled. Too unsettled to take a special friend for the distraction."
      "Eat," Silfie says, handing me a roll. She pours the wine for me as well. "What has you so unsettled?"
      I run my hand through the grasses, and the flowers shiver in my fingers' wake. I smell their aching offer past the complex bouquet of the wine. "If I don't go back to the cliffs, Silfie . . . where will I find a baby to hold them for me?"
      "One imagines in the usual way," Silfie says. She lies on the grass beside me on her stomach, looking out at the remains of the sunset. "You're still worried about this? Angharad, if it must be done that you will simply have to do it. Choose a man and have him get a child on you."
      "As if it's that simple," I say. The wind rises then, stiffer than the murmuring breeze. As it pulls my hair from my face I hear its hiss: Trial of Love, Godkin. Trial of Love.
      I shiver.
      And readers think it will be a very cruel trial indeed.

Claim in Their Hearts
      A few days later my forboding is of a distinctly fiscal sort. Not to say I'm not delighted by the village's greeting. The closer we came, the more ornate the field surrounding the buildings became, until there were torches in lamps of colored glass mounted on pedestals around booths and tents, people playing fiddles and shaking tambourines, dancers arrayed in flashing gem-deep colors . . . it dizzied the mind, the amount of motion and light. In the dark the purple, cobalt and golden lanterns promised magic and delight, and that didn't even touch the savory scent of roasting meat.
      My men had the discipline to set up camp, but once the captains finalized the duty rosters for the perimeter, they didn't even stay for supper. The moment they were released from duty, my soldiers and their money were over the tiny stream and into the fair that had been erected just for their pleasure.
      Gavan joins me in the deserted camp. He has his hands in his trouser pockets and he looks chagrined. "Trouble, Mistress?"
      "If they come back poor, it's trouble," I say. "I really wasn't expecting the mountain folk to be able to put on events of this size."
      "It's really something, isn't it?" he says in wonder. "It might as well be a country fair at home. I bet there's even a kissing booth."
      "I wouldn't be surprised," I say.
      "Some of the men are rather excited," Gavan says. "They like the notion of having a place to settle down. I think some of them are hoping they'll be able to get land grants from you, Mistress, or good work. Certainly they're hoping to find a nice maid to marry, or a nice man for the girls on the march."
      Land grants! I hadn't thought of it. I suppose I should. "I'm glad to hear they're thinking of this as an opportunity rather than an unwelcome assignment."
      "No company is ever completely free of complaints," Gavan says. "But I think they're getting used to it. It helps that spring here is so beautiful. Rainstorm and all."
      I glance at him. "Do you truly think they'll make the transition?"
      "I do," he says. "Many of them, anyway." He opened his pouch and dug in it before pulling out a wand of smooth, dark wood. He handed it to me, and a more beautifully carved shoe-horn I'd yet to see. The end was a swan's head, doubled back on itself, wings folded. The tail formed the horn. "Still, I think they'd be comfortable if they could offer more than coin to the natives. I know you already made a decision on the funding issue, Mistress, but I feel really strongly about the proposal I put in."
      Both he and Donal had been in favor of allowing the soldiers to sell what wares they could make. Colblain had argued convincingly against it, saying that we didn't own the land we were walking through and we didn't want to offend anyone by using resources that didn't belong to us. The fact that they did actually belong to us had occurred to me, but I didn't want to push it.
      But if my men want to become part of Shraeven, and if selling oddments they can make will help them claim this land in their hearts, it might be a good idea.
      Readers think Angharad should let the captains handle this and report on sales, and that sales should be taxed.

Baby-slaying Barbarians
      I promise to think Gavan's proposal over, though I've already made my decision . . . people seem to think better of you when you appear considering on certain kinds of issues. I make it my habit, so that when comes a time I must command immediate obedience, I get it. I find such psychological manipulations tiresome, but alas, often necessary.
      I stop in my tent long enough to pin a short cloak in place before strolling across the streambed to the festival. I am no less a soldier than the men I command. Why should I not partake?
      My people are mingled with the natives so completely I never see more than three of them in one place at a time. They are at booths examining fine wares, or listening to buskers sing or buying an assortment of foods that smell delicious, from the fresh, cilantro-sting of some meat stew to a bubbling confectionary pie that smells almost like cherries but not quite. Wares I can resist, but I am as susceptible to fresh food as any other campaigner. These enterprising villagers accept my coin with nary a pause and I sit on a blanket spread on the grass to watch a troupe of dancers and acrobats.
      The stew is delectable and spicy with a fresh herbal after-taste. Whatever the brew is, it's foamy and dark. And the pie . . . does not taste like cherries, but tart and hot and sweetened with honey that smells like wildflowers. I eat until my stomach distends and then watch the dancers swallow fire and chase each other in circles. The dance has a subtext I can't understand: the chase seems important, and doesn't seem to involve flirtation the way it might have in the Kingdom. I wonder what the joke is. Ragna would probably know, but I haven't seen even the flash of white fur among the crowds. I wonder if she's even here? It would seem a pity for her to miss such a rousing event.
      Sometime between the end of the pie and the end of the dance I decide to look for her. With my thumbs hooked casually into my belt I wander the faire in search, but I don't see her. I start asking my men when I find them.
      "Have you seen our local guide?"
      "No, Mistress. I fear not."
      "And you?"
      "I'm sorry, Mistress, but I've not seen her for a day or more."
      Eventually, I start asking the villagers.
      "Have you seen a woman, white-furred and heavy of jaw, with spots like a mountain pard's?"
      "No, lady, nothing of the sort would you find in our fair village."
      "Pardon, have you seen a snow-pard woman, heavily furred, wearing a leather tunic?"
      "Spirits protect us, miss, no!"
      The answers became more and more bizarre, until finally I said, "I'm looking for a snow pard woman. Every time I ask, it seems someone invokes a deity or an ancestor or seems to need to wash out their ears at the sound of it. What's wrong with a snow pard woman?"
      The man in question eyes me as if I'd been born yesterday. "Everyone knows the pards come out of the peaks. They steal our animals, sometimes our women and children. And they kill whatever man they can find, if he looks not enough like one of them. They are barbarians, Mistress, and you'd do well to avoid them."
      No wonder there's no sign of Ragna. "Are all pards out of the mountains barbarians?"
      "Every single one of them, demons curse their pelts."
      "I see. Thanks, then."
      "Glad to serve you, Mistress. Buy a sweet for a friend?"
      I buy a cone of candied nuts from him and idly crunch on them while heading back toward our camp. At the perimeter, I ask my question. "Have you seen Ragna?" And always the reply, "No, Mistress. Not since yesterday or before, Mistress."
      I'm not sure whether I'm worried or not by the time I get back to my tent and Magwen helps me doff my cape.
      "Is there trouble, Mistress?"
      "I wish I knew," I said. "Ragna's not about, but the villagers here think her kind are baby-killing barbarians, so perhaps she's avoiding them on purpose. That would be prudent of her."
      "But there's another possibility," he says.
      "That she's gone missing," I say.
      Readers narrowly vote Ragna is being prudent and just staying away.

Lost Pards
      "We can't find her," the scout says.
      I'm not surprised. This is not terrain we're familiar with. This is not our land, though I can rock on the grass now without falling, feeling a rhythm. Still, we're a day out from the village. It's long past time for my native guide to come back and make herself useful again.
      Still, what am I supposed to say? Look harder? "Thank you," I say, and dismiss the scout leader.
      I sit on a canvas chair and stare at the sky, blue as a pottery bowl. This is where Silfie finds me.
      "We're missing Ragna," she says.
      Tell me something new, Silfie. "I know," I say. "She had good cause to avoid the village. I decided not to worry about her until she failed to join us yesterday once we broke camp and left the natives behind. The scouts just came back to tell me they can't find her."
      "This is a grassland," Silfie says.
      "But it's bordered by mountains," I say. "I now have good cause to believe that our good Ragna is not unfamiliar with mountains." When Silfie frowns, I continue, "At the fair, the villagers seem convinced that anyone shaped like a pure pard is a barbarian baby-stealer and man-killer from the peaks."
      Silfie looks away from me. The sun is so bright on her copper curls as her head turns that I squint and still spots dance in front of my eyes. "Ah. That doesn't bode well. She might be from one of the less civilized clans I mentioned when we were still at Nadeir."
      "She seemed civilized enough to me," I say. "Enough so that I decided she would come back when she deemed it safe for her to return."
      "But you still sent people out after her," Silfie says.
      I sigh. "Yes, yes. I do want her to be around to tell us which turn to take once we get out of the valley."
      "Even if we'll be in the valley for a few more days," Silfie says.
      "Yes," I say. "I suppose I should wait on the matter." I look up at the sky again.
      Silfie says after a moment, "From your tone you don't really believe that. The scouts didn't find her. What are you going to do?"
      Good question.
      Readers vote for a villager to be brought for an interview.

Beasts Before the Gods
      My shadow creases and flits over the swaying grasses as I glide past overhead. I am a small creature trapped between an enormous sky and an undifferentiated plain of bright green grass, and my effort feels as insignificant. I have been up here for three hours, spiralling away from the village. There is no eagle in my lineage to give me the keen eyes of a predator, but I can still pick out a trail from on high and I see no evidence of Ragna. I see villagers working in their gardens. I see children playing. I see wild creatures in the grass. But no pard, or (gods save us from it) no pard-killers.
      This is Ragna's third day missing.
      When at last I return to my train of soldiers, sweat plastering my shirt to my body, Silfie is waiting with a clear-eyed young man. He holds a hooked staff and is dressed in a simple but well-made leather vest and breeches that leave his knees and feet bare.
      "This is Murdinal," she says. "He's a herder."
      I nod to him.
      "Good mistress," he says. "I am told you seek information about the barbarians."
      "Yes," I say.
      His fingers shift on the staff, one by one, as if he's seeking a more comfortable grip. "I was taken by them when I was a child. What do you wish to know?"
      This . . . this is a stunning find. I glance at Silfie, then say to the young man, "Come with me."
      I get him situated in my tent and have Magwen bring him food and tea. While he's doing so I join Silfie outside the tent; the breeze brings me a scent that makes me want to sneeze. "How did you find this one? I would have thought that anyone touched by the barbarians would have been outcast in the village, or at very least not so well off as to have clean, mended clothing and look healthy and fed."
      Silfie says, "He was taken from a couple when he was an infant. In the intervening years, his father lost his wife and their newborn daughter. When the son returned, no one was foolish enough to stand between a lonely man and what family remained to him."
      "And you found this out how?" I ask.
      "In any small community it's always best to find the women doing laundry and help them," Silfie says.
      "So that's what you stink of," I say.
      "I hardly think soap is a stink," Silfie says and grins.
      "It is when it makes your nose itch," I say.
      Inside the tent I sit across from young Murdinal. I study him and he studies me back, unafraid but not challenging. Without preamble, I say, "Are they the barbarians your people say?"
      "Yes," he says. "They believe that the life of animals is the life of Heaven promised to us. They tie their women down and set their monstrous brethren on them to beget savage beasts. They keep their children in pens, for they have not the minds the gods gave us, not even enough to stay in the homes of their parents. Each generation, they create more bestial progeny. It is a sick place."
      I have never experienced nauseating fear until now, and I have been through battles that chilled my soul and loosened my feathers. But a battle is a cleaner end than what Murdinal describes. "Do they truly believe such things? All of them? You say the women have to be tied down. Do they not want what their men want?"
      "Some of them do," he said. "Others are so frightened they dare not leave. Some try to escape. I made my escape with three such women." His fingers do their angry shift on the staff. "Two of them were caught again."
      "I imagine they weren't treated well," I say, mostly to myself, but Murdinal answers.
      "I witnessed the return of two such folk. They were whipped but not harmed. A pard does not waste the body of a healthy woman."
      I nod. "Do you remember well enough how to get to one of these tribes?"
      "Aye," he says. "I can lead you most of the way there."
      "Most of the way?"
      He looks me in the eye. "I will not come within their grasp, not even with your hundred-hundred soldiers behind me."
      I nod again and send him away. Silfie enters as he exits and sits across from me.
      "Well?" she asks.
      Well indeed.
      Readers decide that Murdinal will lead some of Angharad's scouts to find more information.

Message From Home
      "Make absolutely no contact with anyone outside your group," I tell the scouts standing next to Murdinal. "You're not going into the hills to talk with people. You're going to observe. We have cause to believe the people of the high mountain reaches disagree with our philosophies... violently. Treat this as hostile territory and stay alert."
      A chorus of 'Yes, Mistress'es.
      "Go. And remember, Goodman Murdinal is your guide. If he tells you the way is bad, the way is bad. Understood?"
      Another chorus.
      "Go, then," I say. "Come back on both feet."
      They disperse. Even though they're not trying to blend in yet, they still walk so softly I can barely hear the grasses parting around their thighs.
      My eyes linger longest on the shepherd. He can't be older than nineteen or twenty, too young for the kind of courage he has. Boys that young should have the bravery of inexperience . . . not the mettle that comes from battle scars.
      I mount Honeydipped and keep my sigh to myself. Those are my best scouts now in the grasses, armed now with a native guide. If they cannot find Ragna, then Ragna is lost to us.

On to Part Two, Continued!