Under the gold and copper leaves of the Forest’s canopy the bay mare stirred. For almost an entire season Dynalia had kept to herself, ghosting through the trees as her health slowly returned and she put on weight. Her ribs were no longer noticeable. Her skin no longer stretched to cover her bones. And while the mare could not say she was happy, she was certainly in better spirits than she had been over the summer. She was finally ready to begin her journey.

But first, it would be wise to meet the horses she would be sharing the Forest with. It would be wise to travel with the herd even if she did not consider herself a part of it, for these woods were no strangers to wolves and the sharp bite of the autumn morning promised Winter’s coming. The long-legged mare stepped away from the tree she had napped under and looked around her. This grove had been one of Kisei’s favorites. The memory of her sire, bold and black, made her heart twinge, and Dynalia shook her head against the pain. She never stopped missing him, and she refused to give up hope that he would return to her. Once he was done grieving, he would realize his family was not all dead like he had believed. Even if Dynalia’s mother was gone, Dynalia was still around, and she knew she had other sisters and brothers. Somewhere.

Kisei would return.

She snorted and strode out of the grove, stepping onto a well-worn path that she knew circled the perimeter of the Forest. One of the mares, the old one with the sagging back— she often patrolled the path. It was possible she was still lurking in the trees. Dynalia lifted her nose to the air and breathed in the crispness that surrounded her as she searched for the scents of the herd. They were not as faint as she had expected them to be and, heartened by the idea of company, the bay mare made her way toward the Bondurant’s herd.

When she reached them, she stepped out of the trees but kept her distance. Uncertainty and fear of rejection from the others kept her from approaching any of the mares. Instead, Dynalia lowered her head to graze as she observed them. Buckskin seemed to be the predominant color scheme of the mares, ranging from sooty to roan to a buckskin splash. There were a couple of chestnuts, one with a blanket and the other mottled with white, but all were fine boned and sturdy in a limber way rather than hefty with muscle as her father and his descendants were. Dynalia’s dark eyes lingered on the chestnut mare draped with a blanket and wondered why the pattern seemed so familiar to her.