A light spring rain whispered through Munashii Gekko, tapping quiet silver fingertips over new yellow-green leaves and softening the brown-black soil of the forest floor, its droplets churning up the dreamy scent of water and earth. Night still curled protectively across the forest with vast purple wings; a lovely hour, filled with that rhythmic stormy percussion, cool and peaceful. This was the sort of before-morning time Kirastasia would usually spend dancing, her spirit alive and resplendent with free energy. Darkness was for the putnar—the night-hunting predators with their keen vision and quiet paws, striking under the stars to spill blood with beautiful sharp teeth. Kira adored the moonlight gilding her white pelt into ice and the music of crickets in her ears. She dashed through Milo’s kingdom like a deadly ballerina—pirouetting and leaping with a serrated smile gleaming on her muzzle. She glittered, rain sweeping off the waterproof surface of her silken outer coat. A few days ago she would have been speeding through this lonesome choreography with the tang of psychedelic mushrooms on her tongue, chasing away visions of haunting past lovers and failure. But not tonight. Now Kirastasia had been adopted into a pack, and although it was small and nearly silent, that meant the snowbird was no longer alone.

A puddle’s lightly trembling surface shattered beneath her prancing paws, spraying the Ice Princess with muddy water that speckled her alabaster canvas with sepia. Whooping exuberantly Kira hopped into the gathered water again and again, snapping at the liquid beads before they hit the ground; she giggled madly when the echo of her own voice swung around trees so tall she had to bend her neck backward to see the top—almost as if she had an audience. How incredible this sudden change in her was! All it took was showing up to Lady Milo’s open invitation, and all at once the aloneness that ate at her like an infection evaporated. Was this joy she felt? Relief?

Or perhaps Kirastasia merely felt giddy with the realization that Kahlan was once again right within her grasp.

It was as if the fate that had ripped her firebird and her healer away had realized its cruel mistake. Kira had done nothing to deserve all the misfortune that battered her . . . and when she allowed her untethered mind to wander the pain she found tucked away made her cringe with its bitterness. Her mother Queens, abandoning her children and her pack without a backward glance; her father, dragging her off to another territory like some unfeeling carcass; the packs she had subsequently sniffed around—and rejected—just as she was rejected by everyone else. A gorgeous gem like her, unwanted! An absurd, agonizing impossibility!

Kirastasia jumped onto a fallen log that had formed something of a bridge over a broad circle of swampy land, its spongy surface slippery with emerald moss and rainfall, but her claws dug into the wood to prevent her from falling. She tap-danced all the way down and soared over the branching roots back to earth, adding a spin before she skipped forward. Her one-woman performance had started near Munashii’s outskirts; now she’d returned to the forest’s heart, where the rest of the pack converged. Well . . . maybe “converged” was too kind. Kira had not pinned down where Milo chose to sleep, and as for Kahlan? The stunning older wolfess proved more elusive than the back side of the moon, no matter how diligently Kira hunted her. It was only by purest luck that the ivory warrioress stumbled across a shred of her darling’s perfume, diluted almost to nothing by constant soft rain. Kahlan had obviously taken care to muddle her trail; it took Kirastasia another half an hour to uncover the ex-healer’s bed at last.

“Oh Kah . . . you’re far too pretty to sleep all by yourself.”

She breathed down with loving tenderness at the veritable queen reposed in her hidden den, her autumn-colored fur shaded by an overhanging of roots and earth. Kira couldn’t help herself. She climbed into the cramped space, the rain at her back, and snuggled into the familiar warmth of the other woman’s robes.