In most of her travels, Faolain had experienced winters across a variety of climates, but only once before had she spent the season in the tropics. The orchestra of migratory birds was nearly deafening, and brought her back to that time in the rainforest when she could hardly sleep, so loud were their calls. Now, it is not the birds that keep her awake. She has learned to tune them out and find silence in her mind, but she has trouble finding peace. She is frustrated with Nyimara, though she knows nothing of the mare aside from her desire to make another horse her slave. It had felt so wrong to Faolain, hearing the silver mare talk about Siobhan, and she struggled with the guilt that she had not been able to stop her, despite Ailill’s herd technically not falling under her protection. She doesn’t care much for the semantics of their relationship as leaders of separate herds; she is supposed to be a guardian, and sitting back and letting the red mare disappear into the waves did not feel like a guardian thing to do.

But there is nothing she can do about it now. She paces through the jungle, slowly, slipping through the shadows like a cat. She will have to get over this discomfort, she knows; it is of use to no one to deprive herself of sleep, unintentionally or otherwise, and to instead wander the mountainside aimlessly, lulled by the songs of the birds. But she is driven to pace, and she cannot stop, because standing still feels somehow more useless. She knows Siobhan’s family does not sleep; she can feel their grief in the air. Why should she get to sleep? It makes no sense to punish herself, she knows, and yet she is driven to do it anyway. She has been changed by the responsibility of leadership, in some ways she had expected and some ways she had not. It comes with the territory, and not all of the gifts of power were good.

Eventually, she settles enough to find herself at the edge of the waves, warm water sliding up around her hooves before pulling back into the calm sea. The bird’s calls do not reach her out here, and instead she hears only the sighing of the waves. In some ways it is comforting, but in others it is sorrowful, and part of her wishes the tide would just carry her off and she could resume her old life of no home and no responsibility.

But that is not honorable, and cruel abandonment is not in Faolain’s nature. So she stands in the waves, watching the sky beyond begin to lighten with dawn, and eventually she dozes off.