His mother is reluctant to return to the Peak - Runar can see it in the set of her jaw and the anxious gleam in her eyes. It’s no wonder, given what had happened last time. Runar had been waiting on a hill overlooking the forested valley while Ylva descended to meet the Vulcans, but the sheer walls of the mountain had been a soundboard for the angry screams that erupted a short time later, the echo sending a flock of birds flapping from their perches.

Runar wants to ask why it is so important that they return, but he knows Ylva will give the same evasive answer: “For your sister.” She will not tell him what this means, no matter how many times he asks. Neither can she tell him why he should care about a relative he’s never met. Yet, it had been this, or stay behind with Errant. Runar had thought only a moment about the stallion who clung to them like a stubborn burr, with his strange speech and antiquated sense of morality, and opted for the former option.

Once his mother has gathered enough courage to descend into the valley once more, Runar lingers on the exposed hill with barely a glance or a goodbye. He nibbles listlessly at the sparse tufts of grass growing among the cracks of the hard, stony earth, then casts his dark eyes around the area, wondering if the strange filly he’d seen before was still here. There is nothing, however: only small rodents disappearing into burrows, a vulture circling in a vibrant blue sky, and the distant whicker of a horse in the valley.

Runar tosses his silver-streaked forelock from his eyes and looks back the way they’d come, out across the acres of open meadow and clusters of woods in their autumn splendor. Out there, somewhere, lie the mortal enemies of the Peak, a notorious group of bachelors that Runar has heard of, but never seen.

Not for the first time, he feels a dark and dangerous longing in his heart.