Luck was on Faolain’s side, and as her throat burned and she began to feel fatigued from the climb up the jagged path, she heard the musical rush of water spilling down the mountainside nearby. Faolain left the path she followed, leaping over tangled undergrowth and winding around the twisted trunks of stubborn mountain trees, until her hooves dropped into the shallow cleft of stone through which a narrow stream wound. She dipped her wounded muzzle into the cold creek and drank greedily, until she began to feel full and swollen with water. She might have drank herself sick if the crashing of hooves and familiar scent of the Ridge’s red guardian did not pull her attention away from the stream.

As she lifted her weathered face, crystalline droplets of water hanging from her lips and whiskers, her silver-haired companion broke through the undergrowth and halted. Faolain’s heart leapt, and she let out a soft nicker, stepping away from the creek and toward the painted woman.

“Rivaini,” Faolain croaked, her voice hardly more than a whisper. Her throat was soothed by the water, but she still felt the raw places where salt had weathered her away.

Something happened. Fae, tell me what happened.

Rivaini’s approach was tentative, cautious, but Faolain met her without hesitation. The angry wound on her muzzle stung when she pressed it against her lover’s whiskered nose, but she leaned into it, drowning out the scent of Luthien and seawater that remained stubbornly in her sinuses with the familiar scent of Rivaini.

But she couldn’t lose herself entirely, not yet. She pulled back just enough to look Rivaini in the face. “Nyimara had a child with Cullen,” she began soberly. The relief she had felt when everything was over, the guilty dread of what had happened, mixed together again in a hurricane of emotions. It had taken a long time for Faolain to understand what she needed to do, and she had built up impregnable walls around herself to be able to carry out the task. It hadn’t been difficult, not really, once she actually left Atlantis to do it. Realizing the necessity had been a struggle, but looking back it seemed so obvious. The offspring of two of the Islands’ most cruel individuals, both of whom had it out for the Ridge for reasons Faolain still could not understand, could not be allowed to exist.

The risks were just too great.

“I killed him,” she continued. “I had to do something. I couldn’t sit around and wait for him to follow in their footsteps. But… it doesn’t matter, but it was an accident. It wasn’t the resolution I intended, but I have to live with it anyway. I am not proud.”

But she wasn’t ashamed, either.

As she spoke, Faolain had watched Rivaini for any sign of a reaction. It would be a lie to say that she was not anxious as she fell silent, waiting for disgust, or fear, or anger. It was the only conflict that remained after she had made her decision, for though she stood by her actions without regret or care for the opinions of others, Rivaini’s was the only one with the power to hurt her.