Falls

Before the solitude of her self-imposed exile, Kvothe had grown accustomed to the rhythmic passage of time. Like the rise and fall of her own chest or the beating of her heart, there was a comfortable predictability to life’s pace. The Inlet’s tides rose and fell at regular intervals. The seasons changed in the same pattern from one year to the next, gradually trading the relentless cold of Tinuvel’s winter for the life-giving warmth of its summer, and then reversing their cycle. Even the shifting of Ironclad’s personality— from solicitous to solitary, and then back again— was something by which the chestnut Friesian could track the progress of her days.

Here on the Crossing, however, time seemed to follow a different set of rules. Here, a single moment might span an eternity— and yet a season was somehow gone in a blink of her dark eyes.

For Kvothe, the first summer of Aslan’s life had passed in such a way. In fact— if not for the evidence of her senses— she might not have noticed autumn’s arrival. But her dark eyes watched the leaves transform, her pointed ears heard the sun-dried stalks of grass whisper together, and her red skin felt the chill that now hung in the air. And there was something else, too— the unwelcome flicker of instinctive desire beneath the heavy cloud of her fear. For the first time, Kvothe recognized her heat for what it was, and fled where her body might have betrayed her. She’d already been secluded for the last remnants of spring and the entirety of summer, but the slender mare became even more solitary now. Except in the dead of night, she did not leave the band of forest between Peak and Fall. And when she did, it was only to drink quickly from the small pool, tensed to flee at the faintest flurry of movement in her vicinity.

Tonight, she was late in descending from the base of the Vulcan’s home to visit the watering hole. The scent of an unfamiliar stallion lingering nearby had left her frozen in the thicket where Aslan slept and played; the only home her bold little cub had ever known. Only hours later did she finally dare to venture beyond its dubious safety, her son forming a soft golden shadow at her side. Only then— the grey of dawn staining slowly across the black canopy of the sky— was Kvothe driven desperate enough by her son’s shallow, thirsty pants to make the familiar trek to the Falls.

It was a decision that she might well find cause to regret.

Ushering the lanky figure of her colt in front of her, the ember-colored woman headed straight for the pool without hesitation. But as she watched the boy drink— hovering protectively at his flank, dark eyes flitting throughout the lightening clearing— Kvothe abruptly froze. At first she was not certain of what she’d seen; of that pale sliver that moved through the trees near where she’d emerged. But with her next breath, she tasted a scent that was all too familiar. A scent that invoked terror and comfort at the same time. Exhaling her breath in a soft woosh, the Friesian mare nudged insistently at Aslan, attempting to herd him back into the cover of the forest. But the child only balked at her urgency, small ears twisting back to lay against his skull and dark eyes rimmed with white.

And— somewhere behind him— Kvothe heard soft hooffalls and knew that escape was now impossible.