The yearling filly watched Maha sunbathe from her hiding place in the trees. Her jealousy of him reared its ugly, irrational head, as though she were limited to the cold and dark places of the Bay while he – the heir – was allowed into the warmth and light. It wasn’t true, and she knew it, but her illegitimacy and the circumstances of her presence here were sources of bitter insecurity, and every little thing seemed to make them worse. She craved for Maha’s silent father to look at her the way he looked at his biological son, because her own father wouldn’t even glance her way. Quinn didn’t look at anyone that way, not even his witch queen, and Rieva had long given up trying for his attention. She didn’t even notice when he departed Tinuvel, leaving the Cove and Rieva for the wolves.

She clung to the Beast of the Bay like a lost puppy. His first act of kindness to her had been sparing her life when Quinn had hidden her so poorly within his neighbor’s borders. The child of another stallion should have been eliminated, at the very least purged from his borders with punishing teeth and an unambiguous warning never to return, but he hadn’t even done that. The scarred, stocky male had dug her out of the bushes kicking and screaming, and then left her there in the open for one of his mares to find and nurse. She hadn’t been weaned yet, and the emaciated filly had survived until that point by approaching the leftover Cove mares and Salem mothers alike with her head low and her jaw working submissively. Sometimes she was given a hesitant, begrudging sip of milk, and then chased away; sometimes the mother tried to keep her, but Rieva always ran, knowing nothing but cruelty and pity.

In the Bay, it was much of the same, but no one kicked her while Fell was around. He never approached the pathetic child, but she watched him admonish a terrifyingly tall dappled mare for striking Rieva when she got too close. The poor woman was enormously pregnant, and wanted nothing to do with the ghostly little wretch who should have been weaned already. After the black stallion’s lashing, she begrudgingly accepted the stunted filly, and Rieva gained a bit of much-needed weight before finally weaning herself.

Fell still never approached her on his own, but Rieva hovered closer and closer to him, half-heartedly hiding herself to watch him interact with his herd. She became envious, especially when she watched his boldly marked heir, Maha. Fell loved Maha, and Rieva came to understand that he would never love her the same way.

Still, she tried to be one of the Bay children. She played with the other foals, who didn’t seem to see her as an outsider the way many of the adults did. She attempted to repay Yael for tolerating her presence by looking after her twins once they were born. She made friends with the other yearlings, who didn’t seem to think of asking where she had come from or who her parents were. It hurt her heart to do so, but she clung to hope, and felt soothed whenever Yael’s twins seemed happy to see her, or when Axefall bowled her over and they wrestled to exhaustion.

But she couldn’t bring herself to approach Maha.

Rieva closed her eyes, mimicking the painted boy in the meadow in front of her. He seemed content to soak up the sun, so the ghostly filly tried to be content to soak up the shadows – she gave a little sigh, and a subtle shiver, and allowed herself to be chilled by the gentle breeze.

When she opened her eyes again, Maha was right there. He was so quiet that Rieva hadn’t heard him start moving again, and he had one foot in the shadow of the pines by the time she noticed. He was hardly two strides away. With a startled hiss of breath, the scrawny yearling darted away, putting several paces between them before she turned again to peek at him through the ferns. There was no doubt he had seen her, and she watched him with the frozen anticipation of a hunted deer, waiting to see if he chose to follow her or let her flee.