Fell had dreamed many times of Kohelet’s call on the shores of the Bay. He had heard so many versions of it. When he hears yet another ringing tentatively through the evergreens, his first thought is that he must be asleep.

Something about this one is different, though. The late spring breeze smells too sharply of damp soil and evergreen, and a fat drop of rainwater from a recent shower is shaken loose of its hold on a branch above him and splatters squarely between his shoulders. The sensation of cold moisture and the sudden, tiny whack of the drop as it hits his skin are suspiciously clear, not hazy or blurred within dream reality.

He moves toward the sound, eyes narrowed as though he expects this to be some kind of trick. Fell pushes through the undergrowth, his pace quickening with every stride. He worries, somehow, that the call might not turn out to be real if he takes too long to find it – as though, if only he can hunt down its source and put eyes on the one who made it, he can force it into reality. And if he fails, if he takes too long, Kohelet will be a ghost to him; she will slip through his fingers like smoke, again.

As quickly as he races to find her, dashing along the familiar trails with practiced agility, Fell is still brought to a shocked halt when he actually sees her there. This is more cruel than seeing no one at all, surely. It must be some kind of trick. Another one of Nyimara’s cruel games. He had tasked Solomon with an impossible thing, to wrest one of his sister’s playthings away from her, and Fell regrets it to his very bones in this instant. He doesn’t think of Solomon as incapable of negotiating Kohelet’s release, or possibly executing a rescue, but Fell’s perception of Nyimara is so twisted and cruelly intelligent that he could not conceive of a scenario where the Tinuvel king succeeded. Worse, he had been so blinded by emotion when he made the request that he had thought failure – and the continued absence of Kohelet from his life – was the worst outcome. He should have known better.

She hasn’t been freed, he thinks with horror. She’s been sent.

Still, Fell can’t stem the relief that wells within him at the sight of her and the colt. He had watched them from the sea a handful of times, only as often as he was certain he could get away with. He had long suspected he might never get to see the painted mare up close again, or meet their child for real. His vision swims with tears, of love and shame in equal measures, and his ears swivel uncertainly to and fro. He can’t bring himself to come any closer, fearing she might dissolve into the breeze if he does, so he stays where he is. Fell stretches his muzzle forward, hooves rooted in place, and gives a gentle whicker of greeting.

stallion | marwari mutt | black | torn left ear | bay