She hadn't known she was pregnant when she left. She hadn't even meant to leave at all. Rieva had gotten caught on the beach near the cliff face at low tide and pulled out to sea when the waves began to rush in. By the time she realized her mistake, the ghostly mare's path to safety had already been cut off, and she had no choice but to wait for the riptide to pull her under.

She washed up on the shore of unfamiliar land. If it was an island, it was huge; she never found the other end of it, but she also wasn't prone to wandering. Even if she had wanted to risk losing track of the place she had arrived, Rieva had not come out of the storm unscathed. She had torn or sprained something that she couldn't see, and the result was that her hip and upper hind leg could not bear weight without simply... crumpling.

By the time she was whole enough to swim, Narinder was fighting his way into the world, and the haggard mare had to put off her departure even longer. Nari was almost a yearling by the time Rieva washed up on the Ridge to find Lucifer gone. He was a young adult by the time she tracked his father all the way to Salem, and had developed into a person with his own interests and wanderlust.

Rieva was alone when she reached the Dunes in the middle of the night, though she knew her son could fend for himself, and likely hadn't gone far. She wasn't worried.

She was livid.

Rieva rolled into the Dunes like smoke off a wildfire. She had never been pretty, but now she felt downright ugly, and she leaned into the ugliness. She was emaciated, scarred, limping, and her face twisted in a vicious snarl. Her ears folded back, pulling her expression taught.

As soon as she saw Lucifer in the distance, she halted. Her malnourished, distended belly contracted abruptly as she blew a voiceless challenge into the cold desert air.