(She wished she matched it—that instead of being black she might be blue, that instead of being equine she might have a horn twining from her brow, that instead of being skull-faced and incongruous she'd belong to somewhere, anywhere.)

Nobody connected the sea to her. Nobody looked at her and thought, ah, her magic is all about the water around us and the blood in my veins. She wondered what they did think—if they thought she'd be full of poisonous magic, destructive magic, ruinous magic. If they did, she wouldn't blame them, but it could be tiring to be stereotyped. A shame she didn't have the patience to show the simple beauty of her magic to her enemies.

What enemies? That would be Lilómiel, cavorting in the air above her head. My enemies, she told him, sullen and melancholy. The ones out to get me. Perhaps there weren't many out there—she was too clever for that—but they were there nonetheless, even if she didn't yet know their faces. One day, as a leader, as a ruler (a thought that made her shiver with excitement) she'd know them, and she'd be thankful for her wariness. (At least that's what she told herself.)

That day was drawing nearer. She was still far away from trading her muscle for steel, her blood for oil, and her mind for something dead and cold; from being able to call herself a war machine. But it was coming. And there were other things she had to do too. Gather her friends, find her loyal followers... where were they? She hadn't expected it to be easy, but she hadn't expected it to be so damned difficult.

(Wars can take years to plan, Nym.)

Well, she wasn't going to be waiting years before she took her rightful crown. She had to beat her brother, before he could beat her.

Ice cracked and groaned beneath her as she wandered the emptiness of what had come to be her church. Her thoughts rolled and grew, coiling over one another like a nest of garter snakes waiting for summer to come; her thoughts were not so kind today, but then, they hadn't been recently. That time where she'd been—been almost normal—seemed to be receding faster and faster as the nights grew longer and the days darker.

It wasn't only Rikyn in need of a little violence.

They saw him on the horizon. They came in close with an intricate dance, a heavy step and a sway of Nym's curled mane. They knew—or so they assumed to know—the stranger by way of his hooves thumping [violently] at rocks and his loneliness in wandering. Together they smiled, Nym wolfish and pretty, Lilómiel smiling only by the way he circled as a vulture would. (The wind howled.) "Care for a fight?" Nymeria's voice was more animal than equine, a svelte and rolling purr; simultaneously, she stepped in closer to the stranger, facing him head-to-head. Without any visible movement, Nymeria pressed her magic into the ice around them. First it began to simmer, then steam, and then it melted away in a circle with a diameter of about thirty feet. The water, heated by the boiled ice, was no longer cold but warm.

She tilted her head up to the stallion, and again a smile flashed across her lips, a haunting and cruel challenge. (Do you really think you can fight me?)