I never did catch Mauja. I did find the World’s Edge though – or at least if Ilios’s description had been in any way correct, wherever I am now seems like it. The cold, silver trees of the Threshold had eventually smoothed out into evergreens that grew in thick clusters that reminded me of the home I’d left. Somewhere in the distance I thought I could hear the roar of the ocean, but surrounded by the trees I couldn’t be certain it wasn’t just my imagination. All of this fit the description I’d been given of the Edge and yet one very important thing was missing. There was no flash of black-speckled white weaving through the trunks, no peculiar stallion with an uncontrollable tongue. Before he’d promptly disappeared Mauja had said that the herd here was small but I hadn’t quite expected to turn up to a vacant forest. 
 

I certainly wasn’t opposed to retreating back into a life of isolation in the forest but these were not the free forests of my homeland; a herd already inhabited this place despite their ability to stay hidden. I knew the black spotted unicorn was here somewhere – his hoofprints had been relatively easy to follow out of the Threshold and had only begun to fade once I’d reached where I now was. That current location was a rather nondescript clearing surrounded by trees that all looked the same and offered no real landmark or suggestion of where to go next. By now I was half-frozen and wholly exhausted. In a day’s time I’d walked myself right into a new nation, met more individuals in one sitting than I had in my entire life, and journeyed after a stallion I knew next to nothing about into his homeland.
 

It was entirely too much. My mind was reeling while the rest of my body was shutting down. It was by sheer force of will that I was left standing when all my muscles and bones wanted to collapse into a shapeless heap on the ground. My eyelids drooped more than a few times, sliding down to drape me in blissful darkness. I could sleep right here, right now, all worries of finding Mauja momentarily forgotten. And yet I did not sleep. Instinct screamed at me to stay awake, alert. This place was all too unfamiliar and it was eerily empty for a herdland. Somewhere distant, the acknowledgement that I could be in danger arose; for all I knew, I wasn’t even at the World’s Edge and I’d gotten lost or Mauja hadn’t gone home from the Threshold. I had no idea what this Helovia might be like, I was completely out of my element.
 

And suddenly I felt very small and very exposed in this little clearing and that was enough to wake my muscles long enough to retreat behind the treeline. The cover comforted me; the shadows cast in the dim gray light fell over me like a blanket. I was brave enough then to call out, tired uncertainty making my voice waver. “Mauja? Hello?”