Kaj and Archibald wanted horses to start stepping up to their titles.

Nymeria couldn’t blame them. The Hidden Falls, peaceful as it was, had a sort of stagnancy to it that was hard to ignore—the kind that made danger seem laughably far away and dulled even the sharpest warriors. It might’ve been the constant rainbows, or the low thunder of the falls, or something else entirely; but whatever the case, the call to arms provided Nymeria the perfect opportunity to prove her dedication to the herd.

And that was before the patrolling.

When she’d been assigned to a taskforce with Knox, she’d been a touch surprised. As far as she was aware, this winter would be the first time spies (or illusors, as the Falls called them) would be expected to participate in a job that required practically no brain and certainly little skill.  It felt like a spectacular waste of resources.

(But who was she to complain?) (And thus, she remained quiet and… opportunistic.)

It was Lilómiel who first noticed the blood on the air.

It was Nymeria who decided they’d follow it.

Snow crunched beneath her hooves as she followed her dragon. The black coasted ahead—wings beating once every so often—jaws languidly parted, tail feathers occasionally twitching to make a course adjustment. Nym didn’t question his tracking, instead flaring her nostrils and drinking in the ripening, painfully familiar scent. It was strange to think that that smell—all coarse iron—had once been a constant source of anxiety for her.

She didn’t often think about how having a herd had changed her. For a long time, she’d thought the Falls had done nothing for her. (She’d come to realize she was painfully wrong about that.)

The dense pines began to thin, and the companions broke free into the Thistle Meadow.

Was it wrong to say she was disappointed by the scene of the crime? Nymeria had been hoping for a murder—for a bloodbath!—or even an agonizing, everything’s-gone-wrong birth. Those would’ve been stories worth sharing, she thought (and for a moment a memory of flame and screams interrupted her thinking), information worth telling. And instead she had nothing: nothing but a stallion and his companion, a cub (a charlatan!) playing with bones.

Lilómiel hissed, banking back towards her. We could mug them.

I don’t think that’d go over well.

“Hello!” Nymeria called, striking out towards the stranger. There was no sign of her dismay—instead a merry smile lit up her face, and her buxom hips swung in a flirtatiously artistic pattern. He was remarkably handsome, with his spots and his stripes and his wild eyes—and she thought she’d spotted something shiny on him.

Something pointy, like her brother’s dagger.