“I am,” she said, and took the halter off Daystar. An older horse could wear a halter day and night to make it easier to catch them, but a foal this young could not be trusted not to stick her silly nose where it didn’t belong, get a halter-strap caught on something, and—

Well, at the least, she’d panic and then be afraid of the halter. At the worst she could break a leg or strangle herself.

Daystar trotted—it was more like a bounce—a few lengths away, then frisked, kicked, and bounded over to play with some of the other foals.

I wish I was a foal. Their lives are full of nothing but joy.

Delia patted Arial, then joined her sister, climbing over the fence.

“I need you to start taking messages to our people and bringing their concerns back to the manor, as Kordas has done,” Isla said. “I can’t spare the time. First of all, they need to know he’s been called to the Capital and we don’t know when he’ll be back, and second, we like to keep on top of what our people need at all times. So you’ll have to be his surrogate. I’ll loan you my mare Sundrop. She knows you, and everyone will recognize your authority if you are mounted on a Valdemar Gold.”

Delia easily read between the lines of this bland statement. She was to tell the people that Kordas trusted that the first Gate had been established, and it was time to start moving people through it.

The thought actually made her insides feel weak for a moment. This wasn’t just a fantasy, or a “maybe someday.” It was happening, and not even (or perhaps especially) was Kordas’s absence going to slow or stop it. In fact, it might just make things more urgent.

“Now?” she asked. Isla nodded.

“I need you to ride out to Squire Lesley and Count Endicrag today. I’ve gotten one of the scribes to copy a map for you to follow, and they’re the nearest. Come snatch some luncheon while Grim has Sundrop saddled for you.”

She blinked her eyes in surprise. Count Endicrag? That made sense. He was one of the eight ranking landholders in Valdemar. But Squire Lesley?

“The pig farmer?” she said incredulously.

“He’s anything but just a pig farmer,” her sister replied in a note of gentle rebuke. “He serves as the local magistrate. He knows everyone in his corner of Valdemar, and everyone knows him. Lord Merrin might think he is the one in charge of those lands, but everyone in that County looks first to Lesley for guidance, because Merrin knows nothing about them, and cares less. Kordas knows this, and knows that asking Merrin about things will yield no useful information, but Lesley will know all the blessings and ills, and likely how to fix the latter.”