The mare balked, wanting to stay.

“We’re getting as far from here as possible, do you understand me? That man killed me, or tried to kill me, even if he wasn’t the one who wielded the knife. I’ll never trust him, and neither should you.”

After a pause, as if considering her words or deciding whether it was worth a confrontation, the mare opened her wings. Marit mounted. They flew.

THE MARE DID not want to take her in the direction Marit wanted to go, but Marit held the reins, and forced the issue. Beyond the eastern hill in the direction of the thread of smoke lay a box canyon utterly without life or interest beyond dusty green thickets of spiny hedge-heath and bitter-thorn. The smoke came from a pile of brush smoldering at the very end where the walls fenced you in, an excellent spot for an ambush. They came to earth, the mare tossing her head and snorting. Whispers hissed from thickets along the slopes, but no one appeared. The sound might only have been the way the wind clawed through the buds and leaves, but she had a cursed strong feeling that whoever was there had seen her.

It might have been the passage of a drizzling rain, quickly laid down and quickly vanished as soon as its hooves touched earth. It might have been the way the mare turned, once on the ground, and headed straight out of the trap with a determined gait despite branches of bitter-thorn raking her flanks and tearing a pale gray feather from her wings. Those wings, folded tight, protected Marit’s legs.

“That’s the second warning you’ve given me, or maybe the third,” said Marit, bending low in case some cursed fool decided to loose an arrow or fling a spear.

As they cleared the canyon and found themselves in a rugged intersection of hills and ridges with the suggestion of a valley opening away to the southeast and the sharp spine of the high mountains to the west, Marit wondered if she had imagined the ambush.

“You choose,” she said to the mare. “Anywhere but north.”

The mare took flight, bearing due south according to the sun. Steep hills were easily cleared. Almost before Marit realized they had come upon human life, they sailed over a high meadow where a flock of sheep grazed. The youth watching over the flock plucked strings, head bent over a two-stringed lute.

The mare trotted to earth out of sight of the meadow, and Marit left her with reins loose, hoping the horse wouldn’t stray. She cut through a stand of pine, thick with scent, and brushed through knee-high grass at the meadow’s edge. The lad played intently, biting a lip. His concentration gave him charm. A handsome dog emerged from behind him and ran toward her with ears raised, interested but not particularly suspicious. The dog raced around her as she advanced, and a startled bleat from one of the grazing sheep caught the boy’s attention. He looked up as Marit paused a stone’s toss from him.