She awoke some time later. The stars seemed unnaturally bright. She realized that the moon had set, that sunrise was less than an hour away. This was that time of night called darktide, when the stars are brightest.

Propping herself up on an elbow, she gazed around. Damar lay an arms reach from her, hands folded over his chest as though posed for the crypt. Kreathania was nowhere in sight.

Birds began to sing all around as though to summon the sun from its palace of night. Belkynn listened intently for several moments. The birds within hearing were unalarmed. Other animal noises came intermittently from various distances, but nothing out of place. She rose to a sitting position and looked carefully around. The moss still shed its calm golden illumination. Vermin and small animals scurried on their secret ministries as though undisturbed.

“Kreathania?” Belkynn said it in a tone barely audible to her own ears.

“I am here.” She stepped from the trunk of the tallest cedar.

“Can you teach me that song?”

“No, child,” she smiled sadly. “You have not the power to learn that skill.”

“Then what is it you would teach me?”

“To save that which you most love,” Kreathania replied.

“Have I not the skill?” Belkynn stared aghast. She had been through so much since leaving Temlacaer. First the troll on the cliff. Then Damar turned out to be a man, worthy of his legends but so entirely human and different from them. She had become a mother. Dahto and Damar had taught her healing lores as well as a hundred more ways to kill, wound, or maim—and how to decide what was needed.

“You could not,” Kreathania put a comforting hand on her shoulder, and Belkynn felt life flow through her in a way she could not have imagined before her pregnancy. It was not merely her own life. Not even the dual singularity of a mother carrying a child. She felt as though she were the living mountain on which she stood.

“Stop!” Belkynn knocked the hand away and dropped to her knees in agony, retching.

“That is the naxhtok,” Kreathania told her.

The word brought an image of serpent people, snake to midchest and human from there up. They slithered through stone and wood and wherever serpents were wont. But they breathed poison. And everything around them seemed to take on their taint.

Belkynn tried to shake the image from her imagination, but it held her rapt. Human-like faces had sharp cheeks but soft chins. Pits below and behind the eyes marked some as venomous—other cheek types showed others as not. Scaly protrusions marked individuals where hair might mark a person. Their ears were concave, like those of serpents.

“You,” Belkynn stared at Kreathania. “Get . . . out . . . o’ my HEAD!”

Kreathania took a step back as though she had been punched in the forehead. Belkynn’s mind cleared as she willed it to.

“I crave your pardon,” Kreathania bowed. “We have no time for me to teach you in words, daughter of Dreydillon.”

She reasserted her presence in Belkynn’s mind. Belkynn fought back at first, but the harder she fought, the more piercing the pain in her ears, eyes, and chest. When she gave up and accepted the other presence, the pain faded. Soon, she felt the way she had sitting beside her mother by the stream in the foothills of Temlacaer.

Using disciplines taught by the rangers and perfected by Damar’s training, Belkynn kept her mind clear of her own reactions and absorbed the knowledge and lore Kreathania poured into her mind and being like purest spring water.

“That is all for now.” Kreathania looked rather pale in the dimming light of sunset.

Shocked that the day was gone, Belkynn gazed around as though for danger. It seemed that only a moment had gone by. And yet it felt like years. Indeed, she had gained more memories in this day than she thought she had in the entire twenty-six years of her life previous.

She checked Damar to find that he was in a deep sleep. Or a trance. She couldn’t tell which. But he was stable and healing. She flinched now as she noted injuries she had not noticed before. One of the braids of his beard had been yanked out, along with a large chunk of flesh. Belkynn made a poultice for it and pressed it firmly to the wound before lying beside him and going to sleep.

This cycle repeated for three days. Belkynn realized on the fourth morning that it had been the three days of the full moon. She knew this to be important, though she could not specifically recall the reason.

“Good morning.” Damar’s voice was a rasp of shale down a mountain slope. He opened his eyes as she touched his forehead.

“Being in a hurry is seldom the best means to an end,” she chided him gently.

“Is he . . .” Damar struggled to sit and gaze around.

“Who’s with us?”

“With us?” Belkynn turned quickly to scan for Kreathania. “We are alone.”

“Not here,” he said darkly. “Never here.”

“What?” Belkynn dared not tell him about the strange woman while he gazed around so fiercely.

“This forest lives,” he said. “It’s not too blessed happy, either.”

“You know this?”

“Of course I know it.” Damar ruffled her hair. “I tend to notice things, you know.”

“Of course,” she smiled. Her smile turned mischievous after a moment of poignant tenderness. “Like trolls?”

“He’s . . .” Damar’s eyes grew deep with shadows. “Did you kill him?”

“Him or me,” she said, confused that anyone would show concern for the vile beasts.

“I prefer you—I mean . . . to be the one left breathing.

“Where is he? I need something from him.”

“Something . . .” She shivered at the thought. “He’s back where he waylaid you.”

“Good.” He rose and gazed around, stretching his muscles and testing his wounds. “I’m going back for him. Stay here and gather our gear. Forage a bit. We’ll need supplies.

“Anything I need to look for on the way back?”

“My weapons,” Belkynn said, blushing. “I came here . . .”

“No need to explain,” Damar said, smiling softly before gazing around at the cedars. “I’ve had the most intriguing dreams . . .”

He walked off toward the scene of their battle. Belkynn considered following discreetly, but decided that she should first take his advice. She ranged in circles around their makeshift bedrolls and gathered all she could find that was useful: vines, mushrooms, herbs, Hades fruit, slither berries, and other roots, nuts, and berries.

“My daughter,” Kreathania held a bundle out toward her. She had not sensed the strange woman’s coming.

“Thank you, Kreathania,” Belkynn bowed her gratitude.

“Are you ready, my child?” Kreathania asked. Her eyes were deep with shadow and mystery now, intense as midnight.

“Ready?”

“You know the danger now,” she said kindly. “You have not asked how we may avert the dangers I have shown you.”

“It was in my heart that I shall know when the time comes,” Belkynn Kallon replied.

“You do and you shall,” Kreathania nodded. “But remember and be forewarned: all great power comes with great sacrifice as well as great responsibility. Dreydillon is not merely those we love; it is all who coexist with us.”

“Then why would you have me slay the naxhtok?”

“The time of their dominion is over, my child. It is time for the manoid races to spread over Dreydillon. Now is your age. Those whom you supplant no longer have a place here.”

“I shall do all within my power,” Belkynn Kallon bowed low to the tall lady. And then Kreathania was gone.