Bren came to herself huddled among the debris clutching her mother’s amulet to her chest. She had no memory of taking it up. A gray dawn had seeped into the sky, though the night’s chill lingered. Her throat felt raw, and her eyes ached from crying.

Mama. Papa. Helat.

Gone. Dead.

Slowly, she pushed herself to her hands and knees, and then to her feet. She felt stiff and sore, but it didn’t seem like anything was broken. In the sepulchral morning light, she could now clearly see that her tunic and trousers were little more than charred scraps, barely clinging to her. Bren shivered, wrapping her thin arms around herself . . . before she did anything else, she needed new clothes. Everything in the house was ruined or buried under debris, but there was a small chance that her mother hadn’t brought in the washing before the paladin had appeared on the doorstep yesterday. Bren stumbled around the edge of the one wall that remained standing, then gave a little sob of relief when she saw clothes draped over the lowest branch of the tree where her mother hung the laundry. She quickly peeled off the tattered remnants she’d been wearing and dressed herself in the shirt and pants she’d worn two days ago. Her shoes were also falling apart, her toes peeking out where a flap of doeskin had been torn away, but they would have to last for now. She was still cold, so she wrapped herself in a hooded cloak of green-dyed wool that had belonged to her father; it was far too large, but it made her feel safer, since she could pull up the cowl and vanish into its depths. The faint smell of her father’s pipe smoke clung to the wool, bringing with it a pang of sadness.

She couldn’t put off what she needed to do any longer. One of the blankets her mother had woven last winter was also hanging there; it wasn’t large, but the dragon flame had left little enough behind. Bren turned back to the farmhouse, holding the blanket so tightly her fingers hurt. Her family would lie together forever.

***

Bren’s arm trembled as she placed the last stone atop the cairn. She swayed, feeling lightheaded, and then dropped to her knees in the dirt. The gray morning had slowly lightened as she labored, and now the sun was high overhead in a wash of cloudless blue. The beauty of the day sickened Bren. As she had dug the grave and gathered the rocks, the sky had been the color of a funeral shroud, and that had felt right and fitting. Now the warmth on her shoulders and the gentle breeze in her hair and the tittering of birds made her want to scream at how unjust and monstrous this all was. She should be with the herd in the high meadow, her father turning the earth in the western fields, her mother weaving at her loom while Helat played by her feet. Not this. Not this.

Her mother’s amulet was in her hand, and she squeezed the silver disc until she felt its edge cut into her palm. She vaguely sensed the pain, but it was far away, overwhelmed by the numbness that had filled her since she’d set to work burying her family. Blood welled up, and using her thumb she smeared it across the amulet’s blank face. Bren didn’t know what she was doing, but it felt right.

“Silver Mother,” she said softly. “Please help me.”

She rubbed the amulet, imagining her blood seeping into the metal. Every autumn when the Mother was full, swollen with the next month’s sun, the seven valleys would gather to cut the necks of goats and feed the goddess while she was in the throes of birthing the coming days. The blood would give her strength, a small contribution so that she could keep the Everdark away for another little while. Bren’s father had told her one moonless night as the rain lashed the roof and the wind rattled the shutters that in olden times it had been children who were chosen for the goddess. A great sacrifice, but there was power in the blood of men. The nights had grown longer and darker since the lives of goats had replaced those of children to tumble down and fill the goddess’s sacred bowl.

Bren brought the amulet to her lips, breathing in the coppery scent of her own blood. Hear me, goddess.

“They killed Mama,” she murmured hoarsely. “They killed Papa. My brother. Their souls are with you now, so you know this. I’m alone. I want you to let my family know that I won’t forget. Or forgive what happened.” She paused, gathering herself. “Give me the strength, Mother, to bring vengeance to the ones that did this.”

Bren kissed the metal, tasting her own blood on her lips. Then she slipped the amulet around her neck without wiping it clean. The silver did not feel cold laying against her bare skin, though that must have been the blood’s fading warmth.

Bren rose to her feet, for the first time in a long while feeling something other than numb disbelief. She fingered the edges of this new emotion as it grew, letting it swell to fill her breast.

Anger.

Bren knew the oath she’d just sworn to the goddess was a foolish fantasy. She was just a girl of sixteen summers. Her enemies had swords and armor and dragons. Bren breathed in deep, then let it out slowly. But it also meant she had time. Time to grow and learn and train. Those three warriors had been young once. Weak. They had become strong, and so would she. Bren turned and gazed out over the ruin of her house, then the pile of stones marking the resting place of the three people who had once filled her heart.

Revenge might take a lifetime, but what else did she have to live for?

***

The barn was still upright, but it resembled a carcass that had been ripped open by a great predator. On the side where once the set of double doors had stood there was a massive, splintered hole, and Bren approached dreading what she might find within. She was expecting a gristly scene – like when a weasel had gotten inside their chicken coop last summer – but the sunlight pouring through the rent in the wall instead illuminated nothing except scattered hay, long gouges in the floorboards, and a few dark splotches of blood. The dragons had fed on her goats, she had no doubt, but they must have swallowed each of the poor animals whole. Remembering the size of the great monsters, Bren was not surprised.

The horses were too large to have suffered a similar fate, but they had also vanished. From the broken ropes beside the hitching posts it looked like they had panicked and thrashed themselves free, probably when they’d caught the smell of the dragons. Bren hoped they had escaped and were even now cropping the grass in a distant meadow. Frog had been a good and loyal horse, and Bren had feared finding him torn apart ever since she realized the dragons had entered the barn to feed.

She set to scavenging what useful things she could find. A satchel her father had used for his trips to market was hanging on a peg, and she took it down and filled it with some of the less-rotten carrots kept in a bin near the back, treats used to tempt Frog to help pull the plow. There were some torches, lengths of wood dipped in tree-pitch that they’d used at night to scare away wolves that were prowling around the farm. And to her great good luck she found a rusted knife among the tools on her father’s workbench. It wasn’t much, but it made her feel safer as she slipped it into a pocket.

Would this be enough to get her to Leris? Bren had a vague idea of the distance to the City of Roses, as it had once taken her father four days to travel there and back when he’d gone to visit his brother. But that was by horse, and even though Frog was slow and plodding he surely was much faster than Bren would be on foot. She looked down at her ravaged shoes, wondering if her feet could possibly survive such a journey. After chewing her lip for a moment, Bren cut strips from a burlap sack and wrapped them around the remnants of her shoes. She would get new footwear when she got to Leris. Her uncle might not be in the city if the Company had indeed fought in that big battle the paladin had spoken about, but Bren could stay with his wife until he returned.

If he returned.

Bren shoved those thoughts aside and stood, studying her cloth-wrapped feet critically. She hoped that would help, even if it made her look like a beggar. Maybe that would be for the best, as other travelers on the road wouldn’t think she had anything of value to steal. Shouldering her carrot-laden satchel, she turned to leave the barn.

And stumbled back a step. The horse that had surprised her yesterday was framed in the hole torn from the wall, silhouetted by the daylight pouring into the barn. It watched her with the same calmness as before, and Bren couldn’t help but wonder how it had managed to get so close without her hearing.

“Hello, boy,” she murmured soothingly, slowly approaching the motionless horse. “Where did you go? Did you take old Frog with you? Why are you back here?”

She bent down and rummaged in her satchel, drawing forth a carrot and holding it up. “Is this what you want? Are you hungry?”

The stallion’s tail flicked in reply. Its brilliant blue caparison had streaks of mud and had accumulated a fair number of burrs and thorned brambles. It looked like he had run into the forest after bolting from the barn.

“Here,” Bren said, bringing the carrot to the horse’s mouth.

He sniffed, and then nibbled almost delicately.

“Go ahead,” she urged, laying her hand on the side of his head. Watching her with eyes that showed no fear, he took a larger bite, and in moments the carrot was gone. “Very good,” Bren whispered, reaching up to rub his ear in the same way Frog had liked. He made a whuffing sound and she hurriedly pulled her hand back, but then he leaned in closer again to press his head against her.

“Alright, so you do like that,” Bren said. She realized suddenly that she was smiling, and guilt stabbed at her that she could feel anything except sadness right now.

Suddenly the horse swung his head as if he’d heard something, staring towards the ruin of the farmhouse.

“What is it?”

The horse whickered in reply and then turned and trotted from the barn. Bren quickly shouldered her satchel and hurried to follow.

He came to a stop in the yard outside their home. The dirt had been churned by many boots and bore the indentations where the dragons had rested their huge bodies. The evidence of the size of the monsters made Bren shiver, and there was a somewhat sour smell lingering in the air that made her think of charcoal and sweat. She wondered what could have compelled the horse to brave the dragon’s spoor, here where it was strongest.

His hoof kicked at a clump of trampled grass, and then the horse lowered his head to the same spot, almost bringing his muzzle to the ground.

“Something there?” Bren asked, circling the area the horse was interested in. It looked like the rest of the yard, torn up from what had happened yesterday, but otherwise unremarkable.

She stiffened. Her gaze flicked from the charred remnants of the farmhouse’s entrance and then back to where the horse was prodding the earth with his hoof. Yes, this would have been the spot. She remembered a length of glistening blackness sliding into the paladin’s chest, his legs buckling as he collapsed.

Right there.

“Oh,” Bren murmured, stepping closer and laying her hand on the horse’s caparisoned flank. “I’m sorry. He’s gone.”

The horse stopped kicking the dirt and raised his head to look at her. It was foolish, but Bren imagined she saw a question in his sharp blue eyes.

“I don’t know what they did with him. Maybe they honored him with a warrior’s pyre.” Maybe they fed him to their dragons. “But he’s dead.” Her last words were barely more than a whisper, more for her than the horse. “We’ve both lost everything.”

And maybe that meant they were supposed to be together. Bren’s hand drifted to the amulet under her shirt, still crusted with her blood. Was this the Silver Mother’s doing? Had she heard Bren’s oath?

This would certainly make getting to Leris easier. Then she could return the horse to the paladins and explain what had happened here. Still, if someone saw her riding on the road with the symbols of the Silver Mother so prominently displayed they’d assume she was a horse thief. Bren stepped closer to the destrier and unbuckled the straps of his saddle, then took hold of the heavy cloth armor draped over its back. She worried that the horse might shy away or nip at her, but he simply continued to watch her placidly.

“You’ll feel more comfortable not having to carry this around,” Bren murmured, then with some effort pulled the caparison hard enough that it slid from the horse to puddle on the grass.

Bren sucked in her breath, awed by the beauty that was now fully revealed. Even at rest his muscles were clearly etched, and she could only imagine the force and speed with which he could gallop across a battlefield. His coat was pure white, absolutely unblemished, although there were the scars of old wounds along his flank. They almost looked like the claws of an animal, Bren thought, though such a beast would have to be massive.

“Well, if I’m going to ride you I need to give you a name,” she said to the stallion. Her finger gently traced one of the old wounds in his side. It reminded Bren somewhat of the scratches the demon Melikaith had given the Silver Mother, visible on clear nights.

“Moon,” Bren decided, and as soon as she said that she knew it felt right. The color of the horse’s coat, the scars, the fact that he had been the mount of a paladin . . . it was fitting.

She rubbed the horse’s side. “Your name is Moon now.”

The horse whinnied and tossed his head, stamping his hooves like he was ready to depart.

Which was not a bad idea. Bren squinted up at the sky, trying to figure out how long it would be before the sun began to sink. Her family’s cairn had taken her until midday to build, but she thought there was still quite a bit of light left. She supposed she could spend the afternoon scavenging in the ruin of the house, then sleep in the barn and depart on the morrow. But this would mostly just be a delay, and she barely had enough food to last until they reached Leris.

“I agree, let’s go,” Bren murmured to the horse. She hefted the saddle that had come off with the caparison and returned it to Moon’s back. Better to start on her journey now, while the memory of what had happened still burned bright. “To the City of Roses, Moon,” she said and swung herself up into the saddle.