When tomorrow came Kovaleska was ready, her hair bound back, clad in a loose dress. She slipped from the house while the dew lurked crystal over everything. Her head still spun a little. Her parents were still asleep. She crept back through the moonforest looking for the giant cloudthresh strand again. It took her almost a turn to find it, but she did and squatted down near the little dreamling flower and poked it again. It rose up, flowers opening, seeming to regard her.

Root-child…Child of Sen’tael…Remember silence.

She bit her lip.

Something sleeps in the dream. Dark-flowers-in-stream. Searching.

It had told her such as this last night, but she did not understand.

Its flower-face…quivers…it is close to yours. We may sing more of the twilight songs, but downstream. Root-child…you must today be silent.

And then she squatted there for a little more. Waiting. That was when she noticed a quietude had fallen upon the land around the village. Some floats of everbloom drifting in a windless dance, but most of the animals were quiet.

“Bye little dreamling,” Kova said to the plant-thing. She walked home. When she came through the door her mother’s brow was furrowed and her hands kneaded one another.

“Where did you go? They’re looking for you…” she took her and led her to the henge.

The bard’s strange steed supped from a pool of ael as they got closer. Some of the serpent heads drank as well. Inside most of the tables had been cleared. Her father stood when he saw her. At the table was Ryfkharnu as well as some of the elders.

Her father knelt and held her, touching her face, arms. “My Kova,” he said, “speak truly to me. Can you ride the dream?”

“I . . . I . . .” she stuttered.

“This one.” Ryfkha’s voice rang out.

Her father rose and turned around. “What of Kovaleska?”

“Let me speak with her.”

Her father nodded. He brought her toward the table. His hands were tight on her shoulders. The five elders watched expectantly. She did not know the dream of stone after all. The world was singing.

“You dream. You are dreaming now a little. Now that you stand before me, I am certain. Tell us all truly. Can you dream?”

She did not know. It did not really feel like dreaming. Nor was it like in the stories when the heroes used their great dreaming powers.

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“Do you hear the song of the wind? The song of the woods? Can you ride the dream? It is different for everyone.”

“There is a little dreamling,” she blurted. “I have just been talking.”

Everything was silent for a long time. The shadows twisting and tangling into little ridges and lines and vortices around them. Her father sighed.

“So it is.” He hugged her again, tight and firm, and kissed her forehead and cheeks and mouth. Cupped her face in his.

Kova knew what was to come next. She remembered Mycarah. They all did. When she had awakened to snarling and shouting deeper within the village. His father was a dracari tender. He may have somehow begun to commune with such things. She remembered playing with him in the water meadows. He had always craved adventure. They swam through the morass day after day in the summers.

That winter was when the lorgen knew him. They began baying one day, and in the days to come thronged on the village outskirts. Finally they came for him. He barely survived. His parents rode out with a few warriors and took him to the Children. Someday when he became a Judicator he could visit them.

“She cannot stay. You know that. I will take her to where she must be.”

The elders spoke quietly amongst themselves. Eventually the foremost among them, Elder Pataro, rose awkwardly. Bulbous and portly, warped from time and the bounty of the moonforest, he wore an enveloping dark robe with the cowl pulled down, simple twine as a belt.

The elders had decided. The warriors would go now, in a few turns, with Ryfkharnu and Kovaleska through the moonforest to Shadow Falls, where they could book passage to the aelsea, then on to Kurasant. The warriors would continue east to Tasune, toward the Witch King’s War.

So it was. She had a few turns to say goodbye. There was time, but not enough.

Everyone came to her. Their brows were furrowed. They had trouble looking at her. Her mother hushed her desperately. She whispered please come back to us Kovaleska. Dreamling butterfly. You were my favorite part of life. Please be safe waterlily.

When it was all said and done, twenty warriors mounted their orsids. Her father told Ryfkharnu to stay between them all.

She rode in front of the bard on his strange drelnai. She had protested, but Ryfkha deemed it best for now so he could keep a close eye on any manifestations.

“There is nothing to fear from the drelnai,” he informed her, though he seemed slightly revolted by the thing.

“Why is it like this?”

“It is not true-threaded.” She could hear his voice in his chest when he spoke. Rumbling.

“What’s its name?”

The bard did not say anything. She asked again but he hushed her. Kova frowned. A keening call rippled through the forest. A scream at the edge of sound. It modulated, rippling. Others joined it. The warriors exchanged glances. Kovaleska knew what was it. Lorgen.

“So be it. We ride.” Her father flicked the reins and the orsid lunged forward.

They rode out, falling into a line on the narrowing rootpaths, their saddles bulged with food and blankets and other equipment. Each warrior with a bow and a spear, and many had other weapons besides. She looked back, and saw the top of the henge, and then it disappeared as they rode down into the rootpaths. The warriors rode this way often, it was their business after all to know the folk and beasts of their land, and her father the eldest among them.

They rode carefully through rambling vines and gulleys. Soon enough some of the warriors had taken out their lanterns, wooden and carried on long sticks, and used them to illuminate the murk they found themselves in. They passed in this dark and toothless snakepath a series of grottos lit by mushroomlight and everbloom, sometimes they heard trickling and sloshing, and gingerly guided their mounts over sheets of still water. They passed through a steaming bank of fog or mist, and emerged breaths later in overgrowth lit by wavering shafts of the two stars’ light.

They would not stop for more than a few breaths to let the steeds draw succor until they reached Fireshrine.