The leaves were rustling.

Briar paused, her head halfway to the ground. A spindly fern sat patiently between her forehooves, its ridged leaves bristling against the ground. She cocked an ear, listening.

Rustling leaves hadn’t been the sole cause for her attention. This was the edge of the Everfree: here, there was always a wind in the air, always a critter scampering away just out of sight.

No. It wasn’t the wind that had caught her ear. It was the voice that had come with it.

Snout melting into a frown, Briar pulled away from the fern and stared toward the brush she’d heard the voice from. She’d heard of birds that could mimic a pony’s voice—screamjays, Matron called them—but they lived in the southwestern part of the forest, easily miles from here. The voice couldn’t be Matron herself; Briar knew better than that. As far as she knew, though, nopony but she chanced these woods.

Holding herself perfectly still, she held her head aloft, straining to catch a whisper of sound on the breeze. For few moments, she heard nothing more—only the wind in the leaves, and the call of a bluejay from a faraway tree. There came a reply: a fellow jay, answering the call of its mate.

And with it, ever so faintly, came a low, whimpering voice. Briar’s eyes narrowed. She leaned down to pick her basket from the ground. A few clipped leaves fluttered to the forest floor as she trotted to the end of the brush, half-filled basket dangling from her mouth.

There came the cry again. Not entirely knowing why, Briar quickened her pace to a trot. She slipped through the forest toward the mysterious sound, her nerves stinging with a sense of urgency. Her trot became a smooth, whiplike canter.

Her deep green mane flew behind her as her moved. Branches whipped past her. She avoided them all save for one, leaving a tuft of short black hair on its gnarled tip.

She heard the cry again—louder, this time. Her eyes narrowed further. She knew where it was coming from; she was no fool. She knew her way around the forest as well as anypony. Admittedly, for her, “anypony” was a fairly short list.

She silently cursed as she pushed past the last of the brush. Who in their right mind would come to the Barrens and get themselves into trouble?

Her motion slowed, each step deliberate and cautious. Above, threads of sunlight snaked their way through the treetops, alighting on the bare earth below. The brush had vanished behind her, leaving in its place clumps of dirt and dying grass amid the remains of overgrown boulders.

She brought her hoof up, froze, and pulled it back. Lying before her, though disguised by piles of decaying leaves, was the edge of a sheer drop.

Dammit. At least she’d been watching where she was going. She didn’t want to think of what would have happened if she’d been careless enough to skip through instead of checking her every step. She’d probably be no better off than whichever wretched creature was calling from the thorns.

Briar pulled her hoof back, drawing her lips back and furrowing her brow. This was the Barrens: a desolate landscape where little light shone, filled with pitfalls and slippery gorges. She peered over the side into the one that’d almost caught her.

At the bottom of each pit here lay a jungle of thorny vines, each swollen to the width of a pony’s leg. They blended with the shadows of the lower pit, with only the occasional dull yellow of a thorn showing through.

Briar disliked the Barrens. Hated them. But there came the cry again—whimpering, quieted, and nearby—and so she drew herself back up and stepped around the pit.

She kept her balance as though on a tightrope, sharp eyes darting from side to side with every step. She took a step to the right, shifting her weight away from a protruding line of spikes. Bit by bit, she made her way through the pits, and toward the cries she’d heard.

“Help…”

Briar started. Words—so there was somepony else here. But the voice sounded strange. Deep. Rough around the edges. With narrowed eyes and a careful step, she peered over the edge of the nearest pit—

She squinted, but the shape at the bottom was unmistakable. There was a pony lying prone at the bottom. There was something odd about him.

A stallion! she realized. His caramel-colored coat was scratched and covered in clumps of mud, while his mane, a darker brown, lay torn and dirty around his head. He appeared not to have noticed her, as silently as she’d moved toward him: Instead, he was staring at the ground, his eyes concealed from view.

It seemed there wasn’t anything else to do. Briar dropped her basket onto the ground and stood up a little straighter. She let out a cough.

He seemed to notice that. Instantly, his head whirled, clumped mane flying over his eyes before sliding down to his shoulders. “Who—who are you?,” he asked. His voice was weak; he wheezed like a bird caught in a winter freeze.

She ignored his question. “How did you manage to get yourself down there?”

“I fell.”

He sounded almost sheepish. Briar resisted the urge to ask why he would be so stupid as to come into the Barrens in the first place. Instead, she bit her tongue and asked, “You can’t climb out yourself?”

Her voice was sharp, cutting through the air. He shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I—my leg. I think it’s broken.”

Briar peered down at him and frowned. The stallion’s leg was twisted around at an odd angle, but she took it in stride. She’d seen enough animals stumble into these pits to know what they could do to a body, and this pony was luckier than most. Her brow furrowed as she searched her mind for the appropriate treatment.

She paused. Of course, she had to do something else, first.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll get you out. Give me two minutes.”

“Wait!” he began.

But she was already gone.

Briar turned on her hoof, glancing about the area. It wouldn’t be easy getting him out, but there had to be something around here that she could use. There always was—a pony just had to know what to look for. Her gaze caught on the edge of a branch and her lip curled.

There.

Just under two minutes later, she was back, a clump of vines in her mouth. “Here,” she said, spitting the vines out into the pit. “Most of the thorns are gone, so you should be able to get out without a problem. Just grab the stick I’ve tied onto the end and hold on.”

The stallion nodded and took the stick in his mouth.

Briar took the other end of her improvised rope and bit down, hard. She took a second to scope out a safe angle behind her, devoid of rocks and pits as she could make it. Clamping the vine between her teeth, she steeled her neck and shoulders and stepped back.

And stepped back again.

And again.

She grunted; the stallion was surprisingly heavy. To his credit, he didn’t let out more than an occasional whimper of pain—at least he wasn’t screaming or crying. Another gasp escaped her, her hooves slipping on the crumbly soil.

“You...fat-flank,” she said through gritted teeth. “I...swear…”

She could barely hear his response—a muffled grunt., barely audible over the scrape of his weight on the dirt. She had to firm her weight each time she took a step, making sure that she wouldn’t just fall right in beside him, or into one of the many other pits that lurked around her.

Something in the rope went tight. She glanced back up: The tip of an ear, almost invisible, poked up over the edge of the pit.

Almost there. She took a deep breath through her snout and locked her neck into place. Some part of her mind was screaming at her for walking backwards through the Barrens.

Step. Step. Her muscles were sore, and there was sweat dripping down her forehead. Step. Step. Step—

“I’m out!”

Her eyes snapped open.

The stallion lay on his side, just barely over the edge of the pit. “I’m out,” he wheezed, holding his side. “You… You can stop now.”

Briar spat the vine out to the side. “Good,” she said. She sounded muted. She coughed to the side, taking a moment to regather herself. “Good.”

“I—thank you.” The stallion beamed up at her as she stepped toward him. He held his legs close to him, with one foreleg pressed against his chest. “I must have been in there for almost an hour. I thought that I was going to die down in that ditch.”

“Why were you even out here in the first place?” Briar asked.

“I was gathering wood.”

She almost snorted. “In the Barrens?”

“Is that what this is called?” he asked.

She stared. No words came to mind—what kind of pony threw themselves into pits in strange parts of the forest?

Ponies like this one, it seemed. She bit down on her tongue and resisted the urge to insult his intelligence or, at the very least, his survival instinct. Instead, she just closed her eyes and sighed.

“Look,” she said, “you’re cradling your leg. Let me see it.”

“Thank—”

“Just let me see it,” she said, “and spare the pleasantries.”

He nodded. She leaned down and took his hoof in her own. It was still twisted around at an awkward angle, but the damage looked better than it had before. She hissed—there were tiny holes, pinpricks of blood, around its circumference, likely from where the thorns had pierced his skin. A flicker over his abdomen proved that the rest of him hadn’t escaped unscathed either. She turned back to the leg.

Lightly, she put some weight on it.

The stallion gasped through his teeth.

“I’m guessing this hurts?” she said.

“Yeah,” he said.

She tried again, lighter. “Now?”

He shook his head.

Briar leaned in closer, inspecting his leg. Now that she had a chance to see it out here, rather than in the darkness of the pit, the situation didn’t seem quite so bad. She prodded his leg, giving it an experimental flex and nodding to herself when the stallion didn’t grunt in pain.

“So I was supposed to be gathering firewood,” the stallion said. “Only I haven’t really been in the forests before, and I got lost.”

“Lost. That’s one way of putting it.” Briar took a seat beside him and set the injured leg on her lap. “Hold that straight.”

“My brother’s usually the one who does this kind of thing. I just work the ovens.” The stallion nudged his head toward his flank. There was a mark there: three loaves of bread, neatly sliced.

Briar grunted, peering over her shoulder. “Uh-huh.” If only there was something she could use…

Her eyes fell on the vines and stick she’d used to pull him out. She nodded to herself and leaned down.

“Except he’s been been a little sick lately,” the stallion said, “and so I thought I’d come out and get the chores done instead. I got the water okay, but when I came out here to get some more wood, I guess I just kind of got turned around.”

“Do you ever stop talking?” Briar asked around the stick in her mouth. She held the leftover vines in her hooves, cradling the stallion’s injured leg in her lap.

“Guess not,” the stallion admitted. “My name’s Ironwood, by the way. What’s yours?”

“Briar.” She lowered her neck, brought it up and around, and then lowered it again.

“I haven’t seen you in the village. What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I live here,” she replied. She wondered if he ever got tired of hearing himself speak. Even a screamjay was quieter.

She tied off the end of the vines around the top of his leg and bit off the excess. “There. All done.”

“You live here? In the woods? In the Everfree Forest?”

“Do you have to ask so many questions?” She flicked her eyes up. His face was clean-shaven, his snout more obviously rounded than hers. His mouth, of course, was open.

She glanced away as he looked down at her. She couldn’t meet his eyes—not here, not now. That was a risk that she couldn’t take. Instead, she merely stared down at the ground, her mouth a thin line. There was a beat of silence before Ironwood spoke again.

“Sorry,” he said. He chuckled sheepishly and scratched the back of his neck. “I guess I’m just chatty.”

Briar stood back up and dusted herself off. “Your leg was sprained, not broken. Just keep that brace on for a few days and keep your weight off of it and you’ll be fine. Get those cuts looked at, too; the Barrens thorns aren’t poisonous, but they might get infected.”

“Got it,” Ironwood said. “So you live in the Everfree. Wow. Is that your Cutie Mark—survival? Woodsponyship?”

“What?” she asked.

“Your Cutie Mark,” he said. “You know, like my loaves of bread. Come on; you must have one.”

A frown crossed her face as she glanced back at her flank. Her bare flank. She shifted her weight away from Ironwood, suddenly feeling very self conscious.

“No,” she said.

“You don’t have a Cutie Mark?” Ironwood asked. “How can a pony not have a Cutie Mark? It’d make sense if you were a filly, but a mare like you?”

“I guess I just don’t need one,” she said.

“Maybe.” He sounded doubtful. “What’s that in your mane?”

Briar’s hoof automatically went to her ear. The familiar weight on the side of her head belonged to a hairpin that she kept in her mane. The pin itself was nothing special, she’d always thought; it was pretty enough, but to any other pony, she believed, it would be just a trinket.

To her, though, it was a memento.

She caressed the lock of hair, making sure that the pin was firmly in place. “It’s nothing,” she said quietly.

“It doesn’t look like nothing.”

“It’s nothing that you need to be concerned about.”

“And what about the thing around your neck?”

Briar stiffened. “Try the leg,” she said, changing the subject. “The brace should have worked to keep it straight.”

“Oh—right!” Ironwood drew himself back. He first placed his good foreleg on the ground, testing his weight, before shifting his haunches into the air. He held his injured leg an inch or so off the ground, the splint keeping it in place.

He gave his shoulder an experimental roll. The leg moved a bit from side to side, but the brace held. Briar grinned in spite of herself.

“It works,” Ironwood announced. He looked back up, beaming at her. “I don’t know how I can thank you.”

“Don’t get lost again.” Briar turned, searching—there it was. She stepped carefully toward the edge of the Barrens with Ironwood in tow. She snapped up her basket, a few ferns dangling over the sides.

“What’s that?”

“Devilwort,” she said. “It’s the herb that I was gathering before you showed up.” Before you interrupted, some part of her wanted to add. She shoved that part back down, hard. No reason to go after him for getting himself injured. It wasn’t like he meant to make her late.

Though he could have avoided the whole problem by staying out of the Barrens in the first place, she let herself grouse.

“Now, I can lead you out of the woods if you tell me which direction your ‘village’ is in,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder.

“Um.”

She glared at him before letting out a long, suffering sigh.

“Any landmarks? Things to look out for?”

“Well,” he said, “there’s a nice waterfall by the edge of the forest that I came in by.”

“You’ll have to be more specific than that.”

“It was all shimmery and—”

Briar’s eyes lit up. “The Ice Falls. I know where that is.”

“The Ice—”

“Come on,” she said, slipping past the brush. “It’s just past here.”

They walked for at least fifteen minutes. Several times, Ironwood did his best to strike up a conversation, but Briar ignored him.

He seemed not to get the hint.

“—So there I was, right in front of the customer, and it turned out that I’d made him a loaf with sesame seeds. Except he didn’t order any seeds!”

Ironwood allowed for what he undoubtedly thought was a dramatic pause. “And…”

Briar pushed aside a tree branch. The Ice Falls were just past here. Just another minutes or so...

“Aren’t you interested in what happened next?” he asked.

“Not particularly.”

Ironwood huffed. “Oh, come on. You could at least chat a little bit. Maybe tell me more about the forest—I’ll bet it’s fascinating living here all the time. Did you know that most ponies are actually scared of the Everfree?”

His voice lowered to a whisper. “I’ve heard it even makes its own weather.”

She heard the Falls before she saw them. Their low roar was unmistakable—she’d been here enough times to know the sound by heart. Behind her, Ironwood chattered on, but his words slid away from Briar’s ears like butter. Instead, the sound of running water bubbled across her ears.

She nudged past a final bush, the dangling branches of holly brushing over her mane. The brush ended here, with only a few scattered trees standing over the grass.

“Do you recognize this?” she asked.

“It looks familiar,” he said. “I think so, at least.”

“Well, what about those?” Briar jerked her head toward the Falls themselves.

The Falls wasn’t the largest waterfall that Briar had found in the Everfree, but it was her favorite. A soft mist rose from its bed, casting droplets into the air where they hung like morning dew. Below, a small gully carried a brook away from the Falls and disappeared into the woods, winding between the trees.

The crest of the Falls, though, had given Briar the inspiration for its name. Behind the chute of rushing water, barely halfway above the nearest tree trunk, the rock face glimmered with blue and purple light.

When the sun or moonlight shone on the rock, it shone like freshly frozen ice, an alien violet against a backdrop of green. The rest of the clearing formed a glade, a quiet place amidst a forest of otherwise chittering beasts and birds. Mossy rocks dotted the vibrant green grass, their surfaces weathered from years of fallen mist and erosion. Here and there, veils of afternoon sun drifted lazily through the canopy, illuminating motes of dust and mist.

“Wow,” Ironwood said.

“I come around here a lot,” Briar said. “Usually in the evenings, when I’ve nothing else to do. It’s a nice place to think and just…”

“To be alone?”

“Something like that.”

Ironwood turned back to the Falls. “In any case,” he said, “I definitely remember those.”

“Good. So—”

His eyes widened, and he cursed. “Oh, no. I must’ve lost my saddlebags down in that pit—and I’ll be coming back without any wood. My mother’s going to be furious.”

Briar’s lips twitched. She doubted that his mother’s wrath would be any worse than Matron’s on a bad day. From the look of his hips, Ironwood likely had all of the love a mother could offer.

Something in her chest twinged. Something that you don’t, something whispered to her.

She shook her head as Ironwood muttered angrily to himself. She turned back to the Falls, her ears perking up.

“—guess there’s nothing to be done, then,” Ironwood finished. He scowled and scuffed a hoof in the dirt—and hit a pebble. “Ouch!”

“So you’re leaving now?” Briar asked.

He turned back to her. She averted her eyes and stared steadily at his shoulder.

“Well...yeah,” he said.

He paused. “Oh, maybe you can come with me!” he said. “You said you’d never been outside the forest, right? Come see the village—meet some ponies. I can introduce you. Maybe you’ll even get your Cutie Mark.”

“Wouldn’t that be something,” Briar muttered. “But I’m afraid not. I’ve got my own responsibilities here.” Matron still needed those herbs picked, after all.

“So not today, then,” Ironwood said. “That’s fine, really. No worries. Happy, uh, responsibility-ing.”

“I’ll try.”

She glanced up. It was beginning to get dark. “You should probably leave now,” she said. “The woods get much harder to navigate when the sun goes down.” Especially, she thought, to a stallion who’s already gotten himself lost once.

“Right! Yeah,” Ironwood said. He grinned at her. “So, uh, thanks again. Really.”

He nodded down at his makeshift splint.

She shrugged. “I’ve taken care of injured animals before. It wasn’t really anything new.”

“Well, I—wait!” Ironwood said. “Are you calling me an animal?”

Her lip curled. “I’ve got to go. Don’t get lost again.”

By the time Ironwood had opened his mouth to reply, she had already turned to leave. In a blur of black and green, she was gone, back into the woods. Whatever Ironwood had wanted to say, sadly, was lost to the winds and bubbling brook.

As the last rays of light slid through the trees, Briar came to a small clearing in the woods. The grass was short, but a healthy green, and a few birds called one another from just out of sight. Briar slowed her pace, taking care to make sure that nothing fell from her basket.

There was a structure built just off of the center of the clearing: a cottage, single-floored, and with a single fogged window at its front. Briar approached it, savoring the last warmth of the day as the shadows at the base of the cottage lengthened.

She took a moment to stomp out any mud that had clumped on her hooves before wiping them on the entry mat. She leaned forward and nudged the door. It creaked open, and she stepped over the threshold and inside.

The air became thick with incense, touched with the scent of smoking rhubarb. The wood floor creaked beneath Briar’s hooves. She continued on until she came to a weathered old table and tenderly set the basket of devilwort down on its surface. Behind her, the door swung shut with a thump.

“You’re late.”

Briar’s reply came automatically. “I apologize, Matron. Something distracted me.”

The other voice was rich in tone, but creaked and cracked like the floor beneath Briar’s hooves. “Well, that’s your fault, then. Start up the fire and get a stew going, girl.”

Briar turned. She kept her back straight, and neither lowered nor raised her head. “Yes, Matron.”

There was a chair near the end of the room. Its colors had long since faded from what Briar could only guess to be a bright blue to a dimmer shade of blue-grey. Its cushions were scratched and worn, and they sank easily under even the light weight of its occupant.

If there was one word that could be said to describe Matron, it was “sharp.” Everything about her suggested angles and pointy bits; her legs were razor-thin, her eyes narrow and cold white, and her jaw cut like the head of an arrow. She had wrinkles, and her forehead sagged a bit over her eyes, but there was something in that face that suggested that it had once held a great beauty. There was a single wart on the end of her nose,  and her black mane fell in such a way as to frame the grey fur covering her snout. She wore a pair of spectacles: one eyepiece was cracked, and the other slightly blurry.

“Distracted,” Matron murmured as Briar moved to retrieve a cauldron from beside the fireplace. “Distracted by what, might I ask?”

“I found something in the Barrows.” Briar leaned down, holding twin firestrikers in her mouth and hoof. She snapped them against one another, and a spark leapt onto the pile of wood waiting beneath the cauldron.

“And Devilwort grows in the Barrows, now?”

“I found the Devilwort in the greenglades,” Briar said. “There was something else in the Barrows.”

Matron snorted. There was a pair of knitting needles in her hooves, and as Briar moved to kindle the fire, the older mare set the needles and yarn down on her lip. “Something else? Spit it out, girl.”

“I found another pony in the pit there.” Briar paused in her work and peered back over her shoulder. “A stallion.”

Matron’s eyes widened, almost imperceptibly. Briar knew her well enough to tell surprise when she saw it, though.

“A stallion,” Matron said. “In the Barrows. Dead, I presume?”

“I saved him,” Briar said. The newborn fire cast a warm glow over the cottage, its light washing over the walls and the cracked wooden masks mounted there. “He’d fallen into a spike-pit and sprained his leg.”

“So you’re a charity case, now. And I suppose that was sufficient reason for being late?” Matron glared at Briar as she opened her mouth. “Good heavens, girl. You’re useless flapping your gums like that. Go fetch water for the stew.”

Five minutes later, Briar returned from the pump outside. She took the bucket she was carrying—it was heavy with water, and swung from side to side whenever she took a step—and set it down on the floor by the fire. As she made to pour it into the cauldron, Matron spoke again.

“So this...stallion,” she said. “What was he? A traveller of some kind?”

“He said he was from the village.”

“The village!” Matron scowled as Briar turned back to the kitchen. Briar bent down to look through the basket of vegetables sitting on the counter; she picked out a few select carrots and a potato and carried them back to the pot. “I warn you; nothing good will come of associating with ponies from the village. Mark my words—you’ll regret mixing with them.”

Briar opened her mouth to reply, but Matron held up a hoof, silencing her. “Now, let’s let that water stew for a bit. It’s time for your lesson.”

“Yes, Matron,” Briar said.

With a spryness that seemed unnatural in a mare her age, , Matron hauled herself from her chair and onto the floor. Her hooves hit the aged wood with a clickity-clack.

She trotted toward Briar. “Come now, girl. To the study.”

The study had always stood out in Briar’s mind. It may have been the coloring of the walls: a dark, heavy brown that stood in stark contrast to the light cedar that made up the rest of the cottage. It may have been the eternal smell of sulfur that suffused the air. More likely than not, however, it was the prickling that Briar always felt on the back of her neck when she entered the room, as though she was being watched.

The prickling was here in full force tonight. As unable to shrug off the sensation as she had been every other night of her life spent in this room, she settled for an uneasy glance back over her shoulder—there was nothing there, of course—before trotting in after Matron. The door shut behind her with a heavy thud.

The decor of the room had always stood out to her. Strange jars lined the walls, and shelves creaked with heavy tomes whose titles had been scrawled in scripts that Briar hadn’t seen when Matron had first decided to teach her her letters. Her hooves scraped over the floor as she walked toward the back of the room.

There was a desk sitting there, a single candle flickering on its surface. A book, even larger than the rest that crowded the shelves around here, was illuminated by the candle’s dim yellow light. Its cover was a dark, leathery brown, cracked across the surface and bearing a title written in golden, indecipherable script.

Briar came to a stop and, just as she always did before a lesson, reached out for the book. Just as always, Matron’s hoof came up and pushed it away.

“I’ll be testing you tonight,” Matron said.

That was a surprise. It had been only a week before that Matron had tested her last. Briar let one eyebrow creep up into her forehead, though she made sure not to let Matron see her disbelief.

“I’m ready,” she said. She turned to face the older mare. Standing as she did now beneath the bookshelf, the flickering shadows of the corner on her face, she looked ominous—dangerous, even. It had taken Briar far too long to come to realize her mentor’s flair for the dramatic.

“Let us begin, then,” Matron said, her old voice cracking. “What are the properties of aconite?”

“Each plant consists of a green, spiralling stem topped with large, purple flowers, which can be used as anaesthetic in small quantities,” Briar said. “The herb can be absorbed through the skin or, preferably, through the lips. If swallowed in a larger dose, it can induce nausea, vomiting, and death, which makes it ideal for use as a poison. Its roots can also be used in several antidote meant to counteract transformative substances.”

The words came easily, flowing like water. For a moment, Briar’s surprise returned. Why was Matron asking her about such a simple topic? She’d known what aconite was since she’d been eight years old.

Still, an easy question was nothing to complain about. She kept her mouth shut until Matron spoke next.

“How can asphodel be used in an elixir?”

That was a better question. Briar’s lips tightened as she stared up at the ceiling, her eyes darting from side to side as she searched for an answer. An elixir was not a potion, she reminded herself; it was medicinal rather than transformative.

Asphodel. What was it good for? She could picture it in her mind: a greyish stalk and leaves, tipped with pale yellow flowers. Her lips moved, sounding out the words as she assembled the thoughts in her head.

“It can be used as an anti-venom,” she said at last. “Especially against rattlesnakes.”

“Anything else?” Matron’s question, though sweetly phrased, carried an edge of cold steel to it. The question hung over Briar’s head like a blade, waiting for one wrong movement.

Briar licked her lips and took it in stride. “It can also be used as the primary ingredient in sleep-draughts, freezing the body in place so that slower treatments can have the time to act.”

She opened her eyes again, this time unable to stop the slight smile that curved her mouth.

“Correct,” Matron said. She flashed a sharp smile, unnaturally white, straight teeth glinting behind liver-spotted lips. “Where might I find a timberwolf pack and why might I want to do so?”

The questions went on as Briar’s brain was poked and prodded, probed for any gaps in her knowledge. She knew that she had reason to be happy with her performance: not once had she faltered or doubted a reply, and not once had she supplied an incorrect answer.

She didn’t know whether she was there for five minutes or an hour—time in the study always seemed to blend together, like water bubbling over a patch of rapids. By the end of it, Matron still looked unimpressed, but Briar thought that she could hear a tone of approval in her cracking voice.

“Satisfactory,” Matron at last proclaimed, though her narrowed eyes made it clear that she had had every intention of making the test end otherwise. “Your surgical knowledge, though, is lacking—read The Last Healer again before anything else.”

“Of course, Matron,” Briar said smoothly. She’d gotten every one of the surgical answers correct, replying to Matron with precise detail. For goodness’ sake, she’d set Ironwood’s leg almost perfectly in the forest before.

She didn’t resent the old mare’s pettiness—not as such, really, but she did feel a twinge of annoyance in the back of her neck at being assigned a book that she must have read a half-dozen times before.

Ironwood. Briar licked her lips, wondering if she should press the subject.

Why not? she decided. It seemed that Matron was in a good mood.

“Wasn’t the author a travelling healer?” Briar asked casually.

“Asclequus? He was,” Matron said. “What’s your point?”

“Well,” Briar began, “if I’m to be properly trained in the medicinal arts, it makes sense that I should be able to get experience.”

She half-expected Matron to tell her off for presuming to tell her what she should do. When no such rebuttal was forthcoming, though, Briar bit down and pushed forward.

“What better place to get that kind of experience than one where lots of ponies meet and live? Someplace like—”

“—a village?” Matron cut in. Her eyes flashed dangerously, and Briar took a step back, her mane swaying behind her.

She stood up a little straighter, refusing to look down. Instead, she stared straight at Matron’s snout: not directly into her eyes, but high enough to show that she refused to be cowed so easily.

“Yes,” Briar said. “A village.” The village, she silently added.

“I forbid it.”

“Why?” She was powerless to stop the question—it burst out of her like thunder through the treetops. She lowered her gaze, as though trying to lessen the strength of her challenge. By Matron’s harsh tone, though, it was barely effective at all.

“For a number of reasons,” Matron rasped. “The villagers are naught but blind and superficial. They’ll fill your head with dangerous thoughts. I won’t have it.”

“How do you know that?” Briar asked. “Have you been there?”

“Are you questioning me?”

She fell silent.

When Matron next spoke, her voice was low, crackling like the last embers of a fire. “You have every reason in the world to stay away from the village. I’m surprised that you would be foolish enough to even consider it. Have you forgotten your eyes?”

Her eyes.

Her green, piercing eyes.

Briar closed them and bowed her head. She’d first realized that her eyes were—well, “special” wasn’t quite the right word to use, perhaps, but it was the best she had—special at a young age. She’d been barely out of foalhood then, still prone to happy babbling as birds from the forest outside came to investigate this strange, wooden structure.

Matron had found Briar then, crouched on the floor with a trio of birds perched before her stubby little filly’s legs. The slam of the door hadn’t persuaded the birds to flee, and so Matron, as she told it, had decided to investigate further.

Each of the birds shared the same trait: eyes, pupils dilated, with irises glowing the same bright green as Briar’s own. They hopped feebly up and down as Briar giggled, barely knowing what power she’d wrought over the creatures. As Matron had picked her up and turned her around, the spell was broken.

The sparrows flew away. Matron’s eyes met the foal’s.

Staring into the mirror some nights, Briar could still recall some of the memory. She could remember flashes of lightning, crashing through dark clouds as laughter shrieked through the heavens. She could remember fire, burning beneath the earth, and a shadow that danced among the trees.

In that moment, their gazes locked in place, Briar had not seen Matron so much as Seen her, gazing through past flesh and into what lay beyond. Whatever power she had exercised over the birds, however, was not present here; Matron’s eyes simply flashed a dark, angry yellow and the spell was broken.

At times, Briar would look into her reflection’s eyes, wondering what Matron had seen there. The first few nights after the incident, she had laid awake in her bed, shivering as those yellow eyes glared down at her from the ceiling. It was only months later that she once more dared meet the eyes of another living creature, though she’d never again dared gaze into Matron’s.

Even though the opportunity had been an accident, a younger Briar had taken a curious sort of glee in exploring what she could do with the deer she’d found, its own irises glowing as green as her own.

And then the deer had dropped dead of dehydration. That was how Matron had found it; Briar had forgotten to let it drink. She’d cried, she’d buried the body, and she had remembered.

She remembered now.

“No,” she said, turning away. “I haven’t forgotten them.”

“Do you want to risk that?” Matron asked. “Catching the eye of some drunk or soldier, and fleeing for your life when he realizes that his mind has been touched? Ponies are irrational, fearful creatures, villagers doubly so. Is that what you wish?”

“No,” Briar said dully.

“Good.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” Matron said. “Let’s move on from such unpleasant, foolish subjects. That light charm that I gave you last month—I want to see it.”

“Now?”

Her lips twisted. “I believe that I implied as much.”

Briar lowered her head and nodded once. She lifted a hoof to her chest and touched the necklace hanging there. It was a small wooden piece held by a length of string. She’d carved it herself, whittling the fresh pine into the shape of a wing by scraping the edges with an arrowhead she’d found in the forest.

All spells needed a focus. At one time in her life, she’d wondered why she didn’t use her pin instead. It seemed wrong, somehow, to use the only remnant of her parents in such a way.

She cradled the focus in her hoof as she tried to clear her mind of all distractions. A clean mind was essential for a clean spell, Matron had once told her. Yet each of her thoughts seemed to bump up against one another, jostling for space and refusing to settle down.

Briar’s lips formed the first syllable of the charm, testing out the feeling. Slowly, she began to recite the words that Matron had taught her. They were in no language that she recognized, but she could feel them, somehow, all the same. The air seemed to thrum with energy as the second syllable spilled from her mouth, the atmosphere buzzing with the third and then fourth.

She repeated the chant again, trying to feel the energy that she knew had to be there. All charms worked through the Ambience, their caster molding them in place rather than forcing energy from their own magical fonts. Briar had always thought that a unicorn’s way of doing things sounded painful.

The chant repeated: once, twice, three times. The space above Briar’s hoof, however, remained stubbornly vacant of any light. She repeated the charm again more quickly, her voice rising in volume and strain with each iteration.

“Stop.”

The last syllable balanced uncertainly on the tip of Briar’s tongue, but she swallowed it. Hesitantly, she glanced down at the space above her hoof.

A tiny, flickering mote of light sat there, giving her hoof a gently warm glow.

It was pathetic.

“I see you’ve not been practicing,” Matron observed. A lump rose in Briar’s throat.

“I have been practicing,” she insisted. “I just—”

“No excuses,” Matron said. She held up a hoof, and Briar fell silent. Her face was unreadable: stony, like a mask. “We’re done for tonight. That stew should be ready by now. Go get some bowls.”

Briar closed her eyes. “Yes, Matron.”

That night, she slept through dreams of strange stallions and thatched-roof houses, and a whisper in her ears.

Good night, Briar, the wind whispered to her, drifting through the open window. It rippled across her thoughts like a memory covered in velvet, soothing her mind as it had done every night since she could remember. Good night, my butterfly.

Her pillow warm beneath her head, Briar slept on, her rose pin set quietly aside on a table.

Good night, the wind repeated. Goodnight, my sweet chrysalis.