One of the Bright Ones, come out through a rippling in the wood of oak, ash and thorn. Laughing, sun on her face, pointed ears through a mane of leaves and feathers, gold heaped at her throat and a green stone on her hand, and small birds sitting her shoulders as though she were a branch. Her song held a score of raptors still over the black water, then marched them out under the boughs and folded them down into the ash forest, where the sound of their wings stopped all at once.

She is conspiring with Gaer, queen of the heavens, to carry the birds of this country off to her summer groves before something arrives. What is coming, and what would the shortcut she offered have cost them?