Insects rose from the depths of the tall grass as Bren waded through the field in search of the wayward kid. She grimaced, swiping at the swarm with her free hand, for a moment afraid that she had blundered into a nest of those ornery purple and black banded wasps. It would not be the first time. Last summer she’d spent the Night of the Three Sisters trapped miserably at home while the rest of the village danced and celebrated, her face a swollen mess. Thankfully, these bugs were fat and fuzzy and bumbling, and they dispersed without putting up a fight. Still, her patience for this chase was wearing thin.

“Where are you?” she murmured, searching for her quarry. The little goat’s mottled black and white coat should have been easy to spot, but the dark green grass in this corner of the meadow grew thick enough that the kid seemed to have been swallowed whole. Bren spared a glance over her shoulder at the rest of her herd. They were still plodding along the path that wound down the hill, a routine so ingrained that Bren sometimes wondered if they even truly needed a shepherd at all. The old queen that ruled the herd with an iron hoof seemed to know exactly the time to return to the farm, late in the afternoon when the shadows began to slowly creep across the meadow and the pale outline of the Silver Mother appeared in the sky.

There. The nubs of two little horns, poking up from among a patch of red clover. Liquid black eyes lifted to meet her own, brimming with what Bren suspected was feigned innocence. The kid’s jaw worked frantically as he hurried to chew the clover as fast as possible, as if he knew his adventure had sadly come to an end.

“Naughty little beast,” Bren grumbled, smacking the small goat’s rump with the flat side of her wooden sword’s blade. The kid gave a surprised bleat and began to bound back towards the rest of the herd, and with a sigh Bren followed. Every year there seemed to be one willful fellow who refused to stick by his mother’s side, consuming her attention when she’d rather be doing other things, like practicing her forms. Bren slashed at a bowed puffball rising from the grass, scattering its spores to the wind. Her arm ached, testament to the effort she had been putting in when she wasn’t running after the goats, but she still felt like she hadn’t made nearly enough progress with the sword her uncle had given her to earn one of his sparingly doled-out smiles. Though he likely wouldn’t be visiting this summer anyway – Bren had heard that there was fighting to the east, over the mountains. As an officer in the Bright Company, her uncle Merik likely would have marched to meet the raiders from across the sea.

She made a quick count as she rejoined the herd, making sure none of the other goats had wandered off. When she finished, she found the queen had stopped, staring back at her as if annoyed at being doubted.

“Well, fine, let’s go,” Bren called out to her, and with a braying snort the old goat turned away and resumed her slow meander down the path.

The sun continued its descent as Bren trailed the herd, gilding the peaks of the distant Snowspears and making the lake at the bottom of the hill flash like a sheet of beaten gold. She whistled tunelessly to herself, working on strengthening her wrist by cutting patterns in the air with the practice sword. When she finally arrived at the Bright Company – and she would, no matter what her mother said – she’d be very familiar with the weight of their blades. That was important, Merik had told her. Most times a soldier missed a parry it was because of exhaustion, not the skill of their opponent. She’d make sure to impress them from the first day with her stamina.

Bren was jolted from her daydream as she caught a flash of movement high above. She squinted into the fading day, trying to make out what had drawn her eye. A bird was soaring on the wind, and it must be huge because it was more than a smudge in the sky, yet it was still far enough away that she couldn’t make out any details. It looked to be big even for the blackwings that sometimes swooped down from the mountains to carry away young goats. She tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword, wishing she’d brought her crook today. The extra reach would have come in handy if one of those great raptors tried to make a meal of her charges.

Bren frowned as the distant bird glinted briefly in the sunlight, as if it were bearing away something metallic in its beak. How strange. What could that –

“Oh!” she cried, stumbling over a goat that had found its way between her legs. It bleated something that sounded rude and then scampered ahead, and by the time Bren looked up again the bird was nothing but a dwindling speck in the molten sky. She watched until it vanished, considering whether she should tell her father. If she did, then he’d probably keep the herds in the lower meadows for a few days at least, and Bren liked being up here, removed from prying eyes. After all, if her mother looked out the window and saw her practicing her forms she’d make an almighty fuss, and maybe even forbid Bren from bringing her sword along in the future when she tended to the goats.

And Bren needed the practice. She was going to be a warrior, like her uncle. He’d once been a shepherd in these same fields, and now he commanded men and women in the Bright Company, the most famous mercenary troop along the Flowering Coast. Merik had demonstrated that in the Company it didn’t matter where you came from, only what you accomplished.

The path they followed jagged around a lichen-scarred boulder, and then the pace of the herd quickened as the thatched roof of their barn appeared up ahead. She would keep quiet about the blackwing, Bren decided . . . but maybe tomorrow she’d lug both her crook and her sword to the high meadows.

To Bren’s surprise, the barn doors had been left open, and the goats streamed inside, already starting their jostling for the best sleeping spots. She followed, whacking the leg of a buck that had paused to gnaw on a rotten carrot lying in the dirt. As it scurried into the barn’s dimness she began to pull the doors closed, but then stopped, her eyes widening.

A strange horse was tied to one of the hitching posts in the barn. For a moment Bren thought he must belong to Merik, as this was most definitely a warhorse, but he seemed too fine a steed even for her uncle. He looked like the mount of a prince or general, a sculptor’s vision of the perfect horse. His coat was an unblemished white, and though he stood in the shadows his long mane appeared to be the color of spun silver. Frog, the old nag that hauled their vegetables to market, looked almost embarrassed to be forced to stand beside such a noble beast, his head hanging low.

Bren cautiously approached the mysterious horse, but he seemed unfazed by both her presence and the milling goats that now filled the barn. Great blue eyes watched her calmly, and Bren had to restrain herself from reaching out to stroke his glorious coat. Uncle Merik had told her once how the destriers of knights and other cavalry were trained to bite, and she truly didn’t want to startle him and lose a finger. Instead she made a circuit of the horse, careful to keep out of kicking range. He had been ridden hard recently, as sweat still lathered his muscled flank where it was not covered by a blue caparison trimmed with silver. Different phases of the moon were stitched into this thick fabric, and Bren’s mouth went dry when she realized what these symbols suggested.

But surely that was impossible.

Slowly she backed out of the barn and latched the doors closed, her heart hammering. A warhorse, bearing the symbols of the Silver Mother. Her gaze drifted to the farmhouse. Who was inside her home right now? And why?

Chickens flung themselves out of her way squawking with indignation as she hurried across the yard. She ran her fingers through her tangled hair, trying to pull out the snarls and wishing she had her mother’s ivory comb at this moment. When she reached the farmhouse door she paused and took a deep breath before slipping inside.

Bren had been hoping to enter without drawing too much attention to herself, but that immediately proved impossible as a huge, armored man surged from the chair where he’d been sitting beside the fire, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“No!” Bren’s mother cried, dropping the spoon with which she’d been stirring a bubbling cookpot and throwing herself before this warrior. “Please, my lord, it’s just my daughter.”

The man blinked in surprise, but he did not let go of his blade. “She is one of them,” he said, an almost musical lilt to his voice. His skin was a shade darker than the olive of most who lived in the seven valleys, which meant that he was probably from the southern coast, or maybe the Umber Isles.

“She’s not,” Bren’s mother said, speaking so quickly she was almost babbling. “She’s our daughter. I found her many years ago in the woods. She was just a babe, no more than a few weeks old.”

The door to the larder banged open, and her father tumbled into the main room. Links of sausages were looped about one arm, and in the other he clutched Bren’s brother Helat to his chest. Terror twisted the small boy’s face when he saw the warrior looming over his mother, and with a shuddering sob he began to cry.

The stranger’s hand moved from his sword’s hilt as he returned to his chair. “She certainly looks ready to fight,” he muttered.

To her great surprise, Bren realized that she’d raised her practice sword into one of the defensive forms. “I’m sorry,” she said, letting it slip from her hand to clatter on the floor, feeling foolish. What good would wood do against steel anyway . . . though that might not even be what the warrior’s sword was forged from. If the legends were true, a shard of captured moonlight filled his filigreed scabbard, called down by the priestesses of the Silver Mother.

For beyond all belief, a paladin was in their home.