“Yes, that’s right.”

  “Maybe I could come with you. I could protect you, I could be a grandmother.”

  Lowen could feel more tears gathering but refused to shed them. She blinked them away and shook her head. “You would be a wonderful grandmother. You will be, when Jenifer starts a family, but you have to stay here. You are the Scrat Chieftain, you can’t leave all duty behind and run away into the forest with me.”

  Kerra lifted a hand to Lowen’s face, her forehead wrinkling as she stroked the stinging cheek she had reddened. “I know, but I want to.”

  “And I will carry that with me.”

  They gazed at each other until, with a decisive intake of breath, Kerra gathered herself and turned back to the travelling bag. She slid the dagger still clasped in her hand inside it.

  “There is one more thing you should take,” she said, once again sounding like the decisive warrior leader of the Wild Scrat. She moved into the bedroom at the back of the hut and returned with a small wooden box, beautifully carved with images of leaves and fruit.

  “Your grandmother made this for me when I was last with child.”

  Kerra lifted the lid. There was a quantity of fine powder inside, white and slightly iridescent. “You take it like snuff,” she explained, mimicking taking a pinch of the powder and bringing it to her nose. “It eases the pain when baby comes.” She paused before closing the box and placing it in the bag. “I will not be there when your time comes so I implore you, find an ally, someone you trust to help you. No woman should bear her child alone.”

  “I won’t be alone, I’ll have Nicanor with me.”

  A cold dread flushed Lowen’s skin with ice when she read her mother’s expression.

  “He will be with me,” she said. “I won’t leave him here to suffer in a cage.”

  “Lowen, you ask the impossible.” Kerra shifted the heavy bag on her shoulder. “Allowing you to leave Kree unhindered is one thing, but allowing a satyr trespasser to leave with you is quite another.”

  “I am not going without him. The satyr are our allies; caging one of their kin could spark an all-out war. Is that really what you want for the Scrat, for Nymed?”

  “No, of course not. But I have Scrat baying for blood out there. They believe he has been prowling about the village, ripping up boars for sport.”

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  “You are their Chieftain, you have to tell them they’re wrong.”

  Kerra considered the situation. “The Satyr Nation are our allies,” she conceded. “Yet, many of the Scrat still fear them. I can make you a promise, Lowen, if you will trust me. I can promise that your satyr—”

  “His name is Nicanor.”

  “I can promise that Nicanor will come to no harm. I will stand guard over him myself if I have to. What I cannot promise is your safety if you stay. You announced to the tribe that you were carrying a satyr child. Many won’t see that as a simple law being broken, they will see it as an abomination. That is why you must leave—immediately. I shudder to think what could happen to you if you don’t.”

  “But I’m the daughter of the Chieftain.”

  “Yes, and if any harm came to you or your child I would gut the culprits and hang their gizzards from the Scrat-Heart. But that would be cold comfort if you were dead. I would rather imagine you out there in the world, surviving.”

  Lowen reached for her mother’s hand and squeezed it tightly. “What of Nicanor?”

  “I will act as is right and lawful. I will contact the satyr and arrange for him to be delivered to their leader, Pyros. He is a fair man; I do not believe he will punish Nicanor too harshly.”

  Kerra took a worn green cloak from a hook on the wall. She threw it about Lowen’s shoulders and fastened it with a plain wooden brooch, then pulled up the hood and arranged her hair beneath it, tenderly curling a wayward tendril behind her ear. Finally, she lifted the travelling bag over her daughter’s head and laid the thick strap flat against her chest.

  “You may say goodbye to Nicanor before you leave, but you must not attempt to rescue him.” Lowen began to interrupt but Kerra silenced her. “You will see him again,” she said. “You have that spelled bird of yours, you can use it to tell him where you are and he can go to you. But only when the time is right. Tell him this, then make your goodbyes and head south, towards Jonick. I hear the people there are kind and wise. You will need people like that.”

  “What about Jenifer?”

  “I will explain everything to her.”

  Lowen glanced towards the door, unwilling to leave the hut. The forest beyond Kree was too large, too dark and unknown. Kerra grasped her daughter by the arms, forcing her to look at her.

  “I know you will make a life for yourself and your child,” she told her. “You are strong and capable and, above all, you are my daughter. I will miss you as you can’t yet imagine, but I will think of you with love and I will be happy you are safe.”

  Lowen reached for her mother again and they held each other for a long time, neither one willing to let the other go. Finally, Kerra gently pulled away. There were fresh tears in her eyes but they were tears of hope and fierce pride.

  “Never forget you are Scrat,” she said. “You are a warrior, Lowen.”

  Lowen nodded, afraid to speak again and unleash the trembling flood of grief rising in her chest. Slowly, she walked to the door and opened it. The rain was still falling, but it had worked to disperse the crowd of Scrat gathered outside. Below her in the clearing, stark and alien before the Scrat-Heart, she could see Cade’s monstrous cage and Nicanor within it.

  “I love you,” Lowen whispered, unable to turn and look at her mother again. If she were to see the pain in her eyes, she knew she would never leave.