Sorrel:

His sleep that night was fitful, his dreams disjointed and troubling. The blackness of oblivion would swallow him and spit him out again into a land of fire, or a wasteland of ice, and then his feet were firmly on frozen, rocky tundra with a gale in his face and a pale-haired man on horseback bearing down on him, his face iron-visored, his spear aimed resolutely at Sorrel’s heart. He tried to run but could not move his feet, and when he looked down, he found they were no longer feet, but roots, spreading deep into the earth. He raised his arms to try and deflect the warrior’s spear, but his arms, too, were no longer arms. Thorny branches spread out where his fingers had been, thorns that snaked out from his body, shielding him, entombing him. A single apple dropped, rosy and dappled with gold, and rolled away from the thorn tree, and was crushed under the warrior’s iron-clad boot.

He woke with a start, drenched in sweat.

‘Nazhá hest!’ he spat the oath through chattering teeth, and flung his covers back. His hearth fire had burned out, only a few embers left in the pile of ash. He listened, skin prickling with bad omens. There was nothing out of the ordinary – only the chirping of small birds in the pepper bushes, the call of a hawk high above. 

He swung his legs out of bed and rose, padding to his hearth across the intricately-woven red rug that covered much of the wooden floor of his home. He stirred the embers half-heartedly, then dropped the poker and pulled on his boots, and went out into the cool dawn in his long shirt. The linen tanshán clung to his body, damp with sweat, and the dawn wind chilled him. But this hour was his favourite, drenched in serenity, a brief fresh hush between the uncertain, dread silence of the night and the hustle and bustle of the day. He breathed deep of the scent of night-dewed grasses and pepper flowers, a faint fragrance of smoke and horse dung on the edge of his senses. Above him, set high on its pole in the middle of the council hall, the silk banner of his people fluttered in the wind, and the rasp of a crow circling high above looking for carrion, but these were the only sounds.

Sorrel shivered, and ducked back into his tent for his coat, grabbed his drinking cup and went down to the pool where a spring bubbled into a hollow. Every step jarred his bones. He needed more of the windrider’s herbs, but she would not be awake yet. He tried Inou for healing, but that had no effect. He wasn’t surprised. The damage done to the body on the High Roads wasn’t of the sort to be waved away by simple spells. He’d have to suffer through it until he’d mastered it. He gave a sigh of resignation.

Three days. Three days of this, and you’ll be yourself again.

And in the meantime, if his tribe needed him, he’d have to grit his teeth and do his best, despite the cost.

He knelt, swirled his half-healed hands through the cold, clear water. The chill bit his fingers, still sore from their previous burning. His breath hissed through his teeth. Sometimes, the cost was too high.

He dipped his water bowl and set it on the bank, then splashed the chill liquid over his face, scrubbing it dry with a coarse cloth. Then he sat to comb his hair free of lice and tangles. It reached his waist, thick and black. Combing it took some time. He frowned at the delicate, pointed face in the water’s reflection. People said he was a pretty boy, using the form of pretty reserved for women, with deep brown eyes sweeping high under thick, fierce black brows. They said, when they thought he couldn’t hear, that he was a changeling, and had been born without wyrd.

His mouth turned down in displeasure. That was a terrible thing to hear. They also said his nose was too delicate, his cheeks too smooth, his skin too pale and his eyes too dark for it. He didn’t look like his wide-boned, brown-skinned father, but took after his mother. She looked like she was made of pearl shells and apple blossoms, a slender windflower amongst tough old grasses and wizened, bent thorns. Her first-born son was the double of her. The rest of her children – three girls and a boy – were all square, brown, and cheerful.

He finished combing, crushing the ousted lice between thumb and forefinger, and scraped his hair back. A length of green silk in held it out of his way, in defiance of the custom that stated an unmarried man must wear his hair loose. He tucked the end of the rope of hair into his belt and tipped the rest of the water back into the brook.

The clang of a cooking pot and the startled yap of a dog told him that the settlement was stirring, and he sighed, filled the bucket, and rose to return to his taldafán. He wanted to rest, to take a day away from the work of breaking the new colts, or war-practice, or hunting and herding. But the tribe had no time or resources to spend on people who did not pull their weight, so he dressed, belting a soft wool coat over a clean linen tanshán and loose rough-spun silk trousers, and went out to face the day. There would be cuts and sores to salve, and bruises to soothe, if he knew his people. Even the children couldn’t seem to get through a day without running to their healer, even if he was their prince too. At first, his interest in herbs and unguents raised eyebrows but since he was skilled in all of this, and a practiced midwife too, they got over their initial prejudice and clamoured at him half the day for this or that, and he was kept busy.

The work was routine, easy enough for one who knew herbs and had healing magic, but he wanted more.

Much more.

And he knew he’d never find it here, tucked away on the grasses, under willows and aspens, under hide and felt and wood. 

But if not here, where? Where should I be? He couldn't imagine living in another land. The grasses were his home. He found the hulking rocks and tall, dark pines ominous and overbearing. The Lyr Blaed lived their lives in the mountains and fir forests of Vartjastafel and Iskalla and Vallesia, but Sorrel had only been to Silverheim, and never had the chance to speak with the Tethiri's pale-eyed cousins.

Is the man in my dreams one of them?

No. He shook that thought out of his head. The Lyr Blaed eschewed iron. The man in his dreams had been clad head to toe in it.

The clamour surrounded him as soon as he got back and he found himself pulled this way and that, each problem urgent, each injury an emergency. He moved among them with quiet efficiency, ignoring their demands and clatter. He had long ago learned to pull his aura in around him like an armour. He handed out orders for hot water and fresh linen for a new baby coming; he asked for herbs and spring water for washing, and wanted horsehair and fine needles for stitching.

Finally, he was done. One child on his knee and another at his feet, and a cup of varrtir in his hand, and rest was his.

Not that it lasted long. The moment he dared to doze, his dreams were full of omens.