---

Horses are the only true aristocrats of the steppe, and many mares were coming into foal. He suspects Tsetseg is pregnant again. If such a thing is true, then, “Tzookhor was quick to get a foal on her.”

Khaan side-eyes Sayana. Her roan stallion had always had an ambitious streak. Tsetseg never had much tolerance for stallions in the past, but he hasn’t seen her in over a year, and hadn’t he learned that the seasons remade them all?

Hoofprints signal the herd’s latest movement, the pair following their marks. Here, in summertime, the same boundless space of the sky is mirrored on the land. Scattered amid the faultless green sea of mid-summer grasses, countless flocks of sheep and goats, shifting about like cloud shadows.

Batu crests a hill and looks outwards, the tails on his deel bannering behind him.