Chapter One
Cadoc Ironfist strolled across the hillside paddock. Two mares grazed with their foals: one filly, one colt. He inhaled the meadow scents—clover, ryegrass, wildflowers, horse dung—and squinted up at the sun riding high in a sky the color of robins’ eggs. Two days short of midsummer.
Cadoc dug a couple of last year’s withered, sweet apples from his pocket and gave a whistle. The mares lifted their heads and ambled in his direction. He gave them the apples and looked them over while they crunched happily. Both well.
The foals let him examine them, too. He’d been present for their births, more than two months ago, and spent time with them whenever he could, getting them used to being handled. They stood quietly now while he touched them from head to tail, picked up each leg, ta
