'No.' Skyfire smiled, for the moment as sure as bedrock. 'Dreamsinger.' Though the ways of the pack and the vision of dream might war inside her, the call of Recognition obscured them.

    For a moment the fey elf clid not move. All his years of wandering cast a current of doubt between them. Skyfire smiled, uncaring; and the pull of longing overwhelmed. The Dreamsinger answered the name he had been given and gathered Skyfire into his embrace. His song swelled around her. For an instant she knew the wild joy of Timmain running with her wolf-mate; then the pound of blood in her veins overturned the dream. The notes of the spell shifted afresh, transformed the clearing to a place of new spring grass that was softly perfect for mating. Skyfire had known the exertion and thrill of the hunt. She had killed for food and for survival, and lived the fierce way of the wolf-pack. She had howled in moonlight, and chipped winter ice for drinking, and gnawed upon bones when her stomach was hollow with hunger. The life of the pack contained all there was to know of death and survival. But in Dreamsinger's arms the Wolfrider chieftess learned gentleness, and that one thing overturned all else.

    Dreamsinger traced her many scars with light fingers. His song spoke now of healing, and places where elves need not kill. Skyfire heard, ancl ached with the terror of the unknown. This dream which lacked the howl and the hunt tore away the familiar, left her adrift without bearings. The Dreamsinger sang of the past, lost forever, or of a life impossibly far into the future. Skyfire caught her fey mate close, for his body was warm and listening caused pain. Yet little comfort came to her. He was the song, and his strangeness brought conflict beyond bearing. The pull of Recognition would not let her leave, not let her run and join Woodbiter, and find refuge in the pack. She could not go; in time she no longer wanted to. The Dreamsinger's strange magic touched her spirit and wove irrevocable change.

    After the mating he caught up her fiery hair and gloried in the colour, which promised both sunset and dawn. As he braided the shining length of it, Skyfire looked up past his head and watched a tree burst spontaneously into blossom. The scent made her languid and content, until the Dreamsinger's spell changed key, as, inevitably, it must. He belonged to no pack. As Outcast, he must leave her, or risk the leadership she had won from Two-Spear at

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