The eagle stayed in Torren's head after it vanished.
Not as fear. Fear would have been simpler. Fear could be spat at, cursed at, walked away from if a man had enough pride. This was different. It was the memory of wind under wings, the camp below turning into smoke and shape, the whole mountain opening for one breath as if distance were a thing that could be held in the hand.
So when the snow eased again and the higher stones showed through white, Torren went back to the ridge.
He told himself he only wanted the quiet. That was true enough to be useful. The camp had become loud again in the way living camps were loud: Hokor splitting wood, Rusk arguing, Nella shouting over bowls, men counting stores, children daring each other to touch snow with bare feet. Torren liked the noise more than he admitted, but sometimes he needed to be above it.
The ridge gave him that.
It also gave him goats.
A small herd moved below the broken stone, nosing through wind-cleared patches where brown grass showed. One old female stood higher than the rest, her beard crusted with frost and one horn chipped near the tip. Torren knew her. Or thought he did. He had been inside a goat before, once by accident and once because he had wanted to prove to himself that the first time had not been fever, madness, or some trick of the gods.
He sat on a flat stone and watched her pick her way along a ledge no sane man would cross without both hands and a prayer.
The voice came after a while.
Prior contact with similar animal established. Lower complexity than bird contact. Lower disorientation risk.
Torren rubbed his palms against his knees. "You mean goat is easier than eagle."
Yes.
"Then say goat is easier than eagle. You don't have to sound like a maester trying to impress another maester."
Goat is easier than eagle.
"See? Was that so hard?"
No.
Torren almost laughed. "You're learning."
Pattern adjustment applied.
"No, don't say that. You ruin it."
He closed his eyes before the voice could answer.
It was not like opening a door. Torren hated when his mind tried to make it neat like that. It was more like leaning too far over dark water and feeling something lean back. The goat was there below him: warm under a winter hide, hungry, irritated by the younger goat crowding her flank, aware of wind, stone, and the bitter smell of fox somewhere far down the slope.
Torren reached.
The world lurched.
Smell came first. Not human smell. Sharper, thicker, full of old snow, grass under crust, goat bodies, stone dust, cold air moving from the left. The ground under four hooves was not frightening. It was information. This rock held. That one might slide. The ledge was narrow, yes, but narrow did not mean dangerous if the hoof knew where to go.
Torren saw his own body above.
A pale boy sitting on stone, cloak around his shoulders, eyes open and wrong.
That sight nearly threw him back. The goat did not care about pale boys. She cared about grass. She lowered her head and scraped snow aside with a hoof, and Torren was pulled with her attention, down into the simple need of eating.
He tried to turn her head.
Too hard.
The goat stamped, jerked her neck, and the world snapped away.
Torren opened his eyes in his own body with his jaw clenched and one hand dug into snow.
"Still hates me," he muttered.
Direct control attempt rejected.
"Goat threw me out."
Approximate description acceptable.
"Very generous of you."
He breathed until his heart slowed. Below, the old goat shook herself once, then went back to chewing as if nothing of importance had happened. That annoyed him more than it should have. It also steadied him. The goat had not swallowed him. He had not lost himself. He had only been bad at it.
He tried again.
This time he did not push so much as follow. The goat wanted distance from the younger one. She wanted higher stone. She wanted grass with less ice over it. Torren found that wanting and leaned with it, gently, toward a ledge he had seen from above.
The goat stepped.
Then again.
For a few breaths, Torren did not command her. He rode behind her senses, feeling the certainty of each hoof, the balance in the spine, the constant small adjustments that made cliffs into roads. It was ugly and beautiful at once, and far less clean than flying had felt. Flying had made the world open. The goat made the world immediate: rock, wind, hunger, body, next step.
Then a raven croaked from somewhere above.
The goat startled.
Torren came back too fast, gasping in his own throat.
He laughed once, low and breathless. "All that, and a raven ruins us."
Startle response transferred across contact.
"Mm. I noticed the part where my bones tried to jump out."
Recommendation: avoid contact during high fear states.
"I'll tell the goat to be calmer next time."
Animal compliance unlikely.
"No shit."
The voice did not answer. Torren decided to count that as a victory.
...
He went to the ridge twice more before anyone spoke of it.
Not because he was hiding well. Because people were busy, and because a boy sitting alone on a ridge was not strange enough to stop work for. The Painted Dogs had seen stranger things than Harrag's pale son staring at rocks. They only began to notice when he came down with snow on one knee, eyes too sharp, and a temper like a goat's.
Hokor noticed first.
"You look odd," he said one afternoon, leaning on an axe near the lower stones.
Torren shook snow from his cloak. "That is not new."
"More odd."
"Very kind."
"No, I mean you look like you left half your head up there."
Torren paused. "That was nearly a useful thing to say."
Hokor narrowed his eyes. "Nearly?"
"I came back with all of it, I think."
"You think?"
"Most of it, then."
Hokor watched him for a long moment. "You're being strange on purpose now."
"Better than doing it by accident."
"That depends."
Torren started past him.
Hokor caught his sleeve. Not hard. Enough to stop him. "Are you sick?"
"No."
"Seeing things?"
Torren looked at him.
Hokor let go. "That was not no."
"I saw goats."
"Gods help us. He has discovered goats."
Torren smiled despite himself. "Don't tell Rusk. He'll try to fight one."
"Rusk would lose."
"Depends on the goat."
That made Hokor laugh. Torren was grateful, because laughing moved them away from questions he did not want to answer.
But Hokor's eyes followed him anyway.
...
The Tree Speaker did not ask.
He told.
"You are doing it too hard," the old man said.
Torren stopped beside the weirwood, one hand still on the water skin he had come to fill. Snow hung from the branches above them in small white clumps. The carved face in the trunk watched nothing and everything.
Torren looked at him. "Doing what?"
The Tree Speaker gave him a tired look.
Torren sighed. "Right."
The old man leaned on his staff. "The goat does not like being shoved."
"You knew?"
"I knew before you knew what to call it."
"That would have been useful to mention."
"Would it?"
"Yes."
"No," the Tree Speaker said. "You would have either run from it like a frightened child or poked at it like a stupid one."
Torren opened his mouth, then closed it.
The old man nodded. "You chose the second without my help."
"I'm learning."
"You are surviving your mistakes. That is not the same thing."
Torren looked toward the ridge. "I did it before. With the goat. I knew I could."
"Yes. That is why you are dangerous to yourself."
"I'm not afraid of it."
"I did not say afraid. Fear would be easier. You are curious."
Torren did not have an answer for that.
The Tree Speaker came closer and took Torren's wrist without asking. He turned the hand palm-up and looked at the small scrapes where stone had torn the skin. Torren had barely noticed them. The old man had.
"You moved in your own body," the Tree Speaker said.
"A little."
"A little near a drop is enough."
"I wasn't near the edge."
"Your knee says otherwise."
Torren glanced down. Snow and grit clung to one knee where he had slid on the ridge.
The Tree Speaker let go of his wrist. "There. Learning."
Torren rubbed his hand against his cloak. "Why didn't you tell Harrag?"
The old man's eyes narrowed. "Tell him what? That his son hears trees, carries clan marks, and wears goat-skin when bored? Should I tell Rusk too, so he can ask whether goats fight better than men?"
Torren snorted before he could stop himself.
"This is not for the fire," the Tree Speaker said. "Some truths are kept because they are holy. Some because they are dangerous. This is both."
"I'm not holy."
"I did not say you were."
Torren looked at him.
The old man's mouth twitched. "Do not look disappointed."
"I'm not."
"You were close."
Torren huffed. "You sound like Mother Maera."
"Good. She is old enough to be right by accident."
"You know her?"
"All Tree Speakers know of her."
"That is not what I asked."
"That is the answer I gave."
Torren stared at him. "You all do that. All of you. Say things sideways and pretend it's wisdom."
"Sometimes it is."
"Sometimes it's just annoying."
"That too."
The Tree Speaker tapped his staff into the snow. "Tomorrow you go to the ridge with me."
Torren blinked. "You?"
"Yes."
"You can do this?"
"Do I look like a goat?"
"No, but—"
"But you thought old men only mutter over sap and complain about young fools?"
Torren gave him a careful look. "Do you want the honest answer?"
"No."
"Then no."
"Bad liar."
"Everyone says that."
"Then become better or stop trying."
...
The next morning, the Tree Speaker made him sit farther from the edge.
That was the first lesson.
Torren complained until the old man tied a cord around his wrist and looped the other end loosely around his own hand. It was not tight enough to hold him if he truly fell. It was enough that if Torren's body shifted, the old man would feel it.
"This is stupid," Torren said.
"This is safer than your way."
"My way worked."
"Your way left blood on your hand."
"Barely."
"Do you want a lesson or an argument?"
"Can I have both?"
"No."
The old man pointed down toward the goats. The same old female stood above the herd, chewing on a strip of grass she had stolen from under the snow. She looked unpleasant and sure of herself.
"Her again," the Tree Speaker said.
"She hates me."
"She is used to you. That is better."
"Is it?"
"For goats, maybe."
Torren settled himself and closed his eyes.
The old man's voice dropped, not soft, but lower. "Do not push her feet. Do not push her head. Feel what she already wants. Turn that, if you can. If you cannot, leave. Do not wrestle a beast inside its own bones."
Torren opened one eye. "That was almost clear."
"I will try to be more confusing next time."
"Thank you."
"Begin."
Torren reached.
The goat opened around him faster this time. Snow, stone, hunger, irritation. The younger goat stood too close again. The old female wanted him gone, wanted higher rock, wanted the patch of exposed grass near the broken ledge. Torren did not shove. He found the wanting and leaned into the part that matched what he needed.
The goat stepped up.
Then again.
The cord tugged faintly at Torren's wrist in his own body. He kept that tug somewhere in the back of himself. A thread. A way home. The goat climbed, and Torren rode the movement without trying to own it.
The old man tugged twice.
Come back.
Torren pulled away.
For a breath, the goat's hunger clung to him. Grass. Stone. Herd. Cold. Then he opened his eyes on the ridge, breathing hard but steady. His body had not moved more than a finger's width.
The Tree Speaker watched him.
"Well?" Torren asked.
"Better."
"That sounded painful for you."
"It was."
Torren grinned.
The old man lifted the cord. "Again."
...
They practiced until Torren's head ached.
Not long enough to make him proud. Long enough to make pride difficult. There was slipping in, staying, leaning, and leaving. The leaving mattered most. The Tree Speaker made him come back before he wanted to, again and again, until Torren began to understand that wanting to stay was itself a warning.
By the end, the goat came back with him a little.
Not much. A taste. A mood. When Hokor spoke too close behind him near the lower stones, Torren snapped, "Move off my side."
Hokor stared. "What?"
Torren blinked.
The Tree Speaker, who had followed them down, struck Torren lightly on the back of the head with his staff.
"Ow."
"Goat," the old man said.
Hokor looked between them. "What does that mean?"
"It means your brother is tired," the Tree Speaker said.
Torren rubbed his head. "That is not what it means."
The old man gave him a warning look.
Torren shut up.
Hokor's eyes narrowed. "You two are being strange."
"You are only noticing now?" Torren said.
Hokor looked at him for another moment, then decided, perhaps wisely, that he did not want the answer badly enough.
"Fine. Be strange. Just don't bite anyone."
Torren opened his mouth.
The Tree Speaker tapped the staff once.
Torren closed it.
...
That evening, Torren sat near the weirwood while the old man sealed sap-water jars for storage.
His head still ached, but less. His scraped hand had been cleaned and wrapped. The goat-feeling had faded, though not entirely. Part of him still noticed the smell of old grass under snow. Part of him still wanted to step higher whenever he saw a slope.
"You said beasts come back with you," Torren said.
"They can."
"For how long?"
"If you are careful, a breath. If you are foolish, longer. If you are very foolish, long enough that men begin to wonder which one of you returned."
Torren looked at him. "Has that happened?"
The Tree Speaker did not answer right away.
That was answer enough.
"Who?" Torren asked.
"No."
"No?"
"No story. Boys turn stories into dares."
"I'm not a boy."
"You are close enough."
Torren leaned back against the white trunk and looked up through the bare black branches. "Do all Tree Speakers do this?"
"No."
"Some?"
"Some hear trees. Some dream. Some read weather better than men deserve. Some know herbs. Some know beasts. Some only know how to sound wise near a fire."
Torren glanced at him. "Which are you?"
"Tired."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the truest one."
They sat in silence for a while.
Then Torren asked, "Why teach me now?"
The old man sealed the jar before answering. "Because you are already doing it. Because you almost slipped. Because birds have started looking at you. Because Maera has seen enough to make old roots uneasy. Because your name walks faster than your feet. Choose the reason you like least."
Torren looked down.
"I like none of them."
"Good. Then you understand."
Above the camp, a dark shape crossed the evening sky.
Torren looked up.
The eagle turned once, far above the ridge, wings stretched against the fading light.
The old man saw it too.
"Not yet," he said.
Torren swallowed.
This time, he did not reach.
Not yet.