Sorry it's been so long since last update, school is nuts right now. Hope you like it!

I woke to shouts of joy.

"It's loud, mama," Kari told me. "I was still sleeping."

I smiled at her warmly. "Good observation, little one. Keep it up."

I helped her up the ladder, out into the sunshine. After our eyes became accustomed to the sudden light, I peered back to shore. Stig, Steffan, and the twins were whooping and jumping like toddlers, bounding towards the ship.

Hal, who was on deck, sitting at the stern with Ingvar, looked thoroughly confused as well, so I assumed that I hadn't missed too much.

The land beyond the beach was lush and green. The singing birds and clear blue sky renewed my energy after yesterday's dismal mood. The sea sparkled like it contained millions of diamonds. The gentle waves lapped rhythmically at the hull and the sand, and the effect was very calming. I breathed deeply. Maybe today could be better.

Stig, Steffan, Ulf, and Wulf, who'd quieted a bit, all began speaking to Hal at once, so fast, excited, and overlapped that it was all absolutely incoherent.

"We were looking for another gobble-gobble bird…"

"Edvin yelled at us last night for not…"

"And they came out of the trees…"

"Half their original numbers, but still a lot…"

"Scared the daylights out my brother, here…" That was Ulf.

"I think my brother nearly soaked his trousers…" That was Wulf.

Hal and I exchanged a glance. As the only two on board the Heron with more than an ounce of real sense, we had become good at reading what the other was thinking.

"ENOUGH!" He shouted, just as I yelled. "QUIET!"

The four crewmen promptly shut up.

"Who scared the daylights out of Wulf?" Hal asked.

Wulf scowled. "Actually, it was really Ulf who-"

"I think what Hal means," I interrupted, watching Kari play in the sand out of the corner of my eye, "is who came out of these bushes to scare you-all of you?"

Hal shot me a look of gratitude. "Exactly." He nodded. I was glad someone on this land appreciated my Araluen diplomatic skills. I had remembered almost everything now, though the few years before the fire at the inn were still blurred.

Ulf stuck his chin in the air, as if I had confirmed what he'd been saying. Wulf did the same. "The Mawags. They're here."


Maddie:

How in the world would I tell Will?

I was cleaning out the stables. Not a very princess-ey job, I know, but Will insisted that the horses' stalls were thoroughly cleaned once a week, not including the twice-a-day mucking and feeding. Bumper and Tug were great buddies, so I had let them roam together while I scrubbed and swept.

But my mind wasn't with the task. It was thinking-hard.

After our conversation with Liese, Will had had to leave for some full-fledged Ranger business. I had stayed and Liese had talked to me in more detail. The story astounded me.

Especially one bit in particular.

How was I going to tell Will?

He had finally gotten used to the fact that his soulmate, Alyss Mainwaring, my honorary aunt, was dead. But now she wasn't! And she-and Will-had a daugher. A daughter who had lived for three years without ever meeting her father. A daughter whom Will had never met, didn't know existed.

So back to the original question: How to tell Will?

Several scenarios played through my mind, each ending worse than the last; Will getting mad, Will not believing me, Will trying to swim all the way to Skandia, or, worst of all, Will breaking down in tears. That one was the worst.

I, Maddie Altman, Araluen's Princess Royal, feared nothing more than seeing my mentor, famous Will Treaty, broken. I mean, I know that he isn't invincible like the stories of him told in taverns, but he's still my hero. Almost everything about me that defined me had been at least partly influenced by him. Oh, actually, maybe there was something I feared more than Will snapping: me letting him down. And if he took Alyss' reappearance and current status the wrong way, it could definitely be equivalent to me letting him down.

And, in general, I'm a pretty brave person, though some of that may just be my impulsive nature, but I am terrified. Terrified. Of Will's expression if he realizes that everything he'd thought, everything he'd felt over the past three years would have been different if he'd known one thing:

Alyss Mainwaring wasn't dead.


Alyss:

Simsinnet, Millika, and a boy about Gustav's age named Dason all sat around the campfire with us, somberly eating the rabbit stew Edvin had managed to whip up on short notice.

There had been a plague, a nasty one. One out of every three people in their tribe were killed. A nearby tribe had been so close to being wiped out, they'd temporarily joined with the Mawags. Several other tribes had been lost. Dason said that if you traveled too close to their lands, the stench of rotting bodies became the only smell that could be smelled. Because eventually they ran out firewood to burn them with and soft ground to bury them in.

"Mawags move north," Millika explained. "Outrun worst of cursed illness."

"Who brought it?" Hal asked. That was what most of the crew worried the most about. Whether they were responsible for the devastating disease. "The plague, I mean."

"Dark-haired men…" Simsinnet set down his empty bowl. "From I-ber-y-ah." He sounded out the name slowly.

"Iberion explorers." Hal's face was grim, set. We were at a stalemate, I guess. "They've heard rumors of a new land, must've set out and landed here."

"Most fled," Millika continued, "when plague struck. Some stayed and live towards the west, now."

"The ship is almost ready to leave," Hal said, his eyebrows furrowing a little. "If… if any of the Mawagansetts would like to… to come back to Skandia-or Araluen-with us, you're welcome."

"I would!" Dason said. Both his parents and three of his siblings had died. And he was fascinated by these newcomers.

"Plan's set, then." Hal stood, and half the crew mirrored him. "We all leave day after tomorrow."

Or, at least, most of them would.

The Mawags left to return to their tribe, and me and the Herons bedded down, on-shore, for the night. Jenny, Kari, and me all slept thirty feet away from the crew, so I didn't feel guilty about Kari's night whimpering. There was no moon that night, so I could just make out Kari's closed, long-lashed eyes, sweet, pale face, and silky mouse-brown hair, just long enough now to curl around her shoulders.

Kari, my daughter.

Please, please, please Review, guys!