The caravan drove away from the empty field. Just hours ago, this same field had been full of activity and firelight. A baby girl had been born just a month ago, a baby girl who truly had the Gift: The Seer's Mark had been bestowed upon the child. Now, an infant wailed as the horses pulled the shabbily decorated caravan on the Soralin, the Seventh Kingdom.
   The child in question sat in a wicker basket, wrapped rather hastily in linen cloth and quickly blessed before being left behind in the field. In gypsy lore, It was bad luck to have two babes at once. There was no room for extra children in a caravan.
   The infant squirmed in the darkness, watching fireflies blinking with their transient light. A wolf howled in the distance, and, farther away, the others in his pack answered. Their low, mournful cries echoed through the night. Their tall, bristling shadows slunk ever closer. The child sat in silence, tiny face relaxed in sleep. The alpha wolf crept towards the basket. A tiny snarl brought the others to him. As they watched, one braver wolf crept in and tried to pounce on the basket. A hissing noise filled the air, and a crackling green light surrounded the basket. The wolf who had touched it howled in pain as he was flung several feet into the air. The other wolves saw the light and ran, caring not for the fate of their comrade.
   While all of this occurred, the babe slept peacefully in her basket, never a shadow crossing the ignorant bliss of a mind in sleep. When the sun rose, casting a dusty pink shadow over the mountains, a farmer walked out before breakfast to get an early start on his crops. He nearly tripped over the small wicker basket sitting in the weeds. When he did, he stared down. There, in the basket, was a tiny baby the size of a bread loaf. She was sucking on a finger, humming sleepily and looking up at him with big grey eyes. He hefted the basket and brought it into his cottage.
   When the farmer's wife saw that baby in her husband's arm, the first thing she did was heat some milk over the hearth. She poured the milk into cheesecloth and squeezed it, drop by drop, into the baby's mouth. The baby sucked on the cloth, and her face broke into a tiny smile. The farmer's wife, Olga, wrapped the baby in a quilt and lay her on the bed frame. The baby fell asleep.
   The baby slept on, never dreaming that these weren't her parents, that this wasn't her home, and that this wasn't her destiny.