“I have half a mind to take Duran and ride far away from here,” Sonara said as she undid both locks and entered the stall, pushing Duran back a few steps. He tossed his head but relented as she clicked her teeth and stared him down. The beast stilled as she ran a brush across his back in steady strokes, even going so far as to lower his head to her. Sonara sighed and gave him another mint. “Imagine, the life he and I would have in the Deadlands. Freedom, Soahm. As wild as the winds.”
Soahm chuckled from the stall across the aisle. “You, in the Deadlands? If you don’t die of starvation or thirst or getting lost in the endless sands, you’ll definitely die of an attack by outlaws. The desert has eyes, Sonara. And they’re always watching, waiting for their moment to strike.” He shivered as if his memories of traveling to the neighboring kingdom were more than enough to set him on edge. “And their king, I might add, is one who thirsts for blood. He sits upon a throne of bones.”
“Laugh all you wish, Prince.” Sonara tossed him a glare worthy of any war mare. “But I’m plenty capable of surviving anywhere. Outlaws be damned.”
“Are you?” Soahm crossed his tan arms over the stall door, gemstone rings glinting in the stray tendrils of sunlight. “Prove it.”
Sonara weighed the onyx brush in her hand. Before he could react, she hurled it at him. It spun, bristles over back, until it landed with a dull thud against Soahm’s chest.
It left nothing more than a smudge of dirt against his tunic before it fell to his polished boots.
“Terrifying.” He arched a blue brow.
“I warned you.”
“You’ll need a name, if you’re to be a dangerous outlaw.”
“Sonara the Shadowrider,” she mused, catching the brush as Soahm tossed it back to her. Duran huffed and shifted his weight as if he were tired of their game.
“Too obvious,” Soahm said. “Something more sinister. Sonara the Stabber? You’d carry a warrior’s sword, of course.”
She snorted back a laugh as she brushed Duran. “That’s ridiculous. I’m no weaponsmaiden.”
They paused as a commotion rose outside the carved stable windows. Murmured voices of distant onlookers mixed with the soft sigh of seashells dancing among braided wind chimes. Cheers rose up as hoofbeats pounded against the sand, and a conch blew in three long blasts. Sonara paused to glance outside Duran’s stall window as the royal procession snaked past.
Warriors rode on the backs of glamorous steeds as they escorted the Queen of Soreia towards her towering fortress at the ocean’s edge.
Sonara glared from the shadows as Queen Iridis rode past. Her long hair was loose, a brilliant natural blue that hung in long coils down her back. “She makes the steeds’ sides bleed from whipping them,” Sonara said.
Sonara groomed and fed all the young steeds. She helped train them when allowed, and though Duran was especially stubborn, and though he didn’t like to listen, he’d stolen her heart all the same, far more than any of the other steeds ever had.
“Do you know how many of them she’s turned sour?” Sonara sighed and felt Duran’s hot breath on her neck as he drew her attention away from the window.
It was as if he could sense her mood dropping, sense the light within her fading the more she stood in her mother’s presence.
Sonara dug her hands into Duran’s mane. “If the devil of a woman ever touches you, Duran…”
“That’s it!” Soahm cried out. He clapped his hands together just outside the stall door, so loudly that Duran skittered sideways at the sudden sound.
“Some War Steed you’ll make,” Sonara murmured with a smile. Duran’s ears flattened as if he very much disagreed.
“The Devil,” Soahm said, crossing his arms atop Duran’s stall door. “Someday, Sonara, you’re going to become the She-Devil, riding on Duran’s back, spreading hell across Dohrsar. And don’t forget the sword.”
He reached to his hip, where his blade was held.
Lazaris; the blade of their ancestors. A sword Soahm had trained with since he was only a boy, beautiful in its simplicity. The blade was solid black, with a strip of Soreian blue steel running down the middle, cool as a river.
The sword was once their mother’s, wielded as she slew her way to the crown. But Soahm had been gifted Lazaris upon birth, a sword he’d finally grown into with age. Sometimes, Sonara watched from the stables as Soahm trained with the royal weaponsmaidens, who forged blue Soreian steel into weapons capable of withstanding a lifetime of warriors’ hits.
When Soahm held Lazaris in the bright light of day, practicing on the elevated castle grounds in full view of the citizens, Sonara hid in the shadows of the stable, and mirrored his motions with a mucking fork.
At night, he trained with her on the Devil’s Dunes, the twin moons their only watching eyes. She was not skilled, by any means.
But holding Lazaris gave her a reason to believe in herself.
For what was a sword, without a warrior to wield it? Perhaps someday, she’d be strong enough, skilled enough, to earn her own weapon.
“Lost in your thoughts, She-Devil?” Soahm asked, drawing Sonara’s attention away from Lazaris. The Queen’s procession faded away and the sound of chewing steeds took its place. A red bloodfly buzzed past Sonara’s ear.
“Not quite,” she said, and swatted the bloodfly away. “No, I don’t think that’s the right name. The She-Devil? It doesn’t have much of a ring to it. But it was a worthy try.”
Soahm sighed. “I’ll figure it out eventually.” He turned over a water bucket and sat down on it to keep her company while she worked, his chin propped upon his ringed hands.
“Tired already?” Sonara asked, tossing the brush at him again. “You’re becoming lazy, princeling.”
“She-Devil,” Soahm said with a wink as he stood to help her. “Definitely a She-Devil.”
Sonara leaned against the rough edge of a round pen, watching the royal trainers with longing in her eyes.
Duran had already thrown three riders from his back, his tail fountaining behind him in silkiest black as he pranced, feathered legs dancing with each pound of his hooves against the sand.
The day was uncomfortably warm. The scent of steed sweat mixed in with the nearby smell of the sea. Across it, a pasture of golden seagrasses waved in the wind, the sky above darkening. A storm would soon arrive from far across the sea. It would crash onto the shore like a maelstrom, and everyone in Soreia would head inside.
“Easy, Yima!” the head trainer shouted. “Don’t give him too much control of his head, or you’ll be thrown, too! We should head in. Call it for the day.”
Yima was one of the finest riders, from a noble family of steed breeders in eastern Soreia. Sonara watched from outside the pen, clicking her tongue as Yima, heavy in her blue scaled armor, climbed atop Duran’s back.
And dug her heels in deep.
“Not so easy,” Sonara murmured beneath her breath.
She saw the telltale shift as Duran’s ears flattened against his head, nostrils flaring.
Yima yanked on the bit as she clicked her own teeth at him. The steed’s sides were already bleeding from countless riders and spurs, his breath heaving as he fought against their control.