Sand kicked up against Sonara’s legs as Soahm appeared at her side, blue robes flapping in the wind.
He often left the castle during morning hours, but she hadn’t seen him in days. Their mother kept him in the castle for hours on end. Taking requests, calling on visitors, learning the ins and outs of what it meant to lead a kingdom, a whole room full of ancient councilmen and women droning on and on about goddesses only knew what.
It was a life Sonara had never wanted. Deserved? Half of her blood said yes.
But wanted? That was a very different sort of thing. She would rather stand here now, hair unbound and face freckled from the sun, the kiss of the sea upon her tanned skin. And the sound of hoofbeats pounding in time with her heart as Yima tried to gain control of Duran.
“I stopped by the betting house this morning,” Soahm said softly as he watched the steed crow-hop past. “I placed ten gold coins on Duran.”
“People are betting on whether or not he’ll be tamed?” Sonara sighed. The steed’s reputation had spread across the capital, then. “Well, for what it’s worth, I’d bet on him, too. He’s going to throw her. Any moment now.”
Soahm shrugged and leaned over the railing. “Looks like she’s got it under control to me. But, ah… isn’t watching Yima’s impending doom a fine way to spend your birthday?”
“My birthday,” she said with a frown.
She’d nearly forgotten.
Soahm laughed. Then he frowned, too. “I forgot to bring you a gift.”
“No gifts,” Sonara said.
Soahm looked at her as if he disagreed.
“No gifts, Soahm,” she said again.
“Of course,” he said with a wry smile, and pointed back at the round pen. “The height of the show.”
Duran snorted and huffed, tossing his deep black mane. Sweat foamed upon his neck and chest as he fought against Yima’s commands.
“I call it in three,” Sonara said. She winked at Soahm and held up three fingers.
Across from them, Yima dug in her heavy-booted heels and pulled the reins sharply to the right. Duran’s head turned with her, his body following chase… but Sonara could see him fighting, chomping at the bit.
“Two.” She dropped a finger.
“You’d better be right,” Soahm said.
Sonara smiled as Yima made the gravest mistake of all. She looked away from Duran’s head, for only a moment, as a flock of fowl soared past, searching for refuge from the oncoming storm.
Sonara pointed her remaining finger inside the round pen. “One.”
Yima’s body took to the sky as Duran launched her off his back.
She hit the sand with a heavy thump, armor clinking as the beast pranced to the corner of the round pen. He snorted and stomped his front hoof into the sand, proud as only a young steed could be.
“No one will tame this demon,” the head trainer said with a growl, while the others standing around, who’d been so hopeful before, groaned and booed as Yima brushed her armor off.
“I could,” Sonara said softly.
Soahm turned around, leaning his back against the round pen as he looked at her. “Truly?”
“The trainer is a fool. He’s not meant to be tamed,” she said. “His spirit is as wild as the wind.”
Some days she swore she could feel it, almost sense it in the gentle huff of his breath, when they sat alone in the stall, hidden from the judgemental eyes of the world.
Duran was like her.
Different to the others.
Misunderstood, because he didn’t fit into their perfect Soreian mold.
“So what would you do differently, then, little sister?” Soahm asked.
Sonara smiled, tilting her chin towards the oncoming storm. The clouds were darkening now, rolling above the angry waves in the distance, where sky met sand and sea.
“For starters, I’d ride him without that heavy armor. Right when the rain hits.”
Soahm laughed, for when it came to riding unarmored on a beast as fierce as Duran, that most certainly sounded like a death wish. Couple the storm with it, and any steed’s attitude would change.
But Sonara had sensed Duran’s fighting soul from day one. He was born too early, a squalling and scrambling thing, scrawny legs and thin neck and a mare that did not have enough milk to sustain his endless hunger.
“He won’t survive the week,” the royal horsemaiden had said, considering the beast a burden.
But Sonara had refused to give up on him.
She did not sleep for days, so focused was she on filling him with donor’s milk. Bottle after bottle, she’d sustained him.
Duran grew quickly. He cheated death, and in the months after, Sonara spent countless hours grooming him, whispering her hurts and her pains into his fuzzy ears. Kissing him on his velvety snout. Sometimes, soaking her tears into his neck in the dark of night, when her problems surfaced and her demons tried to reel her in. Her soul always felt lighter in his presence. Like he was taking some of the burden off her back and placing it upon his own.
Sometimes, she swore he looked into her eyes and saw through to her soul.
He didn’t know what she was, a bastard without a true call to a crown.
He just knew that she was his. He’d claimed her heart from the moment she laid eyes on him.
And he was hers.
“Then I’d open these blasted gates,” Sonara said louder now, watching Duran’s dark-tipped ears flick towards the sound of her voice. “He was not meant to be confined to a pen.” His head turned to her and his blazing red eyes fell upon her face in recognition. He tossed his mane and pranced across the sand, snorting as he stopped before her. Sonara held out a hand, feeling his warm breath dissolve against her skin. Home, her heart whispered. “Then I’d turn him towards the crags, where the seagrass catches the breeze. I’d give him his freedom, allow him to think with his own head instead of a bit. We’d run until the storm broke. I wouldn’t slow him. And when he grew tired…” she smiled, thinking of the freedom, “we’d stand on the edge of the crags, watching the horizon where the sky meets the sea.”
Silence.
Then laughter, as Yima stalked over, catching Sonara’s gaze.
“The groom thinks she can do better than a cadre full of riders.”
“I don’t think,” Sonara shot back. The wind blasted her hair back from her face. “I know I can.”
The other trainers standing around laughed. But Soahm…
“A gift, Sonara,” he said softly.
He winked at her, just before he stepped forward and lowered his hood from his head. The crowd gasped, the riders dropping to their knees as they realized the Crown Prince of Soreia was in their presence. His blue curls lifted as a gust caught the strands. The storm wind pulled at the fabric of his cloak, tugged at the heavy chain around his neck and the black stone dangling from it, sealed carefully in a ring of forged gold.
For centuries, the amulet had been in the royal family, passed down from generation to generation, from one heir to the next, marking the successor to the Soreian throne. There was no story behind the stone. Only that it was ancient, that it once belonged to the very first Soreian queen, who’d always seemed to know how to find favor with her people. Beloved. Admired.
She wore the stone upon her neck until the fading sands of time called her home.