Heir of Thunder (Stormbourne Chronicles Book 1) by Karissa Laurel Page B

hiccupped and bobbed my head.
    He hesitated, but released me. I slid to the ground and went
to Nonnie, hugging her neck and stroking her velvet nose. She butted her head
against mine and snuffled in my ear. She had always been an affectionate horse.
She had always been my horse. Gideon’s feet clunked to the ground behind
me, but I couldn’t look at him, not yet. Instead, I buried my face in her mane,
inhaling her sweaty, beastly scent.
    “I broke Gespenst when he was a colt. No one else has ever
ridden him.” Gideon spoke softly to me, as if I were the nervous colt from his
memory. “His mother’s owner gave him to me because he thought Gespenst had a
malformed leg, and I talked him out of putting the poor thing down. He tried to
buy him back the next year, but I wouldn’t sell.”
    I sniffed and kept my face pressed into Nonnie’s neck. “What
was wrong with his leg?”
    “Best I could determine; it had gotten twisted the wrong way
when he was inside his mother. I worked with him every free minute I could
steal. We rebuilt his muscle tone until he could run as fast as any other colt.”
    “And now he runs faster than all of them.”
    “Yes.”
    “And you can bear to sell him, now?”
    “No, but I have no other choice.” Gideon sounded as though
he spoke from the bottom of a deep, dark pit. His voice was hollow. Maybe he
felt as broken apart as I.
    I turned to face him. He had revealed something of himself,
something personal, private. His vulnerability made him seem approachable and sympathetic.
“I’ll go to Galland alone,” I said. “You can take Nonnie and Gespenst and start
a new life here. I could part with her if I knew you had her.”
    “Alone?” He huffed. “How will you survive? You won’t last a
day.” He tried to give me a contemptuous look, but didn’t quite succeed. His
eyes were still too sad.
    “Maybe, but it shouldn’t be your problem.”
    “I’ve made it my problem, and you’re not going anywhere
alone. I’ll see you safely to Dreutch. That was my promise.”
    “What’s in Dreutch? Why there of all places?”
    “Safety is in Dreutch, and that’s all I’m going to tell you.”
    I stomped my foot. Why this persistent vagary? If it was
safe, why wouldn’t he tell me more? “Are you afraid I’ll run away from you or
refuse to go? Are you worried it’s someplace I won’t like?”
    He climbed stiffly into his saddle. The chase had hurt him
and he looked peaked, drawn, and pale. Silly idiot. He should have let me go.
It wasn’t his fault if I rotted there, regardless of his promises. He looked at
me and dark circles underscored his eyes. “Yes, maybe that’s it.”
    I didn’t believe him, but it didn’t matter. If he had made
up his mind not to tell me, nothing would convince him to do otherwise. I
hitched myself onto Nonnie, albeit with great reluctance, and turned her back
toward Braddock. Was it easier to make the sacrifice, knowing I didn’t have to
do it alone? Maybe. I sent a wish to Father and Grandfather. Somehow they had
to help me save her. I hoped they were listening from their place in the
shadowlands of afterlife.

Chapter 9
     
    Gideon’s respect of my dread, or perhaps his own reluctance
for parting with Gespenst, made him take us back to Braddock at an ambling
gait. Or maybe his soreness and pain, aggravated by my tantrum, discouraged a
faster pace. Either way, the horrid horse trader smirked at us when we returned
as if he relished our despair. His stable was a rambling shack of holding pens
attached to a grimy paddock that had needed a good shoveling out weeks ago.
Parting with my beloved friend hurt badly enough, but giving her up to this
gloating scoundrel felt like a knife twisting in my gut, paring away vital
organs.
    A glossy coated mare, who hadn’t been there when we left,
stood out front. Her grooming spoke to her health and the wealth of her owner.
To think of another unfortunate animal spending even a single night in the
stable’s