Chapter 2

3 Years Later...

She is so pretty, he thought childishly as he held up his hands to be picked up. Prince Sharn looked up at his youngest sister Samantia hopefully. She was usually the one who played with him and fed him and made sure his clothes were clean and put him to bed and ... well everything. She was practically his mother. And his mother was some distant Goddess who only descended from on high to occasionally yell at him or spank him. His mother was pretty too, but in a cold, harsh sort of way. Samantia shook her head and took his hand, tugging him along through the house and out onto the landscaped grounds. His hope for playtime was squashed when he saw she was heading for a gate hidden behind some aqatia bushes. Ce'al Vra-Kor was a huge city, not that Sharn was aware of that. He rarely went outside the walls of House Jenni, not that he knew what House Jenni was, either.

Samantia sniffled, holding back her tears and pulling her plain cloak around her rather plain dress. She led her baby Sharn to the sally port in the walls of House Jenni before she pulled her hood over her shining golden hair and low over her beautiful face. There were bags under her gold eyes and her face was dark green and blotchy from weeping all night. She had been summoned to her mother's study the night before and ordered to take the child into the city and leave him in a dangerous area, making sure he could not find his way home again. None of the other women in the House of Jenni liked Sharn very much, but at least Shayla was not cruel and hateful towards him. Sharn had been given into Samantia's care when she was seven, barely old enough to know how to care for herself. If not for the sympathy of the House's staff and surreptitious help from Masterhealer Lilith Auley, Sharn would not have made it out of infancy. As it was, Master Lilith was firm in her belief in Samantia and her potential as a healer, not that it would be up to her. That would be up to her mother and the Council when she was thirteen. For now, her task was to care for Sharn in whatever manner she was able and follow the dictates of her mother. It took Samantia's young brain almost a year and a half to realize that she was given her brother as her ward in hopes that someone so young would accidentally kill the boy. She cried the day she realized that, as well. The day her eldest sister came to beat her for rescuing Sharn from a premeditated tumble down the longest staircase in the house. And instead of reprimanding Ceilia, her mother praised the elder girl for her actions.

Now ten, Samantia was heartbroken when her mother ordered her to abandon her brother to certain harm, be it death or abduction. Opening the gate of the sally port, Samantia looked out into the alley created by the wall of House Jenni and the wall of House Golari to make sure nobody noticed them leaving. Pulling Sharn out into the dark passageway, she guided him across the city looking for the place her mother ordered him left. They were nearing the outskirts of town when she heard a horse neigh challengingly and several others answer, signaling she had found the place. Sneaking into another alley, she walked down the garbage strewn street to find a walled compound abutting the outer wall of Ce'al Vra-Kor. Above the gate facing the alley was the sign she was told to look for: horses rearing over a shield with a scroll beneath it. It was the headquarters of the only Tran Koran cavalry unit of the Army. Besides a blocky office building for staff and officers, there were barracks, smithies, coopers, healers, and anything else a military unit would need to ready itself for war. Including a large stable and several paddocks in which to train both men and horses. The idea was for her to distract the guards with a message from her mother's closest rival on the Council whilst Sharn sneaked into the compound and hopefully to where the horses were. The horses procured for the cavalry were notoriously ill-tempered and it was Shiena Jenni's hope that one of them would inadvertently kill her unwanted son. Barring that happy circumstance, he would inevitably be abducted, whether by the thugs that inhabited the district or by rival Houses.

Samantia knelt down to look her brother in the face before almost smothering him with a fierce hug. "Sharn, do you remember when we had to ride horses to go with mother a few weeks ago?"

"Horses! We ride horses again, Sammy? Please? I was good! I didn't even cry when Ceilia hit me for stopping her hurting you," Sharn pleaded, jiggling in his excitement.

It was almost enough to cause Samantia to begin crying again and run off with her brother. But she knew her mother would just send people to find her and kill her brother out of sight of those who kept close eyes on the Lady of the Council's activities. It was almost ironic that the very reason Lady Shiena hated her sons, the Game, was the thing keeping her youngest son alive. Samantia shook herself and smiled at Sharn. "Do you see that gate over there? Well, there are horses in there. Mother promised me that you could go see the horses since you have been good. But it is a secret game, understand? So what we need to do is sneak into the gate."

"How? Guards see everything, Sammy."

Samantia smiled weakly, her eyes threatening to leak again. "I will distract the guard and you sneak behind me and through the gate. Then go find the horses. Got it?" she said with as much faked enthusiasm as she could muster.

Sharn thought about that for a second or two and then nodded eagerly. Samantia stood and withdrew the message her mother had given her to distract the guards. It was signed by a rival House in case the ploy should come to light. Taking a deep breath, Samantia shimmered and changed her coloring radically, proceeding towards the gate and forcing herself not to take one last look at her brother.

Sharn was excited. He loved horses! He watched Sammy talk to the guard and scuttered across the road and through the gate as soon as she signaled. He saw the second guard but the guard was watching his sister with rapt attention. Sharn heard the second guard mutter to the first, "The matriarchs sure know how to breed beautiful girls! I could wish to see more of her around here when she gets a few years older!" A third guard retorted with, "As if a beautiful creature like that would give you a second glance, now or in a few years!"

Sharn was too young to know what they were talking about, other than to say Sammy was beautiful. Since he agreed, he ignored them and got to sneaking around the buildings, moving closer to the horse sounds. The compound looked massive to his diminutive gaze, the buildings towering over him and people in uniform moving swiftly about their tasks. He was soon rewarded with the sight of a dozen men riding huge horses into a long building from which came the smell of horses and hay and manure. And he could hear them!

On stubby legs he ran towards the cavernous opening through which the men rode their horses. Once inside, he went back to sneaking to make sure nobody saw him and got Sammy in trouble with mother. He was looking around a corner when a head appeared over his. A horse head! Just above him was a stall whose occupant found the small Ce'al interesting. He smelled of apple blossoms and fruit as the horse snuffled the child's hair. Sharn was practically delirious with delight as the horse slobbered ecstatically in his hair. Reaching his short arms upward, he gently petted the gorgeous animal and was blind with his rapture.

It was at this point that three troopers stopped in the stables in shock. The boy was dressed well in linen short pants dyed a bright green and a silk shirt of cerulean that was quickly being spotted with horse slobber. The half boots the boy wore would never have been bought for so young a commoner child who would simply outgrow them in half a year. This was no street stray who had wandered into the cavalry stables but the boy-child of some well-to-do family. A rich boy who was being slobbered on as if he were a colt by the fiercest mare in the entire stables. A horse so ill-tempered she was stabled here instead of with the other horses because nobody dared ride her except the stablemaster.