Benyu Born of Ash by Katie Feavel

Author:Katie Feavel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Acorn Publishing LLC
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

40

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he compound that houses the armory and stables appears to be about as old as Alítheia itself. It would be crumbling under the erosion of time, were it not for the glamours supporting it. The walls and structures rise at such absurd angles that it could only be through magic that the building remained standing.

The scent of the horses and manure pushes into my nostrils as we approach the stables, Goji leading the way and Galin strolling at my side. I find myself still fighting the lingering draw of the shaman pool and give my shoulders a fluid shake, attempting to loosen the hold.

I could probably ask Galin to help with that, if glamours are how they aid others entranced by what Alítheia shows them. But something in me resists that urge, too. Something tells me this discomfort, this struggle, serves a purpose.

Some kind of magical conditioning.

Good.

Like much else in Ennea, the stables are not only ancient, but massive, gratuitous. The towering ceilings are accented with decoratively carved beams in the rafters. Enough stalls line the sides to host some fifty horses, and these are just the ones belonging to the royal family.

The barracks, Galin tells me in hushed tones as we walk, host their own stables for the officer’s steeds. The warmth of the interior, with the tangy, earthy scent of the horses causes my magic to flicker in my chest. Just the slightest little pulse that beats in rhythm with my own heart.

There had been a small stable at the Exchange, a trading post with two stalls for travelers, but it had been filthy, and the creature standing resident but skin and bones. Galin eyes me when I unintentionally loose a sigh, moved by the beauty of both architecture and animal.

“I feel the same,” he says with the hint of a playful smile.

Goji excuses himself with a stiff bow, clicking his heels together in farewell, leaving me alone with the prince.

I hang back, collecting, steadying, reminding myself of the things he’s done that I should hate him for. But I can’t help but watch with a tinge of something akin to awe, admiration as he moves from horse to horse, stroking the crops of hair between their eyes, murmuring to them as they snicker in reply, feeding them handfuls of grain, apples, carrots.

Will I ever be able to reconcile this man to whom I’m forever beholden. At once brutish and benevolent, wicked and generous, gregarious and cold. He swings between such variable extremes that I never know which Galin I’m in the presence of.

I did what had to be done. The way he’d spoken in those brief moments when he seemed indeed to have believed me lost, the way his moragi speak of him. Not everything is as it seems. And yet, if any part of that show with Damiana had been unwanted, manufactured, as Burdock and Holly both seem to believe, why not just tell me so?

He’s playing in the games of others, just as he seems to orchestrate his own.

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