[An Epic Fantasy 01.0] Skip by Perrin Briar

Author:Perrin Briar [Briar, Perrin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
Goodreads: 24489318
Published: 2014-12-18T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

He stared with an intensity she had never witnessed in someone so young before. His eyes were big and wide, and so black they reminded her of a midnight ocean brushing against the shore. He had multi-coloured beads woven into his fuzz-like mane growing from his neck down his back, and all the way to his tail, which was short and stunted and tied with string into a ponytail. His long ears were pierced with studs and small rings. He hadn’t moved a muscle in twenty minutes.

Jera put her arm through the bars of her cage and clicked her fingers in front of the young centaur’s face.

“Do you think he’s asleep or something?” she said. “Horses do sleep standing up, don’t they? He doesn’t seem very responsive.”

“That’s because he’s never seen such a beautiful human before,” Elian said.

Jera snorted.

“Which is another way of saying he’s never seen a human before,” she said.

“That too.”

Elian shuffled across the prison cell, damp straw squishing beneath his feet. He came to a bamboo cane as thick as his arm, arranged at regular intervals around the cell, and knocked on it with his knuckles. They made a hollow thunk sound that died the moment he knocked.

Elian’s hat sat askew on his head. His shirt was torn and there was mud on his breeches. Despite the two week-old stubble on his chin, he was handsome, and his eyes shone like glowing chestnuts on an open fire. He moved to the next bar and tapped on it, listening to the tone it made. Jera ran a hand through her dirty hair.

“What are you doing?” she said.

Elian didn’t reply, and instead moved to the next bamboo cane and tapped on it. Jera shook her head and turned back to the foal centaur and caught a flicker of movement in his face.

“He moved!” she said. “You can stop pretending to be asleep now. I know you’re awake.”

But the foal didn’t move again.

“I’ll tell you what,” Jera said to the foal, sidling up close to the bamboo bars. “You let us out of here and I’ll take you to some yummy grass. How about that? It’ll be the most luscious juicy grass you’ve ever tasted, I swear. Well? What do you say?”

“You’re wasting your time,” Elian said.

“At least I’m trying.”

“Ineffectively.”

“Better than not trying.”

Elian shrugged his shoulders and tapped another bar.

“I think he understands me,” Jera said.

“He doesn’t understand you,” Elian said. “I don’t understand you. What chance has he got? He’s probably just wondering what we are. He’s probably never seen anything like us before.”

Jera turned back to the foal.

“Do you know what we are?” she said. “We’re humans. Can you say that? Hu-man.”

Again the foal stared with a blank expression. Jera studied the young centaur’s features, which were delicate and yet somehow strong. There was a nobility there, a pride as strong as anything she’d seen on a human face.

“They are beautiful though, aren’t they?” Jera said.

“Oh, yes. Gorgeous. Right up until they roast you alive and start nibbling at your ankles.

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