Skandar and the Chaos Trials by A.F. Steadman

Author:A.F. Steadman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2024-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

KENNA GUILT

Kenna Smith was riddled with guilt.

Guilt was a burning oasis. It was wild foals fleeing from those who’d sworn to protect them and the broken threads of fragile friendships.

Guilt was giving in. Giving in to the furious grip of the forged bond on her heart. Giving in to Goshawk’s deep desire for destruction. Giving in to the wildness that lived in her soul.

Guilt was the Wanderers running from their home. It was thrusting the most peaceful people she’d ever met into battle, and a haunted look in amethyst eyes.

Guilt was shame. Shame that she had unleashed her power. Shame that she had shattered the one unbreakable rule. Shame that she had ever thought she could be safe.

After several days of frenzied riding through the zones, the flame-eyed man had left Kenna and Goshawk’s Fury behind the shimmering sheet of a waterfall. That had been three nights ago. The relentless crash of the water into its swirling pool had sent Kenna into a kind of trance. Hours passed like seconds. Minutes passed like days. She didn’t eat the food the man had left with her. She just sat – wrapped in a blanket – under the rocky overhang as the water rushed overhead and fell like a living curtain, shielding her from the world. A partition between before and after.

She let the guilt consume her, replaying the scenes at the oasis: black smoke rising from palm trees, screams of terror, fleeing wild unicorn foals. She made herself look again at the injured bodies on the sand: both the silver-masked ones she had put there, and the Wanderers who had refused to fight back. She made herself remember the way she’d unleashed her own power to save herself: the way she’d felt it thrumming through her veins; the way she’d enjoyed feeling unstoppable. She made herself see again the fear on the faces of her foes and her friends – even the fear on her own brother’s face as she’d called on the darker side of her elemental strength.

Was Skandar even looking for her? Had he really just returned to the Eyrie after all that destruction? Had he simply gone back to his treehouse, when she was out here all alone?

And she couldn’t forget that Skandar wanted to separate her from Goshawk’s Fury, that his grand plan was to bond the unicorn she’d chosen – the unicorn she loved – to a complete stranger he’d seen in a dream. Skandar wanted to change her. Was he staying away because she’d said no? Because he now believed she was a monster too?

Goshawk’s Fury shifted a little closer to Kenna so that her wing was wrapped round her rider’s body. In her less desolate moments, Kenna told herself that at least something good had come from the attack on the oasis. There was a closeness with Gos that had been missing before. Where Goshawk had felt only a hatred of the world and everything in it, there were now moments when Kenna sensed the unicorn’s attention shifting towards her rider instead of herself.

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