CHAPTER ONE
Lianna Lathan laughed as her mare, Brigh, raced across the sunlit glen below her clan’s stronghold, the Aerie.
She kept her fingers threaded loosely in Brigh’s mane, trusting her mare to tell her if she needed a firmer grip with thighs or hands.
Scents of horse and leather, springtime flowers, crushed grasses and the earth kicked up by Brigh’s hooves filled Lianna’s nose.
Her heart pounded in time with Brigh’s hammered strides, and her special sense let her revel in the mare’s enjoyment of the run.
For as long as Lianna could, she meant to relish the shared freedom Brigh gave her.
They would race back toward the Aerie’s high tor soon enough.
As the woods bordering the glen rose up before her, she slowed Brigh to catch her breath, and turned her along the edge of the trees. She kept her gaze on the woods, alert for danger. Pine and forest loam filled her nose, scents she associated with her father’s displeasure.
Her agreement with her father, Toran, Laird Lathan, allowed her to ride through the glen as she liked, as long as she stayed in sight of the guards manning the Aerie’s walls above her.
She’d only disobeyed once, years before, not long after her first moon blood awakened her talent, making her feel as wild as the creatures that called to her.
To earn her father’s ire that day, she’d followed a chattering red squirrel into the trees.
Over her mother’s objections that her talent must be nurtured, her father had refused to allow her to ride in the glen for a month afterward.
She knew better than to risk crossing him again.
But something moving in the trees ahead of her caught her eye, sending an unaccustomed shiver down her spine.
She clicked her tongue and urged Brigh toward it with a light tap of her heels to her mount’s sides.
Brigh took a reluctant step forward, then paused as if asking, “Really? Ye ken what happened the last time.” She seemed to have learned the laird’s rules, too.
A riderless horse stepped into view between the trees. Saddled, head low, the stallion nickered and hobbled slowly toward her. Lianna didn’t need her talent to know something was very wrong.
She twisted around in her saddle and waved at the Aerie’s stone battlements to attract a guard’s attention. Once she saw a guard wave in answer, she urged Brigh toward the strange horse. Several of the Aerie’s guards would soon race down the tor to find her. Good. She might need their help.
“Come along, laddie,” she crooned to the strange horse. Her special sense thrummed harder in her blood the closer she approached him.
Brigh whinnied and shook her head, making her tack ring. A warning?
The stallion stopped, legs braced wide apart, head low, as if he hadn’t the strength to take another step.
“Bollocks. Something is very wrong with him,” Lianna muttered and urged Brigh forward, under the trees. The sunlight dimmed to soft green, and shadows closed in around them. Lianna glanced in all directions, but nothing moved.
That was no mountain horse. A destrier, or another breed of warhorse, big and black. If he wasn’t in this condition, she’d have reason to fear him, but she sensed no threat.
For Brigh’s sake, she stopped a few lengths from the strange horse and looked beyond him.
“Where is yer rider?” There was no one, no rider, no sense of impending ambush, nothing.
All the usual forest sounds continued, birds calling, squirrels chattering.
A breeze wafted through the woods toward her, intensifying the tree and loam smells, but it brought along something else, as well.
Horse sweat and something she couldn’t identify—and didn’t like.
She dismounted, went to the horse and knelt by his head, talking softly to keep him calm.
“Are ye tired, laddie? Or is something else amiss? Why is yer saddle empty?” She hesitated to touch him, but she had to know.
She placed a hand on his neck, then pulled it away, sickened.
This animal was very ill. Silently, she warned Brigh not to come any closer.
Lianna didn’t know yet what ailed him, but if his rider was in the same condition, she must find him, and fast.
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