Blood Metal Bone - Lindsay Cummings Page 0,1

He’d seen other castles and cultures, dined with kings and queens and learned to wield a sword as any Soreian warrior should. He bore the weight of their kingdom’s future upon his shoulders, for someday, their mother’s crown would become his.

Soahm knew a great many things. But he would never truly understand what it was like to bear the burden of bastard.

It was whispered behind Sonara like a devil’s hiss in the city streets.

It sung wickedly to her each night in her dreams, when the wind sighed and the stars came out to shed their light on the kingdom below.

Sonara was a child without a known father to claim her, with a royal mother who’d never wanted to bear her at all.

“Well,” Sonara said, as her tears dried up. “I’ve work to do, and seeing as you’re here…”

“Fine,” Soahm said. “But I’m not going anywhere near Duran.”

Sonara raised a brow. “Scared, princeling?”

Almost as if in response, a great boom exploded against the stall door at the edge of the aisle.

Sonara clicked her teeth and went to soothe the source of the noise.

Duran, a beautiful beast with a coat the color of desert sand, mane and tail deep as blackest night, stood at the stall door, pounding his wide hoof against the gate. The entire stable seemed to shake with each kick. Some of the other steeds whinnied or snorted in response, their ears twitching this way and that. Dust kicked up outside Duran’s stall, the lock doubled to ensure he wouldn’t escape.

“That’s enough now,” Sonara said, as she stopped just out of his reach.

The beast looked at her with eyes that glowed as red as the bleeding suns.

He was in the last few months of being a young steedling. His dark heavily feathered legs had grown stronger, his back broader, his thick neck arched and noble. Soon, he’d be fitted for armor with the rest of the young steeds. They were a tougher, broader breed than the royal procession, bred for war instead of elegance. For death instead of life.

Sonara reached into her pocket and plucked out one of Soahm’s wintermints.

“Don’t bite me, beast,” she warned him. “Or I’ll bite you right back.”

Duran’s ears flattened against his head. But he promptly lipped the mint off of her palm, crunching it down before releasing a wintry huff in her direction.

“I can’t believe you touch that thing,” Soahm said, eyes wide.

“Steed,” Sonara corrected him. “He’s harmless.”

“Tell that to the rider whose back he broke last week.”

Sonara’s stomach sank at the thought of Duran’s future. As soon as he could be tamed, he’d join the steed army, paired with a warrior who’d ride with a heavy hand, a blue sword at his or her side.

She’d likely never see him again, and it was that thought that hurt, strangely, worse than any words of cowardice the royal siblings could scribble in the sand.

“I have half a mind to take Duran and ride far away from here,” Sonara said as she undid both locks and entered the stall, pushing Duran back a few steps. He tossed his head but relented as she clicked her teeth and stared him down. The beast stilled as she ran a brush across his back in steady strokes, even going so far as to lower his head to her. Sonara sighed and gave him another mint. “Imagine, the life he and I would have in the Deadlands. Freedom, Soahm. As wild as the winds.”

Soahm chuckled from the stall across the aisle. “You, in the Deadlands? If you don’t die of starvation or thirst or getting lost in the endless sands, you’ll definitely die of an attack by outlaws. The desert has eyes, Sonara. And they’re always watching, waiting for their moment to strike.” He shivered as if his memories of traveling to the neighboring kingdom were more than enough to set him on edge. “And their king, I might add, is one who thirsts for blood. He sits upon a throne of bones.”

“Laugh all you wish, Prince.” Sonara tossed him a glare worthy of any war mare. “But I’m plenty capable of surviving anywhere. Outlaws be damned.”

“Are you?” Soahm crossed his tan arms over the stall door, gemstone rings glinting in the stray tendrils of sunlight. “Prove it.”

Sonara weighed the onyx brush in her hand. Before he could react, she hurled it at him. It spun, bristles over back, until it landed with a dull thud against Soahm’s chest.

It left nothing more than a smudge of dirt against his tunic