The Shadow

Chapter 18

 Kai woke on a soft bed, hugged by velvety soft blankets and dressed in clean clothes. He knew where he was the instant the smell of cinnamon hit him.

He threw himself off the four poster-bed, pushing through its silken curtains with a groan. His leg ached; a dull, throbbing pain. All of him ached, for that matter. He pushed through the hurt, making his way to the door of his bedroom. A familiar sitting room lay before him, chairs stationed around a small wooden table, behind which billowed a fireplace.

And atop one of those red velvet chairs... Harper. Kai sighed with relief as she looked up, shutting the book she had been reading as she stood.

"You're awake," she said, smiling softly. She had changed from her battle attire and now wore a soft green dress.

Kai nodded. "I'd rather not be—I haven't been cut this bad in a while. I thought it was little more than a scratch, but..."

"You lost a lot of blood... Lord Canmore's physician saved you, but if you hadn't been brought to him as quickly as you had..." She shook her head. "You've been out for two days."

Kai's eyes widened.

"I take it that we won?" he asked her.

She laughed. "I wouldn't be here if we had lost. Whatever was left of the army had fled by the time we finished with the giants. Aria's cavalry are pursuing them now." Her eyes darkened. "We lost a lot of good soldiers," she whispered.

Kai nodded, remembering the dead that had speckled the wall. "They died honorably." He could think of little else to say, but she returned his nod. "If you think you're rested enough... I have something to show you." She gestured for him to follow her, across his suite and through the manor.

They stepped outside the manor onto a stone path, and Kai was struck by the beauty of the property, once again. Green grass shifted in the wind, stretching for miles in every direction. Small ponds and streams glistened in the noon light, snaking through bushes and under small wooden stone bridges.

"Come," Harper pulled him around the manor, toward a long wooden building, detached from the rest of the home.

"The stables." Planked walls held a slate-covered roof, small windows showing peeks of the horses within. And there, outside the great wooden doors, were two horses. The first was a large draft horse, brown and gray pelt shimmering in the sunlight. And the second...

"Lunar," Kai said, unable to form further words as the breath was stolen from him. She was larger than she had been when he had last seen her, just a few days ago. It had seemed a lifetime since the attack on their campfire, when he had been so scared for his life, and the lives of Dusty and Lunar. Her coat of black was as magnificent as ever, contrasting with its surroundings like ink against parchment. And on the mare's forehead, a familiar white crescent.

"They wandered here yesterday—Dusty must have remembered the way to Aria, and Lunar stayed with him along the way." Harper patted her stallion's muscled neck with a smile. "I found them near the barracks this morning when I went for a ride. How they got past the city wall, I couldn't guess."

Kai ran his hand through Lunar's pitch-black mane, marveling as it slipped through his fingers like silk. "I knew we'd see them again," he said, and Harper nodded. He had known. Some part of him had been sure that Lunar and Dusty would find them again, somehow, some way. And they had. They had found their way through a retreating army, surviving through cold, wolf infested nights.

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