MATURE FANTASY** slow burn* 🔥 He is a predator who thought he captured an ordinary girl... but her mind is sharper than any of his claws.
Ariana lives in the shadow of her monstrous father in a world barely held together by a treaty. Until her l...
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The horse stables were immaculate. Each stall was clean, with fresh straw covering the floor. The stalls lined the stable, surrounding an open area in the center where several horses stood. Lysians moved around the magnificent animals, saddling them and securing packs of supplies.
Bavadrins were always told that all animals ran from Lysians. That birds flew away, and horses turned unruly, bolting for the fear was uncontrollable when in the presence of one of them, even wolves avoided them. Yet there were many horses in the stable and many Lysians, and they appeared as comfortable as our own Bavadrin horses were around us.
Of course, our horses looked like ponies next to theirs. The Lysian horses were larger and from my limited experience with them when I was brought to the Lysian lands, they had more endurance than ours. I could not help but feel the sharp edge of disappointment, for not only did Lysians have physical advantages to Bavadrin's but even their horses were superior.
For all the stories Bavadrin children were told of the horrors of the Lysians in order to scare them away from the border of our lands, I wonder why stories of Lysian weaknesses were never too passed down. Surely there were some flaws, for otherwise how did the Bavadrins stand their ground during the great war and not completely crumble out of existence?
We had one potential advantage. The sparrow archers. They could attack the Lysians before they ever even got close. That was the only way I could see us standing against them. We needed to fight from afar, not in close quarters. No wonder our archers were so revered and loved in the past. They were our greatest defense until Fraser sent them from our city. What a fool.
"I know you have seen a horse before," Kole mumbled, gently pushing me forward.
I had not realized I stopped moving.
"You ride with me," Erik informed me when Kole and I approached the group waiting with the horses. There were five other Lysians who I never met or seen before with us, each of them with a horse. Half of them were watching me while the others finished tying supplies to their mounts.
Erik looked at me expectantly, and I frowned. Glancing around the stable, it was clear there were many horses left to choose from. It was not a matter of not enough supply.
