Paradiso. Shamwari’s brother. A memory unearthed itself inside Mariael’s mind, of when she was merely two and her father had bequeathed leadership of the Bay onto her. They’d been speaking together, away enough from Maziel that she wouldn’t hear them. Mariael and her father had many conversations like this. He’d been telling her of running in to Vita Nova on Crossing, and her brother Shamwari shortly thereafter. At the time, Shamwari had asked if his half-brother could come live in the Bay, though that had been before the conversation had taken a tense turn. Nephilim had told Mariael to keep an eye out for a young stallion come to live with them, but after all the drama that had happened, one small conversation had been eventually forgotten.
Strange how fate worked. Mariael wondered if Paradiso was the very same stallion Shamwari and her father had spoken of.
Blinking, she refocused on Shamwari. Though thick-built, his coat was meant to allow him to survive on Luthien, not Tinuvel. The cold was seeping into his coat. Were he not Shamwari – one of her father’s oldest friends – or a relative of Paradiso, she would have scoffed and called him an idiot for traveling to Tinuvel in winter. As it was, she held back whatever remarks she had thought.
“You’re not alright,” she said, her voice firm, “You should have waited until spring to come.” He was older than her, but she still chided him as if he were a child who’d acted foolishly. “Let’s take him into the trees.” The hot springs were too far to travel, though they’d have warmed him up in little time at all.
Mariael did not ask whether it was alright before she stepped around, turning her body to sufficiently sandwich Shamwari between herself and Paradiso. There were very few horses she would have acted so immediately selflessly with. Shamwari was a special case. Mariael wouldn’t let one of the last few horses who knew her father freeze to death on her shoreline. The Bay had seen enough death.
As they made their way up the shore toward the trees, she cast Shamwari a sidelong look. “You needn’t be concerned about Paradiso. He’s a member of my family now too.” She looked forward, toward the forest ahead.
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