The mare was intuitive, Ylva reflected. Those silver-blue eyes and delicate nostrils missed nothing. Ylva watched the mare carefully for any sign of disapproval, but thankfully there was none: only a cautious sort of curiosity.
“Not by birth,” she admitted, her dark eyes flitting to the side. “I found them in a meadow on the crossing. Their mother was long gone.”
Still, to this day, Ylva could not bring herself to say the word dead, especially around the twins themselves. There was such an ugliness around that word, one that filled her with a sick sort of dread. Because of this, she had no plans to discuss the twins’ true parentage until they asked. Part of her hoped they never did.
Ylva was grateful when the topic of conversation changed. Nova, the mare was called. Ylva smiled a closed-mouth smile and dipped her head in acknowledgement, then did her best to hide her surprise at Nova’s sudden venomous tone. Here was the mare Ylva remembered from the herd meeting: a fiery little creature unafraid to show her disdain. It gave Ylva a smidge of secondhand embarrassment to witness this lapse of decorum, but far more powerful was a sense of admiration. Ylva had been raised in a culture where manners were everything, so to her, breaking those bindings was the sign of an immensely strong-minded individual. She could only imagine living that freely.
She followed suit when Nova cast her gaze around them to check that Warsaw or one of his cronies was not in earshot, but no one had crept up on them in the few moments since they had begun speaking. Ylva was not surprised. Other than Solaris and Warsaw, no one had taken an interest in her since she had arrived. And now that she carried Warsaw’s seed, even he seemed to have lost interest in her.
Ylva leaned forward, head low and eyes shining, as though she were about to confide in Nova. “Oh, I wouldn’t do him the favor of using that word,” she said, and pressed her lips together to stop herself from chuckling. She said no more, but her meaning was clear. A tyrant implied someone who was organized and capable: someone to be feared. Ylva was still afraid of him deep down, and had no intention of getting on his bad side, but she was no longer under any illusion that he was anything more than an insecure egomaniac.
3; norwegian fjord; red dun pangare; 14hh
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