Maslakhat stood squarely, his head held high as the buckskin mare approached him from within the heart of the Dunes. He watched her carefully, his amber eyes analyzing—noting the sway in her back and the thickness her midsection. She had undoubtedly foaled recently, and yet she came to him unaccompanied. Strange. Perhaps the child was dead. That would be the most logical explanation, as he knew most new mothers would not do anything without their child in tow unless their priorities were askew. And it was not the first time he'd encountered such a mare.

She moved entirely too close to him, bombarding him with formalities and questions like a clumsy pikeman. He snorted lightly, unimpressed by neither her self-proclaimed title or her eagerness to get to the bottom of his reasons for setting foot on these lands.

“Congratulations,” he began with a flat, but sincere tone. “On your recent child, of course.” He finished, quickly flicking his eyes to where he would expect the child would be standing, and instead he found her dark tail lashing with obvious annoyance.

“You can relax,” he began again. “I mean you no harm.”

Maslakhat brought his gaze back to her eyes, and he took two slow, deliberate steps along the shoreline, keeping a careful, lateral distance between them.

“Come. Let’s walk together, and I will tell you a story.”


MASLAKHAT

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