VaLkA

mare / six / chestnut pangare / yakut / 13.0 hh

By the time Solomon’s ragged voice broke the silence, the galloping of her heart was slowing back into its normal cadence and the tight ropes of her muscles were uncoiling. But in the absence of adrenaline and ferocity, the Bay’s skjaldmær was left with nothing but the curious warmth that still swelled within her chest. This forbidden softness not only defied her efforts to eviscerate it from her heart, but also sent a shiver down the length of her spine at the sound of her name. Valka. The tobiano stallion had uttered her name countless times before, but the way he spoke it now made it sound different; new. And it wasn’t just the absence of the animosity that had always formed a barrier between them. No, there was a note at its core that had never been present before. A gentle yearning that turned the chestnut’s head and lifted her gaze—even against the instinct to guard those two dark pools and any secrets that they might contain.

Searching his strange green eyes in the moment that their gazes met, the Yakutian mare could see the conflict that filled them. Heartbeats later, Solomon spoke again—offering only three syllables before falling abruptly silent. Valka turned her body to face his reluctantly, warring against the urge to close the small distance that separated their bodies. Perhaps in time she would embrace such acts naturally, but not now. The affection that she felt once the threads of stubbornness and resentment and wariness were pulled away was still too confusing; too new. And anyway, it had just occurred to Valka—with a flush of something that might have been embarrassment or shame—that the Cove’s king might be seeking the words to tell her that there was no stepping beyond the careful boundaries that they’d set over the course of several seasons.

Not for him, anyway.

His words offered release from that painful thought, but not one that the red woman was likely to thank him for. Valka would have welcomed the breaking of her heart if it meant rebuilding it with the stone it’d once been. Instead, she felt compelled to flatten her ears as if the tall stallion’s smile did not invite her to respond in kind. Instead, she scowled before reaching to meet his offered muzzle with affected hesitation—as if his touch was just as unwelcome to her now as it had been in their beginnings. Pulling away hastily, the stout creature snorted disdainfully even as the barest hint of a smile betrayed her false ire. “And here I thought you finally understood, Solomon, when you challenged me for an alliance. I give nothing— not unless it is earned.”

Silence followed for moments after, as Valka waited for—and willed—her masculine companion to understand. If the skjaldmær’s suspicions were correct, it was matters of emotion that Solomon had truly wished to discuss, not matters of procreation. And though she was incapable of embracing such vulnerability openly, she could at least offer him one gift. Beneath the harshness of her voice and between the words of an apparent rejection, she’d concealed the truth for him to uncover. If Solomon listened as much with his heart as his thoughts, then he would understand that she was offering hers to him—along with the assurance that he had earned it.

Of course, it was equally possible that Tinuvel’s king would take what Valka had said at face value, and turn away from her in frustration—as one or the other had done all too often in the past. If the years had taught the chestnut mare anything, it was that things between her and Solomon were seldom as simple as they could be. But perhaps the challenge of overcoming their differences was what had drawn the two strong-willed creatures together. Like the sea and the shore, they'd clashed together again and again—until even their hardest edges had been worn smooth. Until the presence of the other completed them in ways that time could not have foreseen.

Embracing that feeling of completeness now, the Yakut stepped forward at last. She was too short to tuck her head into the hollow of her ally's throat as she might have wished, but the small mare pressed her forehead into the broad curve of the stallion's neck and exhaled gently into the pale canvas of his skin.

And in that single touch—the closest thing to an embrace that Valka could manage—she offered Solomon everything that she could not say.