Common

“What should I do?”


Murmuring under her breath, Hiyori paced along the edge of the Peak’s territory not for the first time. She had taken each step so many times that she had worn away the grass to make a dirt track, a physical mark to her indecision. Did she go to him, or did she not? How her heart longed for his embrace, to try and find comfort in his hushed words and masculine scent. Before, it had been effortless. To steal away into the night and find the stallion she longed to see. But the sway of her large, round belly had her rethinking her previous desires. What if he looked at her with disgust now? What if he shunned her because of one night’s mistake? Hiyori had been so afraid of his rejection, that when Kristjan had returned to visit, she had listened to him from afar but remained hidden so that he could not find her.


The young mare, despite being a maiden, knew that the birth of her first child would come sooner rather than later. It was the change in her belly, in the strain of her back and her legs. The obvious way she grew winded on the Peak’s steeper hills that she had never been before. Hiyori knew she should stay close to Kaeja and seek her sister’s comfort and protection. The Peak was more than capable of doing her justice, as it was the Peak that her mother had given birth to her on. But it wasn’t the same, it wasn’t like sharing a child with him.


“I should just do it.” Hiyori told herself sternly and stopped at the end of her pacing trace that left her looking in the direction of the Lagoon. She knew how to find him in the neutral territories without being caught by his brothers. But was it a chance she should take? Such a risk to the child seemed reckless…. But Hiyori knew it was either now, or never. So she finally took that first step from the dirt track onto the fresh grass, and moved across the Peak’s territory line into the Falls and made her way beyond in hopes of finding Kristjan.


Although the young mare had made many trips across the Crossing island, especially in the night as she did now, it was never done so heavily pregnant. She quickly grew winded, and her idea of going around the Commons to stay in the Meadow was becoming less appealing as her stamina waned. If she was careful, if she stuck to the shadows, she should be able to make it across the Commons without being caught. So, with baited breath and a hammering heart, Hiyori carefully stepped foot in the territory her mother warned her to never cross.