The Sentinel Mage

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT





JAUMÉ FOUND THE horse when he was picking apples in an orchard. It came across the grass to investigate the intruder in its domain. He gave it an apple and looked it over. The horse was a dappled gray gelding, wiry, no longer young.

He glanced at the farmhouse visible behind the apple trees. No smoke came from the chimney. It’s empty. There’s no one there.

But he didn’t go to check. He filled his blanket with apples, slung it over his shoulder, and led the horse up the rutted lane to the road.

Jaumé glanced again at the farmhouse, at the smokeless chimney, and clambered up on the horse’s back. It’s not stealing. They left him behind. They don’t want him.

But he didn’t quite believe it. Somehow he knew that if he walked up to the house and knocked on the door, there’d be someone inside. Someone who wanted the gray gelding.

Even so, he touched his heels to the horse’s flanks. Obediently, it trotted westward, along the muddy road.

Jaumé fisted his hands in the gray mane and looked ahead. Guilt rode him, as he rode the horse. Thief.