The dwarfs hopped to work, and Ellie scrambled to help groom and saddle the horses. Like most animals, horses responded well to her soothing magic, so she enjoyed renewing her acquaintance with a sweet chestnut mare called Solvig and a handsome bay gelding known as Dustin.
Just as Kai led out the sixth horse, the riding party arrived, four men and two ladies, all dressed in fine riding attire and safety helmets. Ellie scanned them with little interest until a face caught her eye. Prince Omar looked particularly classy in buff breeches, a black polo shirt, and a glossy pair of riding boots. And on either side of him, Raquel and the Honorable Gillian in chic, snug-fitting jackets, jodhpurs, and boots.
Suddenly short of breath, her stomach aching, Ellie ducked behind the horse closest to the stable, hoping to slip inside unnoticed. But just when she reached the doorway, a familiar voice said quietly, “May I have some help over here?”
She slowly turned. The others were all mounting up, but Omar stood beside the tall gray, his expression somewhere between respectful and hopeful. “I seem to have a problem with the bridle.”
“Of course.” She hadn’t tacked up this horse, but she still might be useful. When she approached, Omar handed her the reins, put his hand on the bridle’s cheek strap as if he were showing her something, then leaned close and said, “I hear you’re in trouble about yesterday. Is there any way I can fix it? You were in no way at fault.”
She shook her head. “Bence says I need to keep my head down for a while. Which means not socializing with guests. I thought you would be at the lake today.”
His expression made her knees melt. “I was, but you weren’t there,” he said. “So now I’m here, and today is no longer a total loss.”
“Omar!” Raquel’s sharp voice called, startling Ellie so that she jumped and had to stop herself from looking around. “Hurry up! We’re ready to ride out.”
He held Ellie’s gaze one moment longer, touched her fingers when he took back the reins, then leaped up on his horse, swung his leg over, and settled into the saddle in one continuous motion. “Sorry,” he said to the group. “Something needed fixing.”
And the entire group rode off, hoofbeats thundering nearly as erratically as Ellie’s heart. Did she welcome further attention from Omar despite the director’s warnings? Yes. Emphatically, yes.
Cog started assigning work. “Kai,” he said, “you and Ellie clean the nursery barn.”
Oh joy. More manure.
Kai was a sweet young dwarf near Ellie’s age, but he always clammed up around her. Shy, no doubt. Today she wished he were more of a talker, for shoveling out stalls occupied her body but not her mind, and her thoughts tended to run in dizzying circles. What could she do to prove her competence to Madame Genevieve? Did Omar truly care for her, or was he merely flirting? He had always seemed more studious than flirtatious, but maybe he had changed during the past year.
Within the hour, they heard a shout from outside. “Are they back already?” Ellie asked.
Kai looked puzzled. “We didn’t expect them for another hour at least.”
They laid aside their rakes and hurried outside to see the entire group enter the stable yard, several of their horses lathered and wild-eyed. The mare Solvig was riderless, while another carried two people: Gillian perched behind Omar on his horse, her arms around his waist. As Ellie hurried forward with the others to take reins and calm the agitated horses, she saw Omar jump down from his horse and reach up to help Gillian down.
Ellie felt slightly sick. Why had Gillian been sharing his horse?
The members of the riding party all seemed to talk at once. With some difficulty Ellie discerned that they had encountered something frightening. She was too busy calming poor Solvig to hear what that something had been.
“You’re all right,” she told the mare, slowly drawing closer as the terror faded from the horse’s eyes. “You’re safe here, sweet girl, and whatever frightened you is far away now. You have a clean stall and a snack of fresh hay waiting for you in the rack.” Cautiously she reached up to stroke the mare’s sweating neck then scratched between her jawbones. When Solvig stretched her neck forward to enjoy the scratching, Ellie knew all was well. She straightened a flaxen forelock over Solvig’s pretty white blaze and let the horse bump her shoulder with a soft pink nose.
Tea spoke just behind her. “That girl was cruel to her. Look at the blood around her mouth.” She took Solvig’s reins. “Thank you for calming her. Some of the others need your help too.” The dwarfs were short, yet the horses responded better to them than to most humans, Ellie noticed. Kai had a particular connection with the great beasts.
Both Omar’s mount and Dustin seemed tired but calm enough, so she moved on to the other three horses, soothing and encouraging until all were placid and cooperative. Omar and the blond young man who’d ridden Dustin worked alongside the dwarfs to care for the horses while the other four riders stood across the stable yard. The two men conversed quietly, but the girls had no filters.
Gillian’s voice was at least an octave higher than usual as she described her ordeal. “I shan’t sleep a wink tonight, I know! The monster leaped out at us, and that horrid beast I was riding dumped me into a clump of little pine trees, and my new jodhpurs are covered in sap. Look at them! Quite ruined! Then the beast refused to let me mount again, and everyone kept shouting at me.”
“Because you were a complete idiot about handling that horse,” Raquel remarked with a wry smile, snapping her boot with her riding crop.
“I was not! It was a terrifying experience. I could have been killed! All of the horses were frantic, and I was nearly paralyzed with fright.”
“Paralyzed people don’t wail like banshees,” Raquel put in.
Gillian continued without pause: “But then Omar drew me up behind him on his horse, and I felt safe.” She cast an adoring gaze Omar’s way, but he was bent over, cleaning a rear hoof of the “horrid beast,” and didn’t seem to hear.
Lady Raquel told her to please be quiet, sounding even sharper than usual. “One would think you’d encountered a werewolf or dragon, the way you go on. It was only a unicorn, Gillian.”
A unicorn. They had encountered a unicorn on the mountain! Forgetting her pride, forgetting all else, Ellie hurried over to question the riders. “Please tell me about the unicorn. Where did you see it, and what did it do?” she asked, carefully keeping magic compulsion out of her voice.
The two girls stared at her.
“Where did you come from?” Raquel blurted.
Gillian looked her up and down. “You are always dirty. Why should we tell you anything, Cinder Ellie?”
Before Ellie could respond, the blond boy joined the group and answered her questions. “Gillian wasn’t jumping today, so she was on the bridle trail alongside the eighth jump, a double gate, when her horse shied and tossed her. I thought I saw something pale in the trees and rode closer to see.”
“Beside the eighth jump,” Ellie repeated. “Go on. What did you see that identified it as a unicorn?”
His brows jerked upward, but he continued: “It charged my horse then vanished behind a bush. Everything happened fast, but I remember the horn and the wild eyes.”
Raquel spoke directly to him, placing her shoulder between him and Ellie. “I thought it seemed lethargic for a unicorn, Your Highness,” she said. “I’ve seen one before. This one seemed slow.”
This blond boy was a prince? No wonder Raquel was being territorial.
“Nonsense,” Gillian snapped. “It was crazy and dangerous! It would have killed me if not for Omar.” She turned and again gazed toward Omar with dewy eyes. He rubbed down a tall bay mare, apparently oblivious to the entire conversation.
“All resort guests are given a button to push, on a wristband like this, if they’re ever threatened by a magical creature,” Ellie said firmly, displaying her receiver. “It transmits location. One of you should have thought to use it.”