Unguilded Read Free Page A

into the darkness of the valley.
    She’d had no chance to think since leaving her father’s house. She needed to sit for a moment before she walked away from her life.
    She slipped through the half-open door of a stable. The air carried the earthy odour of animals and something big moved nearby—large feet shuffling straw. There was a snort from a stall along the far wall, but no voices. Kara crept down the aisle, her shoes scuffing the dirt floor.
    A large brown head swung out over a stall door and into her path, and Kara stopped, startled. Huge brown eyes stared at her, and then the horse snorted softly. Kara reached a hand out, but paused when she saw grey-black mist snaking along the horse’s neck. She stepped closer to get a better look, but the horse backed up into the stall.
    “I’ll check the nags and be right back,” a voice said from just outside the stable. “The Mage Guild Secundus will have my balls if anything happened to his horses while I was playing cards.”
    Kara held her breath and glanced around. She couldn’t be found, not in here. She eased the stall door latch up and crept inside. The horse, mist swirling along its flanks and neck, pawed at the straw. Kara tucked herself into a corner at the front of the pen, shrinking away from the animal.
    Muffled footsteps came towards her as the stable hand walked down the row of stalls, muttering to himself. When he was even with the stall she was in, the horse snorted.
    “What’s got you spooked, big man,” crooned the voice. “Though if I had that Mage on my back I might be a bit uneasy too.” He chuckled. “That other Mage though, I’d not mind to take a ride on her. She’s a fine one.”
    Kara held her breath and tried to sink farther into the shadowed corner of the stall. Straw poked at her through her shawl, and her skin itched, but she ignored it, praying for the stable hand to stay on the other side of the door.
    “You’re fine, so settle down,” the voice said. “Got a card game waiting.”
    Solid footsteps headed away from her, and Kara took a shallow breath. Her heart pounded as though she’d run all the way to Primus Diallo’s house, at the very top of the villa.
    A shout, followed by laughter, filtered to her through the open stable door.
    “Coming, coming,” the stable hand’s voice replied, farther away from her now.
    Kara stood and peeked over the rough wood of the stall—the door shut, muffling the noise from the square.
    She was safe, for now. She leaned against the stall and slid to the ground, her legs suddenly weak. She would not cry. Nothing was ever gained by feeling sorry for herself. She’d learned that when Noula had moved in. Besides, wherever she ended up, it couldn’t be worse than the future Mage Guild had planned for her.
    Kara wiped her hands on her skirt and looked up. The horse eyed her from the opposite corner, the grey-black mist still swirling around it.
    She frowned. She’d first seen mist like this when she was eight and the Mage Guild Tester had come for her initial test. A faint blue cloud had enveloped him, and Kara had been delighted. She’d thought of him as the Blue Mage, though she’d been too shy to mention it. The blue was similar to the colour of the columbine flowers that grew on the side of the mountain so Kara picked flowers for him each visit. When she turned thirteen, Noula had forbidden it. It wasn’t seemly for a young woman to give a grown man flowers, she’d said. By then the Mage Guild Tester’s visits caused so much anxiety that she’d stopped wondering what caused his blue mist.
    Then her mother and Guild Secundus Valerio Valendi had arrived—and like her tester, they had their own swirls of mist.
    Kara had hoped to ask her mother about the mists when she’d asked to see the sunset, but Kara had forgotten about it once her fate as a breeder had been confirmed.
    She stepped a little closer to the horse. The mist eddied away from her, as if blown by a gentle breeze. She