Ellie and the Prince (Faraway Castle #1)(20)
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.”
“Is that what the wristband is for? I got one, but I left it in my room,” the prince confessed with an apologetic smile. “I’m new here. Sorry!”
“A stupid wristband wouldn’t have helped us fight off a crazed unicorn,” Gillian scoffed.
“I never wear mine,” Raquel added. “Unless it transforms into a magic sword for fighting off monsters, I don’t see the use.”
“Its use lies in bringing help to wherever the magic creature is.” Ellie stood firm. “A unicorn can be lethal if it feels threatened. Usually they are gentle and reclusive, not aggressive.”
Raquel said with a low chuckle, “The girl who catches cinder sprites thinks she knows all.” Turning again to the blond prince, she asked, “Would you like to join my family for dinner tonight, Your Highness? I’m sure you know many people here, but no one would appreciate your company more than your own nobles.”