Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
And another race around the edge of the arena, holstering our staffs, but pulling forth our bows.
I reined Diana in slightly as we were about to make the turn down the middle then quickly looped my reins around the saddle horn.
All that I had just done was executed after a lifetime of training and was as natural as breathing.
This would take focus.
I closed my eyes.
Drew in a deep breath.
And when I opened my eyes, I pressed into my steed with my right knee and made the turn a half second after Serena, reaching to my quiver.
Serena let fly first, an arrow straight into the dirt before us
I aimed, let loose, and my arrowhead split her shaft down the middle.
Vaguely, I heard the simultaneous gasp from onlookers, but I’d already reached to my quiver, fed nock to bow, and let fly.
Serena’s arrow split my shaft.
And again.
And again.
Digging my knees into Diana, we halted on a rear of our horses ten feet from our mother and Serena and I…one, the other, then the first, and the other, the movement of our arms but blurs, our aim always true, we embedded all the arrows in our quivers one on top of the other in the dirt a foot before my mother’s unmoving steed.
I noticed when we stopped that the crowd was dead silent.
I replaced my bow to its hook on my back and again took up the reins.
So did Serena.
Then I clicked my tongue against the sides of my teeth.
As did Serena.
And Diana lowered her majestic neck as she gracefully fell to her cannons and knees before my mother.
I bowed my head too.
As did Serena.
Serena and her horse came up first.
Diana came up as well.
And as Serena screamed, “Nadirii!” Diana and I sprang forth, cutting left in front of Mother, down the front of the formation, the left flank, the back, the right flank…
But up the front, I pulled my feet from the stirrups, put the reins in my teeth, yanked my bow from my back, pushed up on one hand in the saddle, jerked up my knees, found my balance on my feet atop Diana, and stood.
Serena shouted, “Standards!”
And every Nadirii pulled her staff, thrust it high, and from it exploded proud coral or purple standards with a white oak leaf emblazoned on it.
And as I neared my mother, she tossed up her own quiver.
I caught it, yanked left with my teeth on the reins, tore down the middle of the formation while grasping the five arrows in Mother’s quiver. I dropped it, sifting my fingers through the fletchings, setting the nocks to my string…
I pulled back, turned my bow horizontal, lifted up, aimed high…
I dropped the reins, screamed, “Nadirii!” and let fly.
The five arrows arced high into the air, up, up, up…
I closed my eyes again, feeling the prickles shoot up my spine like spasms…
I opened my eyes…
And the sky above the back of the stadium lit up with hundreds of blooms of coral, purple, gold and silver bursts.
Gasps and shouts and cries of delight rung forth as I dropped back into the saddle, returned my bow to my back and regained my reins in my hand.
I whirled in a tight turn at the end of the column, and as I galloped back up I closed my eyes again.
When I opened them the shouts and cries rung higher as the sparks exploding arrested and shot together in a glittering line.
The line swooped down over the stands, toward the field, zipping toward my back.
And when I stopped in front of my mother on a skid of Diana’s back hooves, I pressed well forward as my mount’s noble head, mighty chest and front legs reared up.
She struck at the night with her front hooves.
And the shimmers in a grand swoop up my back soared into the air, flying above the podium, only to burst right above it into thousands of magical butterflies that flitted peacefully away, disappearing into the night sky.
Diana and I dropped.
The air split open as the crowd boomed their accolades.
I looked up.
And that was when I saw Prince Cassius Laird, heir to the throne of Airen, sitting on the high podium, wearing black leathers, half his daunting face inked, staring darkly down on me.
And I fell instantly in love.
17
The Reception
Prince Cassius Laird
Royal Podium at the Coliseum, Fire City
FIRENZE
“Outrageous,” his father hissed.
Cassius sat in his baronial, intricately carved chair on the high podium with his head turned left.
Away from his father.
The crowd was still thundering their applause for the Nadirii performance.
But as the Sisterhood trooped out of the coliseum, its upper echelon was assembling at that side of the podium.
He noted with approval the first thing they did was care for their horses, leading them to the barrels of water set about for that purpose.
He also noted that as her roan bent her muzzle to the wet, Elena rubbed her cheek down her mount’s neck and drifted her fingers over the crest.