“You’re okay,” Ariel said softly.

  Orion blinked awake and looked around warily. His herd was scattered around a little grove, injured and exhausted. Nathan sat in front of him, his feathered hoof still held tightly to his forehead.

  “Hey, easy. Could you get him to stay still?” he complained.

  Ariel put a hoof around his head to hold him. “Nathan’s trying to patch you up, Orion. Relax for a moment.”

  “Where’s Laci? Is she alright?” he asked.

  “Yes, she’s sleeping right over there. You haven’t been out long at all,” Ariel said.

  Nathan pulled his hoof away from Orion’s face. “There we are. Much better.”

  Orion stood up slowly and took a headcount. Marmalade was down, resting her head in Knight’s lap with Oliver on his right. Isabel was being tended to by Rune. Gabriel was laying in the grass, and Alissa sat beside him. Lilith was at Laci’s head, watching over her.

  He approached Laci, leaning down and brushing the forelock from her eyes. Little flakes of snow were falling from the sky, dotting the landscape with their frosty spell. Their stark white color stood out on Laci’s bloody face. She was torn up, still bleeding profusely from the spot on her neck where she had cut herself free from Onyx.

  “Nathan, can you fix this?” Orion asked.

  He nodded and put a hoof to her injury. “Did you put her out with your magic?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “Why?”

  “I have to be careful not to wake her up accidentally. My magic can reverse yours, you know,” Nathan explained.

  Lilith gasped. “That’s it!”

  Orion gave her an odd look, while Nathan worked his way across Laci’s wound.

  “His magic can reverse yours. He can wake Gabriel,” she said.

  “Why would we want that?” Orion asked, bewildered.

  Nathan laughed. “He’s not the evil horse you thought he was. He’s just a foal’s guard. He should be willing to help.”

  “Oh,” Orion said, cheeks flushed red.

  Nathan finished fixing Laci’s head and walked over to where Gabriel and Alissa were. Alissa was shaking fearfully, and Nathan sat beside her, wrapping his arm around her to warm her up.

  “My head,” she sobbed, clutching it in her hooves.

  “I know,” Nathan soothed. “We’ll get a doctor as soon as we can.”

  “Where is Chase?” she asked.

  Nathan sighed and patted her softly. “He’s not here right now, but it’s okay. Everything will be alright.”

  “Doesn’t she know?” Orion whispered to Lilith.

  “We think she lost her memory from hitting her head. Nathan tried to tell her, but she just cries and forgets again after a few minutes. She’s better off not knowing for now,” she explained.

  Nathan put his hoof to Gabriel’s head and let a surge of his power flow through him. Luckily, it did not take much to start waking him up. Lilith sat by his side to help keep him steady. He picked his head up abruptly and glanced around.

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  “Where are we? What’s going on? Lilith? What are you doing here?” he rambled.

  She rubbed his neck with her hoof. “Shhh. It’s okay, Gabriel. You’re safe.”

  “We’re just outside ERUJ,” Nathan said.

  He stared at Alissa, who was still bearing a golden mark on her head from striking the wall. Her face was tearstained and bloody, nostrils flaring as she panted unsteadily. Orion stood behind her, eyeing Gabriel suspiciously.

  “That Friesian stallion has lost his mind,” Gabriel shouted, trying to get up.

  Nathan pressed him back down with a steady hoof, while Lilith stayed by his head to comfort him. The Thoroughbred tried to resist, but Nathan was too strong.

  “That’s Orion, Gabriel. He’s on Laci’s side. He just didn’t know you,” she said.

  Orion flickered his ears. “Don’t make me put you back to sleep. I’m not interested in carrying anyone else home.”

  “Please don’t. Where exactly are we going?” he asked.

  The other horses all turned to Orion. “The ancestral home of Onyx. My mansion,” he replied.

  Gabriel finally got up and walked over to Alissa. She was growing listless and unresponsive from pain. “I hope that wherever that is, you have a good doctor.”

  “We do. Greg will do his best to help her,” Orion promised.

  He patted Alissa on the shoulder, and she did not even lift her head. “I know you said you didn’t plan on carrying anyone else, Orion, but I think putting her to sleep is worth it.”

  “I can stand by that. Apologies for knocking you senseless,” Orion said.

  He tried to run his hoof down Alissa’s neck, but she shifted away from him fearfully. Nathan held her to help her calm down, while Gabriel sang a familiar poem to distract her. She eventually gave in to Orion’s magic, and fell asleep peacefully in Nathan’s arms.

  “What happened to Marmalade? Tranquilizer?” Orion asked.

  Oliver nodded. “Yea, she took a little tumble out there. ERUJ uses the good stuff, too. She might be out for a few hours.”

  “We don’t have hours,” Ariel said. “ERUJ, Services, whoever’s in the area, are going to be combing the woods for us any minute now.”

  “Then we’ll move. Nathan and I will take Laci. Ariel and Rune can carry Alissa. Knight, Oliver, and Gabriel, you’ve got Marmalade,” Orion said.

  Lilith huffed in annoyance, steam rising from her tiny nostrils. “What am I meant to do?”

  “You’ve got the most important job of all. Make sure Laci doesn’t get up before she’s supposed to,” Orion said.

  She lifted her head proudly. “I can do that.”

  “And look after Isabel for me. Her visions are worse than mine-much like before I was captured,” Rune called out.

  Orion looked over at Isabel and immediately understood. She was stuck in the piaffe again, eyes blank, ears sideways. Her motions were stiff and involuntary-she was fighting every step. Rune waved his hoof in front of her eye, and she did not react.

  “She’ll be alright. We just have to get her moving to distract her from the triggers,” he said.

  “Triggers?” Orion questioned.

  Rune sighed. “Do you listen to anything I tell you about having visions?”

  Thunder tried to cough away a laugh.

  Rune whipped his head over to glare at him. “Is this amusing to you?”

  “I thought you had already figured it out. When Moon casted her curse, she didn’t just curse us. She cursed everyone else to not understand the visions,” he explained.

  He looked at Orion, then back to Thunder, jaw dropped. “That makes a lot of sense. Why didn’t you tell me that sooner? Would’ve saved me so much time.”

  Thunder snickered. “It was entertaining to watch.”

  “I’ll listen to you when you stop talking to the air, Rune,” Orion teased.

  He swept the snow from Laci’s face and felt her over more thoroughly. She was so thin and muscular, she looked comparable to Sultan. Meeting him for the first time was both a horror and an epiphany to Orion. Her odd glares, violent outbursts, and restlessness were starting to make sense. He could only hope to repair the damage done to her. Her sides had been gouged with spurs, hips striped with scars from the whip, tongue and lips torn to mincemeat by the wire bit. They had clipped off her short, painted coat almost down to her skin, but her body was still burning hot to the touch.. There were two fresh puncture wounds on the side of her neck.

  “She must have been darted here, twice. I wonder why she didn’t go down?” Nathan mused.

  Orion sighed. “Maybe Doctor Greg has an answer to that. He knows a thing or two about hotbloods.”