protest that was quickly shushed.
"Maybe you want to get out of there before we start," Hardwick suggested in a tone that made it an order.
Eva shook her head. "I can't do that."
She was the only one who had any hope of keeping Sebastian calm enough for the rest to do their jobs.
"Eva," he warned. Hardwick wasn't the sort who liked being disobeyed.
"You should get on with it," Eva interrupted, knowing she'd pay the price for her insubordination later. "I don't think the general is going to be patient very much longer."
There was a muffled growl before the straps tightened beneath Sebastian.
"Careful," Ollie barked.
She could hear the sounds of arguing. Eva ignored it all. Her task was simple. Keep Sebastian calm enough so they could secure him in the wagon.
Everything else could wait until that was accomplished.
Eva stepped closer to Sebastian, her arms going around his neck as she leaned against him. The mythological was docile against her as she tried to project her own peace into him. It was a fanciful concept, but as Eva's mother would say, her head was usually up in the clouds instead of on the tasks she'd been given.
"We'll get through this together," Eva said into his mane.
It was probably just her imagination, but she thought she sensed the anxiety surging through him lessening. It was what led her to continue talking.
"You know, I'm afraid of small spaces too." Eva petted him as the sound of the strap ratchets tightening threatened to send him into another panic. "And of the dark, and of being bound so I can't move or escape. My parents used to lock me in the closet when they caught me daydreaming instead of doing my chores."
She didn't blame them for their punishments, not really. Every person in the village had a task to fulfill. One person not upholding their part put everyone's survival in jeopardy.
If she could have prevented the flights of fancy or her fascination with horses, she would have. But, fitting in had never been a real possibility; she'd learned to embrace her differences instead.
"Do you know what got me through those times?" she asked him, not expecting an answer. While he might understand her, verbal communication was impossible.
She dropped a kiss on his nose as she sensed him listening to her. His labored breathing was better and his tail didn't flick as violently as it had before.
She was getting through to him. "I used to imagine a light in my mind. I'd hold it there and warm myself in its rays while I told myself a story."
She glanced up into his deep brown eyes, the color of fertile earth right before the planting season. There was patience and understanding there.
He knew some of what she wasn't saying and how much it cost her to share this with him. Eva was a private person and didn't trust easily–-even mythologicals who seemed to be every one of her dreams come to life.
A horse with a human intelligence, one so free it could fly? For someone who loved her charges as if they were her own children, how was she to resist such a tempting combination? The only thing that surprised her was that Ollie and Hardwick weren't at her throat competing for the opportunity. Both had seniority.
Yet somehow Eva was the one who'd ended up standing at the Kyren's head while the other two were outside. She didn't know how it happened, but standing here, keeping him calm, she knew she didn't want to give up her place. Not for any reason.
He'd chosen her. Whatever might come, she'd do her best to live up to the honor. It was all she could do.
The slightest whisper of a “yes” brushed her mind. Eva couldn't tell if it was her imagination or if it actually had originated from Sebastian. In the end it didn't matter.
She kept her strokes soothing and her voice melodic as she began to tell the story of Cammi, a young girl who never fit with the people she'd been born to, and yet managed to save them anyway.
It was a story well known in her old village and one she empathized with. She'd just reached the part where the girl made a deal with the tree hags and was absorbed into them when Hardwick said, "We're done, Eva. Now, get out of there."
Eva released a relieved breath as she patted the Kyren one last time and stepped back. "See, that wasn't so bad."
Sebastian tilted his head down at