Someone soon crested the small hill and came towards them. The mare seemed to fit the description the stranger in the meadow had provided – rosy and winged, with distinctive green eyes and a star that marked her youthful features. Seeing the way she hesitated, Kora tossed her delicate head to indicate Leander’s inert form and called out, “Over here. Hurry.” The stallion’s breath was coming in shallow heaves, rattling past ribs that protruded awkwardly beneath heavy wings. An old fear shot through the ice in Kora’s veins as she looked upon this brother of hers – the one who possessed their mother’s sunny optimism, their sister’s stubbornness, their father’s kind eyes. It was true that the sea had turned Kora into someone else entirely, but Leander?
Leander was their family’s legacy.
He was the last of their flesh and blood – at least, the last of flesh that hadn’t been remade, of blood that hadn’t frozen over. Despite the pretense of her indifference, that still meant something. He meant something. And now she was left to wait and see if he would die, too. So when the strawberry roan approached the pair with a quiet introduction, Kora found she could only manage a tight-lipped nod in return. A familiar melody began to drift toward her, and her eyes widened with recognition. Though she beheld Noah in a whole new light because of it, and though the warm weight in her belly twisted a little at the lilting sound, still the ice-armored mare remained silent.
Until it was over.
From her place beside Leander, the girl raised her head, her lips curving a little as though to reassure her. Had she looked worried enough to warrant such reassurance? Noah’s voice is gentle, though it carried a subtle warning. Kora’s glowing blue gaze darted toward her too-thin brother to watch the rise and fall of his ribs. Long minutes pass – she doesn’t count them. She could only count each rise and fall as it came and went, and when it did, she could only wait for it to come again. Perhaps that is why it seemed quite sudden when the winged overo began to stir, his brown eyes opening. When he looked up at her, Kora felt the tension in her own ribs ease. “Lee,” she whispered gratefully – a reaction which seemed to draw a smile from his tired lips.
“Hey, Kora,” he managed weakly, though after he’d spoken he felt mildly surprised. Why hadn’t he succumbed to the raking cough that had consumed his every breath for the past few weeks? Feeling a faraway curiosity, he blinked – slow and thoughtful, as though clearing cobwebs from a distant dream. “Were you… singing?” When she gestured to the space behind him, he looked around and saw Noah at his side.
“Leander, this is Noah,” his sister said provisionally, “She…” Expectant, he glanced back at Kora. Still somewhat foggy, he could only wonder at her momentary hesitation before she changed her mind and said instead, “It would seem she’s healed you.” And now that he was no longer knocking at death’s door, it also seemed that the wintry mare’s thaw was at an end. However, though hers was a mask of frost, she briefly lowered her face to Noah’s and murmured, “You have my thanks.”
And then she turned and was gone.
So accustomed was he to her abrupt departures that Leander only sighed. “Don’t mind my sister,” he started, his gaze coming to rest upon his rescuer. “You and I may have wings, but it turns out Kora’s the flighty one.” Even as he spoke, the wire-thin stallion could feel the life returning to him. As he took another deep breath of the cool, crisp air, he marvelled at the absence of the sickness that had been gripping him in death’s very fist. “Thank you, Noah. I believe I owe you a great debt. Whatever it is that you did – whatever you took from me – I can’t tell you how grateful I am to be free of it.” He chuckled, a bit delirious with how good it felt to breathe easy. “It was a close one, wasn’t it?”
He paused then, noticing the exhaustion on her and kicking himself for missing it. “Are you all right?” he asked with genuine concern, propping himself up as best he could so as to see her better. From this angle, her rosy figure struck a sudden recollection. “I know you from somewhere.” It took him some moments to place her, but when he did his face fell a little. In all the chaos, he distinctly remembered glimpsing her beneath the Mountain at the scene of a man’s murder – and she had been screaming. “Rhonen…” he ventured gently, his renewed voice not unkind. “Who was he to you?”
