Prologue
Seventeen years earlier
The fall knocked the air out of her. She’d landed badly, one leg bent under her. On the way down, she’d hit her head and the skin on her shoulders and legs was scraped raw. Stunned, she tried to get to her footing in the darkness of the tight, confined space. She’d lost her saddle bag, her body ached and her left fore-hoof was in terrible pain, something was definitely broken. She managed to get herself upright in the pitch blackness of the hole. Bracing herself on the cold earth around her, she looked up, still dazed. Above her, she could see a pale circle of Luna's starlit sky. She started to open her mouth to call out when she heard him stumble to the edge of the dusty well and fall to his knees. His shadow silhouetted over part of the opening. She stared up at him in confusion. He hadn’t meant to push her. He’d just been angry with her. He wouldn’t hurt her. Not on purpose.
The beam of a lantern suddenly blinded her. “Help me.”
He made a sound, an eerie, low-keening wail like a wounded animal. “You’re alive?” His words pierced her heart like a cold blade. He’d thought the fall would kill her? Hoped it would? The lantern went out.
She heard him stand and knew he was still looking down at her. She could see his shadow etched against the night sky. She felt dizzy and sick, still too stunned by what had happened. His shadow disappeared. She could see the circle of dim light above her again. She listened, knowing he hadn’t left. He wouldn’t leave her. He was just upset, afraid she would tell. If she pleaded with him the way she had the other times, he would forgive her. He’d tried to break it off before, but he’d always come back to her. He loved her.
She stared up until, with relief, she saw again his dark shape against the starlit sky. He’d gone to get a rope or something to get her out. “I’m sorry. Please, just help me. I won’t cause you any more trouble.”
“No, you won’t.” His voice sounded so strange, so foreign. Not the voice of the Stallion she’d fallen so desperately in love with. She heard him grunt and strain as he hoisted his parcel onto the well's lip. In the glint of starlight she saw it wasn’t a rope he was carrying.
Her heart caught in her throat. “No!” The boulder blacked out what little light she had before leaving an echoing thud in the cramped space. She must have blacked out. When she woke, she was curled in an awkward position in the bottom of the dry well. Over the blinding pain in her head, she could hear the sound of his small wagon down the dirt path. He was leaving!
“No!” she cried as she tried to drag herself up again. “Don’t leave me here!” As she looked up to the opening high above her, she felt something wet and sticky run down into her eye. Blood.
The pain in her skull was excruciating. She dropped to her rump on the cold, hard earth.
He’d said he loved her. He’d promised to take care of her. Tonight, she’d even worn the red dress he loved. “Don’t leave! Please!” But she knew he couldn’t hear her. As she listened, the sound of the squeaky wheels grew fainter and fainter, then nothing. She shivered in the damp, cold blackness, her right hoof going to her stomach. He’d come back. He couldn’t just leave her here to die. How could he live with himself if he did? He’d come back.