The memory always came to Tristan when he least expected it.
So when Shannon told him to find an anchor for shifting, beyond his violin, it was Ashen that came to mind.
It wasn't courtrooms or betrayals that anchored him. It was the smell of hay, the weight of leather reins, and the sound of hooves from the stall.
Tristan once had a horse.
Not bought from a breeder, not gifted from a wealthy patron. No, he found him. Or perhaps the horse had found him.
He had been thirteen then, restless and always slipping away from the manor when Troy's eyes were elsewhere. The Mendez lands stretched wild toward the river flats, where grass grew tall and deer sometimes grazed.
It was there he first saw the gray colt. Thin, long-legged, and as wary as a shadow. A creature that bolted at the rustle of a leaf.
