MEAGAN OPENED HER eyes. Thin wisps of clouds brushed the bluest sky she had ever seen. Her first thought was that she had woken from a dream. Groggy, she watched the clouds drift.
That dream was the most realistic of all, she thought absently. She noticed shapes above her and focused. A line of shadowed children stared down, silent as pigeons on a ledge. She closed her eyes again. Great, my riding friends. Every time I fall off I have an audience … wait—where is Promise?
Her head cleared with sudden memory. What if the dream—she sat up quickly and stared at her surroundings. She was still in her nightgown, perched on a rocky cliff over an expanse of prairie grassland. An empty landscape spread before her, basking in late afternoon sun. This is strange, Meagan thought, swallowing. Solid rock walls rose on either side of her, marbled with green moss and snaking black fissures. Nothing manmade was in sight.
In the silence came a familiar rumbling. The ground was beginning to vibrate.
Excerpted from Eclipsed by Shadow, the award-winning 1st volume of “The Legend of the Great Horse” trilogy. (Hrdbk pg. 87)
Book II: The Golden Spark will be published Fall 2010.
Read the 1st Chapter online!
Copyright © 2008 John Royce