The dawn light had begun to stream in the windows, but Rune hadn’t slept. All night, his mind had been tormented by visions. The fear of when the next one would strike kept him from resting, and his injuries from straining against his chains were too painful to look at. Silent, angry tears dripped down his face as he collapsed to the ground. Day after day of suffering, and no relief from his prisons, real and imagined. His captors had long since given up on trying to drug him out of it. The only thing that could help was dark magic, and Orion floated in a tank across from him, lifeless as plastic.

  His body began to tremble with uncontrollable energy. This new vision was one of the worst he’d had in a long time. He couldn’t hear or think of anything from the real world, and it quickly devolved into horrifying vignettes. Passing by so fast that there was no way he could identify them. Hot horses getting slammed into concrete walls, bloody mouths fighting bear trap bits, horses getting pills shoved down their throat over and over again. Dropping to the floor senseless by the hand of a strong dark magic force. Jaws dripping, hearts pounding, lungs screaming. His head was flooded with pain, and the only thing he knew about reality was that he must be bleeding everywhere, because his blood pressure was so strong he thought his veins might burst, and his restraints had sliced him open.

  The flashing pace of the visions began to slow, and he forced the putrid air through his lungs, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. He was a strong, zealous warrior with long black hair like ocean waves. Hotblooded horses screamed at each other and galloped in his direction, but astoundingly he did not stir. With only a jerk of his neck, they were wiped across the walls like rag dolls, their fine skin tearing and bones crackling. He studied their legs as they hit the floor, straight out and shaking.

  He gasped for air as he returned from his vision, and Thunder was there beside him. He tried to stand, but his legs hurt too badly, and he was forced to lie down again.

  “Are you alright? I know they’ve been bad, but this one seemed worse,” Thunder noted. He looked over Rune’s fetlocks, which were jaggedly wounded and covered in sores from the pressure of the chains.

  Rune laid his head on the concrete floor and his eyes tented with pain and worry. “I can’t do it anymore,” he whispered, his mouth dry as bone.

  Thunder gently stroked the palomino’s shoulder. “I know how hard it is. I lived this way much of my life. There is hope,” he reminded him.

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  Rune choked back a sob. “He’s her ghost. I can’t interpret it any other way.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Thunder asked, beginning to feel uneasy.

  “Sultan. He’s back. And Laci is his link,” he explained.

  His ghost gasped. “It can’t be. Rune, if this is true, everyone is in danger.”

  Rune could not even lift his head off the floor. “It is true. It will be a massacre if he gets loose.”

  Thunder remembered Sultan’s presence too well. Walking through the halls, fixed on a pattern. Eyes stuck sideways like they were made of glass. Horse after horse hanging by their hind legs, skinned from the neck down. There wasn’t a horse in that palace that didn’t fear him. He was heartless and proved to be too violent to cure, even after the ice magic tyranny that made him that way was deposed. The dark magic oracle of the time, Onyx, had tried everything to fix Sultan’s bloodthirst. Nothing worked.

  “If they come here, Rune, we must be ready. Sultan is completely mad. You know this, from the visions and from me. We must protect Laci from his influence,” he warned.

  “Do you think Laci could become like him?” Rune wondered.

  Thunder’s ears twitched. “She’s walking a fine line.”

  The doors of the prison busted open with a loud buzz. It nearly triggered another vision. The two rabbit guards came in for their morning security check.

  “Morning, little bronc!” one of them jeered at Rune. He was tall and slender, wearing a button-up the color of undercooked toast.

  “That nag just doesn’t quit fighting, does it?” said the shorter, fatter rabbit. He was troubled by the weeping sores that lined Rune’s fetlocks.

  “Ah, he’s a man killer. That’s why he’s here,” the first rabbit said, unbothered.

  The short rabbit read the display on Orion’s containment tank and jotted down a few numbers on a clipboard. “Did you hear about the mare? That Mustang is a kid’s horse in comparison to her,” he gossiped.

  “What’d she do this time?” The tall rabbit didn’t even look up from his paperwork.

  “The officers they sent after her were torn to shreds. Some T.B. got hit with a magic spell or something, said he lost consciousness and doesn’t remember what happened. They survived, but no one knows what’s next,” the short rabbit claimed.

  Rune didn’t know if he should be relieved or terrified. Help might be on the way, but it was probable that Laci had no control over Sultan-and neither did anyone else. A scared, confused horse might fight an officer on their own, and the two rabbits could be exaggerating. Unfortunately, Rune feared that his nightmares were coming true.