DISCLAIMER: I am not Mercedes Lackey. I do not own the rights to any of the Valdemar books.
"Yo, Captain Kendrich!" one of the lower-ranked officers called. I raised my head and nodded for him to continue. "There's a Voice here with a gift for you."
"A Voice?" I repeated, feeling my insides go cold. A Voice of Vkandis, here, wanting to see me. I ducked my head and finished rubbing down my mount, a vicious stallion who let no one but me ride him. Oh no, not now. I grasped desperately at a sudden hope: A gift for me, he said. So it can't be a ploy to get rid of me—can it? Oh, Sunlord, please don't let it be a Hellhorse, like they gave Alberich! Alberich, who had once held the position I now held. Alberich, the Great Traitor, who was no traitor at all, from what my brother had told me. Who could blame him for going to Valdemar, after his own people tried to burn him alive? Not that he'd had any choice anyways, after he was on the back of that Hellhorse that saved him. And now... perhaps they had discovered my secret, as they discovered Alberich's. With a growing sense of dread, I left the stables to find the Voice.
"You are Captain Kendrich?" the black-robed Sunpriest asked.
"Yes," I replied respectfully.
"I have for you a gift, a beautiful silver stallion that has been liberated from the enemy." That, of course, meant it was part of the spoils of war.
One of my moods took me then, an impulsiveness and a refusal to submit. I had them occasionally, enough that I had learned to suppress them—but this one was too strong, beyond my control. "Stolen from the Valdemarans, you mean," I said, taking a good look at the white stallion. "That's a Hellhorse, that is—a demon; and I don't know why you didn't kill it on sight. But wait, you Sunpriests summon demons to prey on innocent folk. I don't know why I ever served people with so little honor." Fool, fool, fool! He'll throw you into the Fires!
"Heretic!" the Voice of Vkandis exclaimed, even as the Hellhorse's startlingly blue eyes met my own brown ones. :My name is Taysher, and I Choose you.: "It's the Fires for you, lad," said the priest. "Seize him!"
"Lad?" My voice was scornful as I vaulted onto the Hellhorse's back. It looked like I'd have to follow Alberich's footsteps to Valdemar. It couldn't be that bad, though; Alberich was honorable—one of the few honorable men left in the Sunsguard until he had to run—and he had stayed in that God-forsaken land. I certainly wasn't about to let myself become fuel for the Fires. "I am no lad." I let my voice change back to normal—overdid it, actually, since I hadn't used my "normal" voice in years, hadn't dared to since I began impersonating my brother Kendrich after I found him dead in that alley. In a high, lilting voice, I announced, "I am a girl."
Please review. There will be more chapters, but I rather need ideas, because the whole point of the story was this first chapter.