Since that day, better food kept arriving.

  Not hay.

  Not dry grain.

  Fruits. Vegetables. Fresh ones.

  Raw, yes—!

  But at least…

  not horse food.

  That was what I kept thinking over the past few days.

  The thought itself felt absurd.

  Somehow, I was being treated more humanely now.

  The straw was replaced more often. The water cleaner. The hands that approached me moved slower, careful, like they expected a reaction.

  As if I could understand.

  The prince came more frequently too.

  Once a day, at least.

  He never stayed long. Sometimes he only stood outside the stall, watching in silence before leaving again. But that was enough.

  Seeing him meant the day still had shape.

  At some point, I noticed the mirror was gone.

  The large one that had forced me to accept reality.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  I later overheard the reason from the stable guards.

  Apparently, the mirror had always been placed there for the prince to check his appearance before training.

  And also, because mirrors frightened horses.

  Including me, apparently.

  The idea almost made me laugh.

  If I still remembered how.

  Still…

  from the mirror, I finally understood why.

  The horse’s right front leg—

  it was gone.

  An unnatural weakness,

  as if something that should have been there had already been taken away.

  Fragments of the truth reached me in pieces—

  Whispers between guards, half-finished stories, careless words spoken too close to my stall.

  This horse had been on the battlefield.

  On the battlefield, after the prince had already been struck—

  an arrow lodged deep in his shoulder—

  an enemy had rushed in, blade raised, aiming for the finishing blow.

  The horse didn’t run.

  It charged.

  Both front legs came down on the man’s chest.

  The impact alone might have killed him.

  But the right leg—

  the one I now struggled to feel—

  was pierced in the process.

  Steel went through flesh.

  Bone cracked.

  Still, the horse didn’t stop.

  The enemy was crushed beneath its weight,

  kicked away like something insignificant,

  his scream cut short before it could fully form.

  Only then did the horse turn back.

  Only then did it carry the prince away from the battlefield,

  back toward the kingdom.

  That wound never healed properly.

  Infection followed.

  Fever.

  Days where the horse hovered between life and death.

  They said it survived by sheer stubbornness.

  Later, long after the war ended, the prince ordered a tournament.

  A horse race.

  Not for glory.

  Not for entertainment.

  It was a memorial.

  A way to honor the horses that had fallen on the battlefield.

  Those who had charged forward without hesitation, those who had carried wounded soldiers, those who never returned.

  And it was also his way of giving thanks.

  Because he was still alive.

  That horse had almost died from the wound in its right leg, had survived long enough to bring the prince home, and the horse had been his favorite.

  Also, his savior.

  And now—

  That horse was me.