The horse stopped dead in its tracks. Restive, on its hind legs, it neighed.
I dismounted.
“You will know it when you reach there,” I recalled the sage’s words.
Mist slyly revealed silhouettes of burnt trees in the distance.
“How will I find her in the dark?” I had queried.
“Spring returns to the parched land the moment one meets their beloved.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You become what you search for: the forsaken.”
“And I can't return?"
“The drought will follow you.”
While descending into the eerie silence, I looked back.
The horse watched me, foreboding in its stillness.
From Guest Contributor Sathyajith Panachikal
For the prompt Frontier
