Mikhail smiled, pleased with himself. Separations were difficult to do properly. But he could tell his team had pulled it off flawlessly. Theia was happily nursing her new foal, and the stablehands were currently healing Aurora from her pregnancy and birth, preparing her to be bred. Mikhail had already decided upon a stud for her, so she would be mated with that night.
The stablehand removed the cloth from Aurora’s eyes. Mikhail knew what came next. The mare would ignore the foal that she didn’t recognize as her own and eagerly be led to the stud stable. However, that didn’t happen. The moment Aurora’s gaze landed on the filly now nursing from Theia, she reared up, neighing furiously. The stablehands moved in quickly, grabbing the mare’s halter, frantically casting soothing spells on her. Aurora continued to thrash.
“It’s like she cast a shield spell on herself to deflect anything we’d cast upon her!” the head stablehand said.
“That’s impossible,” Mikhail said. He attempted to cast a soothing spell on the mare. He could feel the spell head for her, only to shoot away from her, hit the ground, and dissipate. That was indeed the way a spell would react when it came into contact with a shield. Something about this mare wasn’t right.
Mikhail strode over to Aurora. He grabbed her halter and pulled her head down. This isn’t something he would think to test, but even a Witch’s Pony couldn’t cast spells. Witch’s Ponies had inherent passive magic that could be channeled into increasing their speed, or tapped into by Witch riders. They couldn’t make shields.
“Shh,” Mikhail hissed. Aurora whinnied angrily. Mikhail created a small orb of magical light, as regular light wouldn’t work, and made it hover directly in front of one of the mare’s blue eyes. He looked at the eye through the light. Her pupil shone a vivid purple. Mikhail’s blood ran cold. Under magical light, horses’ pupils didn’t shine at all.
This mare was no mare.
She was human.