​​Chapter 1: The Gaze of the Hunter​

Aurora‌
​Book Title: The Ghost in the Centaur​​
​​Prologue: The Blue Jay​​
There was a screech of tires, a sickening thud. For a moment, a blue jay, startled from a telephone wire, filled eight-year-old Kaelen Mitchell’s universe. Then, nothing.
Not emptiness. A formless, gray static. A place without sight or sound. A feeling of waiting. Of being a single, forgotten thought.
Then, a spark. A crushing pressure resolved into a solidity. A memory, sharp and painful: a picture from a book. A centaur. Panic, primal and formless, surged.
Sight returned in a dizzying flood. He stood on a vast, golden plain—the Barrens. The air was hot and dry, carrying the scent of dust. He tried to move a hand. A thick, fur-covered limb obeyed clumsily. He tried to scream. The sound that ripped from his throat was a guttural, equine whinny.
Kaelen, the boy, was gone. He was a stranger in a stolen skin.
​​Chapter 1: The Gaze of the Hunter​​
The sun beat down on the cracked earth. Kaelen stood, trapped in the immense, muscular body. A fly buzzed near his ear, and the skin on his equine flank twitched instinctively to shake it off. The movement was foreign, yet it felt as natural as breathing. This terrified him more than anything.
A sharp, guttural shout cut through the dry air.
Kaelen froze. His new, large ears swiveled toward the sound. From behind a cluster of red rocks, two figures emerged.
One was massive, with green skin and tusks jutting from a heavy jaw. An orc. The other was taller, lanky, with blue skin and larger tusks. A troll. They were covered in leather and crude metal, carrying axes and spears. Horde. His dad’s characters on the computer screen. A flicker of recognition, of hope, sparked in his chest.
The orc’s head turned. Its green eyes, flat and fierce, scanned the canyon and locked onto Kaelen. There was no curiosity in that gaze. Only an immediate, cold recognition. The orc grunted a single word, low and threatening.
“Centaur.”
The troll laughed, a harsh, scraping sound. He hefted his spear.
Kaelen took a clumsy step backward. A hoof scraped against stone. The sound was small, but it was enough. The orc’s lip curled into a snarl. It roared, a sound that held no words, only pure aggression, and charged.
Terror, cold and absolute, seized Kaelen. He tried to shout, to form the word “Wait!”
What came out was a challenging snort, a sound that seemed to mock the charging orc.
He turned. His body, this prison of muscle and fear, reacted without his consent. Powerful legs dug into the earth, and he was running. The ground thundered beneath his hooves. The wind whipped against his face. He ran with a speed he had never imagined possible, a blind, panicked flight.
A spear whistled past his head, so close he felt the displacement of air, and thudded into the dirt ahead of him.
He didn’t look back. He ran, weaving through the canyon’s rock formations, the roars of his pursuers echoing behind him. He was not a warrior. He was prey, and the world had suddenly become a hunting ground.