The Diamond Horse

The Diamond Horse
Stacy Gregg

A priceless diamond necklace holds a secret – the stories of two very different Russian girls…Anna Orlov is the daughter of a Count and lives in a beautiful snowbound palace that is home to a menagerie of wonderful animals: tigers, wolfhounds and, of course, horses. And she is also the owner of a beautiful heirloom – a priceless diamond necklace.But when Anna defies her father’s wishes and secretly raises a young colt alongside her pet tiger cub, her actions will have far reaching consequences. And soon Anna, her tiger and her horse will be fighting for survival in the frozen tundra of Siberia.Valentina Romanov is a circus performer with a very special horse and big dreams. A girl who sees beyond the bright lights of the big top. A horse with an incredible future…An epic adventure of horses, friendship and sparkling secrets!

Copyright (#ucc3282a3-c5c1-5645-8ad5-c1f0a8495e8d)

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2016

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Text copyright © Stacy Gregg, 2016

Cover images (girl, face) © Stephen Smith/Getty Images; all other images © Shutterstock.com (http://www.Shutterstock.com); decorative illustration © Shutterstock

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Stacy Gregg asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780008124397

Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780008124410

Version: 2016-08-22

For Celeste

Contents

Cover (#uea253500-092f-5152-890d-22ac3b6dc990)

Title Page (#u7b5f6352-21f3-586c-ad30-3964bf1d0cc7)

Copyright

Dedication (#u29b23664-7324-58d4-b03d-77b0690fdba9)

Prologue

Chapter 1: The Snow Palace of Count Orlov

Chapter 2: The Moscow Spectacular

Chapter 3: Black Diamond

Chapter 4: Boris and Igor

Chapter 5: Dark Water

Chapter 6: The Academy

Chapter 7: Son of Smetanka

Chapter 8: Hidden Nature

Chapter 9: The Madness of Ivan

Chapter 10: Flying Changes

Chapter 11: The Grand Ball

Chapter 12: The Race

Chapter 13: Winter’s Howl

Chapter 14: Reach for the Stars

Chapter 15: Frozen

Epilogue

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About the Publisher

Prologue (#ucc3282a3-c5c1-5645-8ad5-c1f0a8495e8d)

As the blizzard closed in, Anna Orlov struggled to make out the lights of the palace on the horizon. Their starry shimmer had been the beacon guiding her home, but as their glow became obscured by the snowstorm Anna felt as if she was fading too. Submerged deep beneath the snowdrifts, her feet had long ago turned numb, and her heavy skirts, soaked through and stiff with ice, threatened to drag her down with every step.

Yet it was not her own failing strength that worried her most. It was Drakon. The race across the taiga had left her horse ragged with exhaustion, and the wound on his shoulder had opened into a raw slash of crimson that seeped into his silver dapples. As he stumbled alongside her in the deep snow, Anna’s heart was breaking. With every step she could hear the dark rasp of his mighty lungs, his wide fluted nostrils misting hot plumes into the frozen air.

Dragon’s breath. That was how it looked. And hadn’t Drakon always reminded her of a dragon? Something about the shape of his head, that great, solid slab of his mighty jawbone, the way it narrowed to the slender taper of his fine muzzle.With enormous Asiatic eyes, dark and intense, trimmed with long lashes, his features would have been better suited to a dragon. That was how he had been given his name.

The rest of Drakon was no less peculiar. His body was out of all proportion for he had been born with an extra rib, which elongated his physique, making him as lean and sleek as a racing hound. He was all muscle and sinew, with a dapple-grey coat strung over a bony frame. His legs, buried deep in the snowdrifts, were so long they looked like they belonged to another creature entirely. They gave him his power, made him swift and sure-footed across the treacherous black ice of the frozen rivers.

Drakon’s strides had pounded out a relentless drumbeat across the Russian taiga, but their cadence had weakened until now it had become a desperate struggle to place one hoof in front of the other.