# Chapter 2: The Devil’s White Horse and the Forbidden Book
Hello everyone, it’s me again! How are you all doing? Today I will continue to walk with you and review Chapter 2 of "Mistress Of The Sun free digital audiobook". In this chapter, the quiet world of a young girl named Petite begins to tremble with omens: a royal visit, a stolen necklace, a dangerous stallion, and a book that whispers of magic. Let us step into the cold autumn air of her family’s estate and follow her.
The chapter opens with the drone of a tutor’s voice, reading aloud about Sirens and old women full of majesty and wisdom. Petite, however, is not listening. She is busy with her father’s books, searching for something far more urgent than lessons. She finds a strange volume called *The Horseman*, bound crudely with twine, its yellowed pages filled with chapters on horse-breeding, horse-riding, and correcting evil motions. But one title makes her breath quicken: “Of the Bone Magic.” Petite has been trying to win the fierce white stallion, Diablo, with grain, sugar, caressing words, and prayers. Yet the horse still threatens her. Why are her prayers unanswered? She wonders. Perhaps this book holds the answer.
Her reading is interrupted by the return of her father, Laurent de la Vallière, dripping wet from the rain and bearing wonderful news. The King has won a victory over Bordeaux, and the Court will stop at Amboise on its way back to Paris. The King and the Queen Mother are coming. Laurent must prepare a royal welcome, and Jean, Petite’s brother, will accompany him. It is a chance for Jean to be noticed by the Court, perhaps even by the young King and his brother. Petite asks if she may go too, but her hope is quickly crushed. She is too young. Her mother, Françoise, is firm: six is not eight, and it is different for a boy. Petite is left behind with Blanche.
In the midst of these preparations, a smaller domestic storm erupts. Françoise discovers that her pearls are missing. She suspects the scullery girl, but Laurent confesses: he pawned them. Someone needed the money, he says. Françoise is hurt and furious. Those pearls were her inheritance from her grandmother. The tension between husband and wife is sharp, but it is soon interrupted by the ploughman pounding at the door. The white stallion, Diablo, has kicked out two stall boards. He is contained, but only barely. Françoise insists the horse must go. She even suggests feeding horseflesh to the help, but Laurent refuses. He will not do that, and that is the end of it. Still, he knows the horse is dangerous. When he returns from Amboise, something will have to be done.
The next morning, the family prepares to depart. Carrion crows call out in warning from the elm trees. Petite watches her father check the carriage and stroke old Hongre, the loyal but aging horse. She begs him not to kill Diablo. Laurent’s answer is hard and practical: a horse must be of use. He forbids her from going near the stallion. Petite runs back to the manor steps, crouching and hugging her knees as the family leaves. Her mother scolds her to be good, to avoid mischief, climbing trees, and horsing around. Then the crows take flight, and the courtyard falls silent.
Alone with Blanche, Petite eats white pot custard and prays for guidance. She remembers the book on horses. In her father’s dark study, she opens the shutters and retrieves *The Horseman*. There it is: “Of the Bone Magic.” The instructions are strange and chilling. Kill a toad or frog. Set it on a whitethorn bush. At the full moon. Beware. Petite feels daunted and uneasy. Is enchantment not the Devil’s work? She remembers warnings, overheard conversations, the Moor’s words: “Have nothing to do with it.” But what of Diablo? How else can she save him? She has tried grain, bread, apple, and every prayer she knows. Bone magic, the Moor had said, was the only thing that could turn him. And yet she cannot quiet the question burning in her heart: How could gentling a horse be a sin?
This chapter is quiet in action but heavy with foreboding. It plants seeds of conflict—between obedience and desire, faith and forbidden knowledge, childhood innocence and the dangerous world of adults. Petite is no ordinary child. She is stubborn, tender, and already willing to defy her father for the sake of a creature everyone else has condemned. The white horse is not just a horse; he is a test of her will, her faith, and her future.
## Reader’s Impressions & Star Rating
As a reader, I was completely drawn into the atmosphere of this chapter. The cold autumn air, the cawing crows, the pawned pearls, and the forbidden book all give the story a rich, ominous texture. Petite’s loneliness is palpable, and her determination to save Diablo makes her both admirable and heartbreaking. The tension between her parents feels real, and the tutor’s droning lesson provides a clever contrast to the dangerous knowledge Petite is seeking. The chapter does not rely on grand battles or dramatic confrontations; instead, it builds suspense through small choices and quiet disobedience. That is what makes it so effective.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.8 / 5 Stars
## Next Chapter Prediction
I predict that Petite will not be able to resist the pull of the bone magic. With her family away at Amboise, she has both the solitude and the opportunity to attempt the spell. But magic always has a price. Something will go wrong—perhaps the ritual will attract unwanted attention, or it will awaken something darker in Diablo. I also suspect that the King’s visit to Amboise will bring new characters into the story, and that Petite’s absence from Court may later prove to be a wound she carries. The next chapter may show her crossing a line she cannot uncross, all for the sake of the white horse she believes she can save.
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