by Mary Weber
Breck’s knock on the door comes just as I’ve finished plaiting my hair into its thick braid with pebbles and shells. She doesn’t bother to wait for a response—just walks in with tea and porridge as I bend down to tie the straps on my soft boots.
She coughs. Then she sniffs and crinkles her round face. “Gimpy hulls! What in Faelen’s name did you do in ’ere? You try startin’ a fire again? How many times I gotta tell you not to mess with stuff you ain’t good at? An’ what the kracken is that smell?” She drops the breakfast tray onto the table and hustles to the hearth, where she pauses. And sniffs again. This time her expression goes cautious. “Did you . . . vomit?”
I cringe apologetically. “Last night’s dinner didn’t sit well. I swear I’ll grab a bucket and clean it later.”
“You ever ’ear of usin’ a squatty pot, or are you too much an idiot for common sense?”
“I’m sorry. I promise I’ll clean it later,” I murmur loud enough so she’ll hear me. And so she’ll know I’m leaving.
Three days in Adora’s house and I’ve got the hang of the passageways. I’m outside within four minutes and gulping in the purple-dawn air, hoping it’ll soothe the ache inside my chest. Clouds are curling in from the ocean as fast as the sun is cresting the snowcapped Hythra peaks. I slow my stroll to watch the glow materialize on the path and try to ignore the scavenger birds circling the charred, still-smoking mountainside. When the sunbeams hit the trees nearest me, it sends their quivering dew droplets into the pond below. I pause. Narrow my gaze. The ripples have disturbed a school of fish the size of my arm. No.
She doesn’t . . .
But yes. She does. The illegal, silver-finned piranhas immediately bob to the surface in a lather—excited by my shadow and the scent of the wounds on my arms.
I look up at the frog-lady’s window and wonder what in litches her obsession with flesh-eating animals is. Is she really that disturbed? A chill flits across my skin, and I’m suddenly grateful for the growing humidity. I’m also abruptly aware that the frog-queen is standing right where I’m staring, watching me beneath today’s apparent choice of flaming-orange hair matched by a carrot-colored suit.
Her gaze meets mine and doesn’t waver.
What do you do up there all day? If Breck’s assertions are true, Adora doesn’t even sleep—she just sits in her study eating glass, smooching men, and orchestrating war plans for the king.
“Adora holds a central role in the war,” the blind servant informed me last night. “Some say she already knows which way it’ll go, and which way Faelen’ll fall, and that’s how she’s influencing it. Though I don’t know as I believe that. The ol’ crazy’s no mind reader, if you get what I mean.” Breck snickered to herself. “Otherwise she’d’ve figured out long afore now that Eogan’s pro’ly ne’er gonna give in to her cravings for ’im.”
I didn’t respond. I’d no desire to discuss what that woman craved.
I drop my gaze from Adora’s window and shake Breck’s words away as the ocean clouds slide overhead and block the sun’s glimmer.
I’m almost to the cottage when the dirt underfoot begins shaking and the sound of stamping greets me. I look up for new smoke—none—and then for a second I think Colin’s beat me out here, except the vibrating earth is followed by a whinny. And I’m hoping Colin doesn’t whinny.
Rounding the corner, I stop full in my tracks at the sight of the two oversized, man-eating horses standing in the middle of the arena, kicking the ground and huffing. Their eyes go wide the instant they see me, and their muscles strain at their leads.
“Easy now,” a voice commands, and the beasts’ bodies ripple and relax. Although the glint in their eyes says they’re liable to change their minds any minute.
Eogan emerges from around their flanks, his black hair damp like the horses, and his shirt clinging to his chest like they’ve all been out for a run. “You’re early,” he grunts.
“So are you.”
He shifts both horses and presses them toward the trees, using lead ropes that are unique compared to the plow ropes most people use. Made of tight metal chain, these are clearly stronger and thicker while maintaining their flexibility. I suspect he made them out of necessity to control the giant beasts.
“It takes them a good hour of warming up before they’re disciplined enough to ride,” Eogan says.
“And you’re riding to . . . ?”
“Nowhere. You and Colin are.”
I swear one of the monsters turns to bare his teeth at me. Right. “Um, I’m not riding that thing.”
Colin’s loud whoop fills the air. “About time he brought the horses out.” He jogs up and bumps my shoulder in his remarkably shirtless state. His flirtatious smile melts my mood. “Lookin’ nice, Nym. Do your hair yerself this morning?”
“Maybe. Forget to dress yourself this morning?”
“Only cuz I know you like it.” He snickers and nods to the horses—one of which Eogan has managed to chain to a tree. “Can’t wait for the rush, yeah?”
“Oh yes. The rush of being eaten by insane horses.”
“Nah, they’ll only eat you if you let ’em. You just gotta show ’em who’s in charge. Isn’t that right, Eogan?”
He doesn’t answer. He’s too busy adjusting the reins on the larger of the two beasts while keeping his hand and head a safe distance from its jaws. It snaps at him anyway, but he responds with a firm cooing noise that makes the horse back down. I lift an eyebrow. Does his gift for calming me and others like me have the same effect on animals?
When Eogan turns to face us, it’s to bring the horse into the arena’s center. And to focus a pair of emerald eyes on me from behind jagged, clammy bangs. “Nym, start walking toward me. Slowly.”
“Oh good-mother-of-Faelen.”
Colin chuckles. “I think Nym needs to see a real champion show how it’s done!”
“Colin, stay. Nym, you’ll either walk or Colin will carry you, but you’re going to get over here now before Haven decides she doesn’t want to play anymore.”
“I didn’t realize she was playing,” I murmur. But I walk—well, more march with attitude—to where Eogan is holding the animal clearly begging to tear the flesh from my face. When I’m close enough, I recognize her as the one who almost bit my hand in the barn two nights ago.
“Go around behind me.” Eogan tips his chin toward the horse’s side, which is an enormous wall of compact muscle and fur I can’t actually see over the top of. I pin the inside of my cheek between my teeth and obey while the beast watches me and chomps her bit.
“Now go ahead and pat her shoulder to say hello.”
I pat.
“Like you mean it.”
I pat like I mean to say, Hi, horse, I hate this as much as you do. If you bite me, I’ll sink my teeth into you faster than you can swallow.
“Okay, good. See her jaw relax? She’s tolerating you.”
“How nice of her.”
“Now grab the mane and pull yourself up.”
I bite my cheek harder and look at the wall of horse. Then I look at Eogan and notice a sly quiver at the edge of his mouth, as if he finds my discomfort amusing. I glare.
The half smile disappears. “Do it, or I’ll let Colin come show you.”
Fine. I push the gimpy fingers of my left hand into the mane, wrapping it around my wrist before gripping it with my right hand as well. Then heave. Hot pain bursts from the new memorial tattoo, and before I realize it, I’ve cried out and fallen back flat on my hindside.
Eogan’s mouth twitches as he goes back to cooing in his stupid horse language. The animal’s whole body trembles, and suddenly her one crazy eye is trained right on me.
“Haven’s a beautiful girl. Just focus on her strength. Convince her to work for you, and you’ll become her master.”
“Right. And then she won’t eat me?”
“Oh, she’ll try. She’ll just know you won’t let her.”
I snort.
Colin gives a loud, impatient grumbl
e from somewhere I can’t see.
“Oh, nip it!” I holler.
He laughs.
I try again to climb onto Haven, but this time the tightness of the animal’s mane wrapped around my wrist rips the memorial cut on my arm open, and the pain is so excruciating I don’t even get halfway. As I fall back, the horse’s nostrils flare wide and she jerks toward me, bucking and baring her teeth, and the only thing that keeps me from becoming her breakfast is Eogan’s ironclad hold.
“Whoa, girl.” he soothes. “What in hulls has gotten into you?” He tilts his head and assesses her, then drops his gaze and gives me an odd, confused sweep. And stops at my arm. I follow his frown and discover spots of brown on my sleeve.
“Colin.” Eogan’s tone goes tight. “Take a five-lap run, mate.”
With minimal complaint the boy is gone, and Eogan holds the horse at arm’s length while he grabs my sleeve with his free hand. His grip tenses as he visually inspects the bloody wrapping. The horse groans and whines. Then her moans turn to hissing, and suddenly Eogan is releasing my arm and jerking Haven away.
I look at the ground. At the trees. At anything but the piercing gaze of my trainer.
Waiting for it . . .
When his words erupt, they’re controlled fury, like muted thunder across a meadow. “What in bolcranes were you thinking? Carving into your skin—harming yourself like that? Do you have a death wish?”
“Me? You’re having us ride a man-eating animal!”
“These horses are controllable in the right environment. But you . . . you have fresh blood oozing from a wound that won’t seal over for another few hours. And you, what—thought it none of my business? Between disease and these horses . . .” He snaps the chain to bring the animal’s wandering mouth back in line. “You do realize Haven’s smelling your blood right now, yes?”
I clench my teeth and watch his gaze flash down my neck, my collarbone, my arm. He narrows his expression. “You think cutting marks in your body will make a difference? Like it’s some noble form of penance for the people you’ve hurt? Because it’s not. It’s foolish, and it’ll just get you killed quicker.”
I practically choke at his words. How does he know what the markings are for? And who does he think he is? He’s known me for two days and thinks he’s already figured me out? Curse him. “Who are you to pretend you understand me? You know nothing!”
“I understand you feel bad for those people and that you should show it in the way the rest of us do—with a totem or a nice shrine maybe. But instead you . . . you . . .”
“I what? Leave a mark? Like you did on my other arm? How dare you lecture me on what I do to my body!” I tug my sleeve up to reveal the stained bandage that still covers the owner circle.
He freezes.
My throat shakes; my arm trembles. I shut my eyes and pretend I can ignore him. Focus on the smell of rain in the air. I can practically feel its friction in the clouds above us. Waiting to descend.
“Look at me, Nym.”
He has to say it twice before I give in and glare ice picks at his face.
When I do, he steps closer and, still using one hand to control the horse, pushes his other hand through his hair. Licks his lips. “It was either me or Adora’s slave hands, and you don’t even want to know what those men were plan—” He stops so suddenly I blink. The look on his face says he should’ve stopped sooner.
Except it’s too late because I already caught it. The glint of something foreign in his tone. Of mercy. Of pity.
Of protection.
And judging from his expression, he’s just as shocked by it as I am. Abruptly, his reaction lodges in the raw, aching space inside of me that’s never known anyone who’d want to protect me, let alone why, and the impact is spinning me the same way his gaze does.
It shatters the air into a million jagged pieces that hurt to inhale but leave me begging for more. A growl erupts from the storm overhead, and suddenly the clouds burst and raindrops are sliding their fingers down my face and heart, and it’s like fire along my bones. Soothing. Stimulating. Swirling my insides with a confusion I didn’t even know I was capable of.
I look down at my boots as the horse gives an agitated snort at the storm. I will not cry, I will not cry, I refuse to cry.
Eogan shifts and clears his throat. “I was protecting your body,” he murmurs, just as Colin emerges from the tree line. “And not so you could carve it up.”
“What’s Nym yelling about? What’d I miss?”
I blink a hundred blinks, and Eogan gestures Colin to stay back and me to move toward Haven again. “Keep your arms as far from her face as possible,” is all he says.
It takes four times before I finally succeed in hoisting myself onto the animal, and by the time I do, I can feel the blood weeping freely through my bandage and a headache rising behind my eyes. I ignore both, as Eogan tries to control Haven with his cooing.
He waits for me to get settled while Haven shivers and shakes her mane.
“Good. Very good,” Eogan says to her. He hands me her reins but keeps the lead chain entwined around his fingers. He clicks his tongue and lets her out ten feet, and before I can focus my breath, Haven is trotting in circles around Eogan, tugging away, then lunging in, as if performing a complicated winter-solstice dance.
For the first five minutes I’m gripping her reins and water-soaked mane for dear life, praying I don’t die an awkward death in front of Colin and Eogan. But then the horse’s huge muscles sync with mine and trigger a sort of sixth sense between the two of us. With my hands in her hair and my wrists against her skin, I feel her pulse align with the thump, thump, thump of mine as the wind whips the rain against my face.
One second I’m inhaling her wet, musky scent and the next my chest explodes with a rush, and I’m laughing. Because it’s the most insane, exquisite thing I’ve ever done. And unlike the bird I carved into my arm this morning, I can actually experience the taste of flight.
CHAPTER 10
EOGAN LETS HAVEN PLAY AT THIS WEAVING BACK and forth for an hour before her personality suddenly shifts to more adventurous and irritable. Then he reins her in and has me slide off while keeping her face in front of his.
“Pat her side and tell her—” Eogan doesn’t need to finish because I’m already petting and thanking her for the ride of freedom mixed with terror. And for allowing me to leave with all my limbs still attached.
While I stand under the shelter of the pine trees, grinning like an idiot in my stench of blood and horse sweat, Eogan takes her to the barn and returns to repeat the exercise with Colin on the other beast.
By lunchtime, the rain has turned to a thick downpour, with the threat of lightning pricking the hair along my neck. Colin and I hurry to the house kitchen for cold quail and potato pasties. We’re just finishing when the door flaps open and Adora struts in, looking like a woman on fire in her orange ensemble. She crosses her arms as the kitchen staff cowers.
“Bron’s taken the rest of our ships,” she snips, “except for those holding the northwest waterway. We’ve a matter of weeks left, so I trust you’re training hard.”
Well, hello to you too.
“Absolutely.” Colin jumps up and offers her his seat.
She ignores it and stares at me.
I nod.
She narrows her eyes. “Work harder.” Turning, she glides from the room.
I don’t look at Colin as we head back to the field to meet Eogan, who’s standing looking up at the sky. The horses gone. The clouds no longer raining.
Colin snickers and jabs me with his elbow. “Watch this.” Quick as a snake, he leans low and shoves one hand out. Instantly a growl erupts beneath our feet and one of Colin’s fissures snaps across the meadow floor to where Eogan is. Our trainer glances over and raises an eyebrow at Colin just as the rushing dirt halts a few feet in front of him. He smirks.
Colin shakes his head. “I don’t know how he does it. Stops it like that.” He looks at me. “But I ca
n’t wait ’til you try to put one over on ’im. When you’re . . . you know, safe and don’t kill ’im.”
Eogan’s now studying me as if trying to figure out which broken part to poke next. “I’m pretty sure I’ll always want to kill him,” I mutter as he strides over.
“Colin, go ahead and give me ten paces and wait.”
As the boy walks off, Eogan steps behind me to place his hands on my shoulders. I go rigid. He skims his fingers across my neck to move aside my long braid, and I try not to remember the protective look on his face from earlier or notice his earthy scent or the way my rib cage squirms as he leans in, like I’ve got a trapped butterfly in there.
“Today we’re going to try a different approach. See Colin there?”
I tilt my head at the bald boy currently walking in circles on his hands.
“Good. Now imagine that he’s in danger.”
Colin pauses to do a one-handed push-up, while I try to picture him being harmed. He lifts an eyebrow at me.
“Now save him.”
“What?” I turn to Eogan, but pain crushes my left hand as he presses into it, summoning the storm. When I start to resist, Eogan says, “It’s what we want. Allow it.”
But I can’t. Especially not with his breath on my neck.
The static diminishes.
“Again,” he says.
“I don’t know—”
He releases my one hand and grabs for the other, then pinches into my brand-new owner circle. “But this time, imagine he’s in danger from an owner.”
The wave hurls back in. This time tenfold, and I’m terrified because I know at once it will engage and there will be no stopping it.
“Now acknowledge it without allowing it to take over.”
What? How? I concentrate on “acknowledging it,” but I have no idea what he means. Except the next instant the already-darkened day is dimming even further as the clouds above us swirl and dip lower again. I try to imagine the danger to Colin is coming from the tree line—away from any of us—but the storm keeps assembling and my sense of panic rises as it drones through my blood.
“Good. You’ve got it. Now close your eyes and aim for the trees,” Eogan says, as if he can read my thoughts.