Good Witches Don't Lie (Academy of Shadowed Magic Book 1)

by S. W. Clarke

Well, except for one horse. But today had been different.

  As I approached Noir’s stall, I pulled the apple from my pocket. He hadn’t stuck his head out, but that was normal. He wasn’t in the habit of acknowledging me first.

  But I acknowledged him. Every time.

  Maybe it was my thing about earning affection. I’d originally the same relationship with Loki, and I liked it that way. I liked building a slow and careful trust.

  I liked people and creatures I had to work to know.

  “Hey Noir,” I said as I got to his door. I could see his coal-black rump gleaming in the light. “I brought you something.”

  I clicked my tongue twice, and the horse turned, his enormous head lifting in the darkness. He was definitely getting used to my clicks—I had been practicing them every time I saw him, and always accompanying them with treats.

  When he saw me, he came forward, nearly knocking me if I hadn’t stepped back. By now, I was used to backing up a little bit, getting out of his way.

  I reached out for his muzzle, set my hand on it. He was at least allowing that much now. His dark eyes regarded me with wary caution, but he didn’t snap at me or fling his head.

  I held up the apple in the flat of my palm. He gave it a single sniff before plucking the whole thing from my hand, biting it in half in a rush of juices.

  That was progress. Next would come the real test. The most important one of my time at the academy.

  I picked up the sack of oats and a bridle from the rack on the wall and brought them to Noir. With Siren, it was easy enough to open her door and muck the stall with her in there. With Noir, the rules were different.

  “No one,” the quartermistress had told me, “can enter his stall while he’s in it.”

  Well, I was breaking that rule. But if I was going to break it, I was at least going to make sure he was restrained first.

  I held the bridle up. “Here it is, buddy—the same one I’ve seen Quartermistress Farrow slip over your head. Give it a sniff.”

  Noir did so, tilting his head as his nostrils flared with the scent of the leather. When he stopped sniffing and returned his eyes to me, I took that as consent. Who knew? Maybe he was secretly a talking horse. Stranger things had happened in my life.

  I stuck my hand in the oat sack and grabbed a handful. Then I lifted the bridle to his face, clicked my tongue, and pressed the oats toward him with my other hand. After he’d eaten it from my palm and was chewing, I slid the bridle over his ears.

  His head bucked up half a foot before settling back down. The whites of his eyes were on display again.

  “It’s okay,” I cooed. “It’s totally fine. We’re good, you and me. I know you feel what I’ve felt.”

  God, I really sounded like an infatuated teenager talking to my crush. Thankfully Loki wasn’t around to never let me forget it.

  By some miracle, Noir allowed me to slip the bridle over the rest of his face. When it came to getting the bit in his mouth, I preceded it with a click of the tongue and another handful of oats.

  Then I slid the bit in. He resisted for a moment, flaring his top lip, but he allowed it. The metal bumped across his teeth as it settled into place. Holy guacamole. I was breathing hard with the adrenaline of the moment. But I had succeeded—I had gotten the first piece of gear on.

  Quartermistress Farrow would be simultaneously horrified and proud that I had gotten so close and managed to bridle him.

  I took up the reins and unlatched the door to his stall. When it opened wide, he stood there a moment, the muscles in his shoulders twitching. I urged him forward with the reins, and after a second of hesitation, he lifted one hoof and it clopped onto the stone.

  Then, in a rush, all three hooves joined the first, the enormous stallion stepping up and out of the stall and onto the walkway. His tail swung heavy and black under the light, his head rising so high above me I had to summon every bit of courage not to cower and back away.

  He wasn’t running. He wasn’t misbehaving. This horse was doing exactly what I wanted him to, but he was simply that intimidating.

  Which I found both thrilling and terrifying.

  But what can I say? What terrifies me also thrills me. I’m a gal who likes them in equal measure.

  I brought him out into the center of the walkway, hooked him up to the harness clips. He accepted this with another swing of the tail and one back hoof stomping hard and sharp on the stone.

  Even that single stomp sent shivers through me.

  What was it about this horse? He was completely unlike the others.

  That’s why you’re out here tonight, Clementine, I thought. You’re here because of this horse.

  Now came the test. The one Murkwood had written about in her book.

  I slid the largest saddle, pad, and girth we had off the rack, the stirrups swinging low as I hefted the thing over to Noir. The quartermistress had told me that horses were measured in hands, and that a mare like Siren was about average height at fifteen hands.

  Noir, on the other hand, was eighteen hands. He was a monster.

  I got the girth ready, showing it to him before I brought it around to his side. I could barely get it up and over the ridge of his back—I had to reach almost directly up to slide it over.

  But I got it up there. And then I proceeded to the saddle. The whole while, I talked to him. I told him exactly what I was doing: placing the saddle over his back, hooking up the girth beneath his belly.

  When I knelt down to pull the girth through, I couldn’t believe the power in him. My hand touched his shoulder, slid down to his leg, and under there I felt nothing but hard muscle and sinew. He had no fat on him, no excess.

  I didn’t know much about horses, but I sensed he was a perfect example of one. That the word “horse” had been defined with one like this in mind.

  Finally, I pulled the girth taut. This made him stamp again and turn his head around. He rumbled, ears swiveling toward me.

  I raised my hands. “All done with the girth.”

  He gave a large sigh from the chest, nostrils widening with his exhale as though to say, “Pull that hard again and you’ll really be sorry.”

  I stepped toward his face, speaking to him close as I stroked his mane. “There’s just one last thing. I’m going to pull this step stool toward you, and then I’m going to climb on your back. That’s all.”

  He blinked, his long lashes gleaming in the light, as he raised his head higher than my hand could reach. He didn’t look so much mean right now as proud. And I would respect that pride.

  I dragged the step stool over to his side and climbed up. I set one hand in his mane, and a dizzying sensation went through me—a sense of purpose, of power. It swept over me like a breeze, lifting my hair, tickling across my skin like waves of electricity.

  That’s it, I thought. That’s what Murkwood wrote about.

  I wasn’t meant for a broom. I was meant to ride this horse. He also hadn’t moved away from me. That was a good sign.

  All right, Clem. No cowards in this stable tonight.

  I took hold of the saddle’s pommel and gripped it, securing my right foot into the stirrup and preparing to swing my left leg over his back.

  In the moment I put any weight into it, Noir shifted, an uneasy rumble starting in his chest.

  For the first time, I wasn’t afraid of this horse. I stepped off the stool and ducked under the harness tethers, coming to stand in front of him.

  I gripped his bridle with one hand, stroking down his face with the other. I stared into his black eyes. An idea had come to me. “It’s the bridle, the metal bit, that girth binding you, isn’t it? That’s what makes you uneasy.”

  This might be the worst or the best idea of my life. Maybe both. But I knew as soon as I’d had it that I needed to go through with it.

  I needed to let the horse make his own choice.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I began with the girth. When I unclipped it, the metal clasp pinged as it hit
the stable floor. I pulled the saddle and pad off his back, returned them to the tack room.

  And just like that, all that remained were the harness clips keeping his head in place.

  “All right,” I said in a low, steady voice as I came to his side. “If you kill me, I will come back to haunt you. I’m a witch, after all.”

  He nickered with a small toss of the head.

  I reached out, unclipped one. When I came around to the other side, I sucked air in through my nose. Then, with a simple flick of the thumb, unclipped the other.

  And so he stood, free, in the center aisle.

  I backed up to his stall door, keeping my eyes on him. He hadn’t moved, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t run. Or kick. Or bite.

  When he still didn’t move after seconds of silence, I took a step closer to him. Then another.

  His head turned so that both eyes surveyed me. One hoof pawed at the floor—scrape, scrape. It wasn’t aggression; I got the impression he’d said, “Well?”

  When I came to his side and reached out to his corded neck, the muscles twitched under my fingers. I slid my hand down to his withers, to the silken expanse of his side and back.

  All the unease had gone out of his frame. He was so much more magnificent without all the leather and metal thrown on him.

  No kicking. No biting. He was free, at ease.

  I crossed the aisle, opened the door to the training ring. A wave of frigid air hit me, pressing my hair back, drawing my eyes to the clear sky past the trees.

  This was a good night for riding bareback.

  When I turned, I clicked twice with my tongue as I had done for weeks before leaving for Vienna. And to my surprise, Noir turned. He came to me, but not with his head lowering and swaying as the other horses did when obeying Quartermistress Farrow.

  He was a different horse. A proud one.

  He came to me with head high, hooves clopping over the stone, a flick of his tail as he stopped so close to me I could smell the scent of his breath blowing down on me.

  “Good,” I whispered, a thrill edging toward fear making its jagged path through my chest. “Good.”

  I had trusted myself, and I had been right.

  This horse and I had a connection.

  I turned, clicked my tongue for him to follow. He walked with me into the training ring, where the stepping block awaited human feet in the night. But when I tried to get him to stand alongside it, he wouldn’t have any of it.

  Instead, as I stood on the highest step on the block whispering out to him, he only trotted away to the edge of the ring and stared out into the forest.

  He would make things difficult. He was just like me.

  I got off the block, came over to him at the side of the ring. When I climbed up onto the fence and tried to mount him that way, he trotted off with a snort, evading me with ease. And then he came to another stop, head lowering as though searching out grass amidst the dirt.

  I hopped to the ground. “You’re a troll, aren’t you?”

  His tail flicked, a black whip in the moonlight.

  “So, what do I have to do to ride you?” I murmured as I approached him. “Sing to you? My singing voice isn’t very good.”

  He remained where he was—until I got close. When I set my hand to his mane, his head jerked up. The liquid eyes stared at me in the night as though he held a secret. Once again, his hoof pawed at the ground.

  And I got it.

  He wasn’t easy, and neither was I. If he didn’t like the saddle and harness, then he wouldn’t want me to use a mounting block. Not a fence, either.

  My hand slid down his neck toward his back, and I reached as high as I could to touch the mane at his withers. When I gripped his hair in my fist, he went stock still.

  I had to mount him from the ground.

  I had to do the hard way.

  Hell, that wasn’t hard—it was downright impossible.

  But I tried anyway. What else could I do? This, I understood as I attempted to swing my leg up and over his back—and failed—was the only way he’d let me ride him.

  I knew as much when he stood, patient and waiting, as I tried to pull myself up with a grip on his mane, leg thrown high. Once, twice…a dozen times.

  Every time, I failed.

  But he remained steadfast. He waited with silent patience like the other horses in the barn. He let me fail without judgment.

  On one attempt I fell, hitting the semi-churned ground with a thud. And as I sat there, taking in the extent of my shame and bruising, he glanced over and down at me. A single puff of crystallized air came out of his nostrils.

  “Try again,” he seemed to say.

  “Don’t pretend like you’re not enjoying this.” I pushed myself up, brushing off my hands and pants. “I’d be laughing at me, too.”

  But I did try again. I must have tried a few dozen times that night, and the closest I ever got was hooking my heel over his spine and, for an exhilarating moment, gaining a bit of leverage.

  Then I lost it. I dropped back down, feet hitting the ground, legs wobbling with the exertion.

  I knew the problem: I wasn’t strong enough. I didn’t have the arm strength, the leg strength, the ability to jump high enough.

  Not yet.

  But I would. And I would ride that horse.

  The next night, I returned to the stables. And the night after that. I snuck back every night for weeks, and Loki never noticed because that was when he took his second nap of the day. And Eva hadn’t clued in because she was always out late into the evening, preparing for qualifiers.

  Ever since the semester had begun, she’d been focused on her resolution: to pass the qualifiers and become a guardian.

  It was a crazy dream, Aiden said. First-years almost never became guardians. Second-years, either. But it was what she had resolved to do.

  And I couldn’t blame her; if I was being honest, I was living by my secret resolution, too—the one I’d made while staring into the fire at the Whitewillows’ home.

  It was in the third week that I finally found success.

  I brought Noir out into the training ring. By now he went happily, glad for his hour of freedom. “Here we are again,” I said in a low growl. “Time for your nightly entertainment.”

  He huffed in the chill air, swinging his head toward me. It brushed my shoulder, nudging me aside. He hadn’t been rough or abrupt. That had almost felt like affection.

  We no longer had a contentious relationship. Not at all—he was like a different horse at night, alone with me. I felt no fear around him.

  As we came under the clouded sky, the moon haloed behind the clouds, I could feel my strength. My arms ached, but they were muscled now in a way they hadn’t been before. My legs, too.

  Even if I didn’t have fire magic, I felt as if I were a part of my own body in a way I hadn’t when I’d first come to the academy. Now every limb felt like my own, wholly connected to me in a different way than in my old life.

  Back when I was a regular human, I’d felt disconnected. I’d floated through life.

  Here, under the moon with the horse, I could be nowhere else. And even though I still hadn’t managed to mount him, this change in me was its own reward.

  I came to Noir’s side, my hand running down his neck as it did every night. My fingers came up to his withers, gripped the knot of mane in a ritual we had both grown used to.

  And then, standing at his shoulder, I ran two steps and threw my right leg up. My heel hooked, and I gritted my teeth as I pulled with my arm, using every ounce of strength in my legs to leverage myself up.

  Up I went with a noise somewhere between a groan and a yell, lifting one hundred and twenty pounds some six feet into the air. At some point, the lifting became easier. My leg came over the other side, and it was only a matter of bringing myself to a seat atop him.

  Then I was up. I was seated, my arms and legs shaking with cold or exhaustion, I couldn’t tell.

  Maybe with adrenaline.<
br />
  And amidst the shaking, I stared out over the ring and the fence line and the forest beyond from a new height.

  Up here, the whole world felt different.

  That electric sensation passed through me again, but this time with even more power. I was a witch, and I wasn’t meant to ride a broom or fly. I was meant to ride.

  Everything felt right.

  I took a deep breath, stroking the spot where his neck met his back. Noir had remained standing for me for three weeks, waiting every night as I built the strength to mount him as I should be able to.

  This was a wild horse, yes, but he was also my horse.

  “Well,” I said, my breath shaky, “I guess it’s finally time to walk, isn’t it?”

  I had learned during my daytime lessons on Siren that I should use my heels to urge a horse into motion. And that had worked, of course, but it didn’t feel right on him.

  Heels felt like they belonged to the realm of master and servant, of punisher and punished.

  This horse deserved better than heels.

  So I squeezed with my legs, just a small press against the ribcage. As soon as I did, he started into a walk. It was that easy.

  “All right,” I said, leaning to the left, “now turn for me.”

  But he didn’t turn. He kept walking straight.

  I leaned farther. “Turn left.”

  He still didn’t turn. In fact, he angled right, leading us toward the fence line. And when he reached it, he lowered his head and began picking at the dead grasses at the edge of the ring.

  I stared down at him, pecking away at the grass. “You are such a troll.”

  That night, I came back to the dorm and found Eva unexpectedly there. When I opened the door, she was seated facing away at her desk, her hand touching her face again.

  And when she sensed me, her hand dropped immediately. She spun around. “Clem. It’s late. And you smell…like the stables.”

  She seemed nervous, but my own nervousness made me unable to focus on her. We both had our secrets.

  I made a beeline for the shower. “I always smell like the stables. An unfortunate side effect of working there.”