Page 50

“All right.” Silence fell for a time. Then he said, “May I make a simple observation?”

“If you must.”

“You look very beautiful this morning. The morning light suits you.”

I laughed darkly. “I highly doubt that.”

“You doubt it? Surely you’ve seen it for yourself.”

“I haven’t,” I replied. “I don’t like looking in mirrors.”

He was quiet, then said gently, “I’m sorry. You said that yesterday. I’d forgotten.”

The fact that he’d forgotten anything about our time together yesterday when every moment of it, every word of it, had been scorched into my mind like a brand to flesh made me flare up all over in mortification. Of course he didn’t remember; moments like that meant nothing to him. He’d had many of them, I was certain. Even during all those years his family was trapped in a forest, Ravenswood was a community of hundreds—the servants, the grooms, the tenant farmers in the little village at the end of the main drive. He would have had years to practice and no lack of willing partners. And here I was, having spent the night twisting and turning in my bed yet again, thinking only of him—his hands on me, his lips on mine, the heat of him, the strength of him, how strangely familiar it felt to be held by him—and all the while aching for something I couldn’t find, not even after I’d touched myself and brought myself to shaking completion.

“I wouldn’t expect you to remember,” I said crisply. “I said many things yesterday and regret most of them.”

“Most of them?”

“Telling you to come here, that we need to visit the queen—I don’t regret that.”

“Ah.”

The tone of his voice on that small word was strange, full of something I couldn’t read. He said nothing after that, striding in companionable silence beside me and looking out over the Ivyhill grounds while I stewed in absolute misery until we reached the stables, where my stormy feelings grew even fiercer.

Byrn was there, our white-whiskered head groom, already awake and working a horse in the large training paddock with his apprentices. I recognized the horse at once, a black colt with a wicked temper and very little patience for humans. One of the grooms approached him with a lead rope and a simple loop halter that would rest around his neck. They wouldn’t even try to put it on him, I knew; they would simply let him smell it and nose it around, get him used to the feel of it against his body. But the colt was having none of it. He watched the groom approach with his head lowered and his ears back, and when the poor boy got close enough, the colt lashed out and snapped at him with his teeth. The boy dropped the bridle and jumped back, and the colt pawed the dirt with one angry hoof.

Byrn, meanwhile, stood to the side, not looking after his apprentice but instead glowering at Ryder and me as we neared the paddock. Some of the other grooms gathered in a watchful knot not far from him. Ryder’s face was well known—all the Basks’ were—and not once had any of them set foot on our estate so openly. I didn’t blame them for being tense; for all they knew, this was some sort of attack and I was actually Lord Alaster wearing a glamoured disguise. Never mind that they all knew we’d recently been to Ravenswood, ostensibly forpleasure. Their whole lives, the Basks had been enemies to us, to them, to their livelihoods.

“What’s his name?” Ryder asked me quietly as we reached the paddock fence, his blue eyes fixed on the colt and the furious flick of his tail.

“Jet,” I replied, just as softly. “A farmer in Fenwood found him wandering in the woods near the Mist and couldn’t find his owner. He managed to get him home, feed him, but every attempt at training him failed. He’s aggressive, impossible to work with. Byrn convinced Father to bring him to Ivyhill, take him on as a project. It took five men to wrangle him all the way here. Even our grooms with wilding magic haven’t been able to make progress.”

Ryder nodded. “I’m not surprised. The Mist got into this one, or else he’s seen horrors he can’t forget.”

I glanced over at him, chilled by the images his words conjured. “Whatever happened to his owner, you mean.”

“Possibly.”

Ryder put both his hands on the top rail and clucked his tongue. Then he murmured something under his breath, not in Ekkari, but something smoother, gentler—another Olden bestial language, I assumed. The gathered grooms hushed. Even the morning birds went quiet.

Jet turned to stare at him. He tossed his head and snorted, showing us the whites of his eyes. The look on his face was obvious, even to me.Just try it, stranger.

But Ryder only smiled, then entered the paddock through the gate nearest us. One of the younger grooms jerked forward, a warning on his lips, but Byrn hushed him with a sharp wave of his hand. He watched closely as Ryder slowly approached Jet, still murmuring quietly, his head lowered and his gaze deferential. He said Jet’s name. He held out his hand, a question suspended in the air.

Jet snorted and stamped his hoof, then reared up with an angry cry. I flinched, gripped the fence hard, but Ryder showed no fear. He paused, the cadence of his voice low and calm, songlike. I thought I heard questions now and then in his strange words, to which Jet snorted and whickered in response. Thanks to Ryder’s Anointed wilding power, Jet could understand what he was saying, or at least enough of it.

A delicate chill washed over me as Ryder finally reached Jet, still crooning to him with that gentle, low voice. He drew long, slow strokes down the colt’s back and under his wild mane that seemed to soothe his anger. He bumped Ryder’s arm with his muzzle, then lowered his head, blinking heavily as if overcome with sudden exhaustion or relief, and turned his whole face into Ryder’s chest. He let it rest there as Ryder stroked his neck and forehead, and at last the hush that had fallen over the paddock lifted. Birdsong returned, and I felt it was safe to breathe again.

Some of the grooms turned away, wiping their faces. Even Byrn’s eyes were bright.

“Impressive, Lord Ryder,” he said solemnly. “Can I ask what you said? We’ve tried Ekkari, and Aavmesh, as you did, and even Griskell and Kezhrati, but he responded to none of the arcane bestial languages, not even when I was the one uttering them.”

Ryder glanced at him. “You are an Anointed wilder too?”

Byrn nodded. “And all my apprentices have some wilding magic, though none are Anointed.”

“When the Mist touches a living creature, be it beast or human, whether the magic you try is Anointed or low doesn’t matter as much as shared experience. Jet has been changed by the Mist. So have I, having lived near it for so long. We understand each other. He doesn’t mean you harm. He’s just frightened and knows you have not tasted fear as he has.”