With an injury that could be healed and recovered from.
I held on to Zalira. She screamed when Io yanked the arrow out. Io poured a salve onto the hole to cleanse and close it and gave me a potion. “Have her drink this.”
Zalira opened her mouth and I poured the healing potion in. “What happened to Ahyana?”
“The dragons roaring spooked the horses. She went over to stop them from fleeing, and one of them twisted and fell on her. I think she has some broken ribs,” Io said as she wrapped a bandage over Zalira’s shoulder.
I turned to look. “Where are the horses?”
“Gone.”
That was very, very bad. We should have had about a half-hour head start on the army, but without the horses ...
Suri finally called off her aspect and I went over to check on her. “When things went wrong, you were supposed to go.”
She lay on the ground, panting. “Did you really think that we would leave you?”
Io was talking to Ahyana. “The healing potion doesn’t work on bones. Your lungs aren’t punctured, which is good. But there’s nothing else I can do for you. It will take a few weeks to heal.”
We didn’t have a few weeks. We had to go now.
“Luna! Can you do that transport thing on all of us? Take us back to Troas?”
No. Too many. Too far.
Given the state everyone was in, we wouldn’t get very far just by walking. I closed my eyes. “Dea, I know that I ask for more than my fair share of favors, but I need one now for my sisters. Please help me save them.”
I felt a surge of power, and for a moment, I thought that Luna had moved me again.
But instead I turned to see five white horses trotting over to us. Their manes were silky and silver, glittering under the sun.
“What in the—” Zalira started to say.
“Asteria’s sacred horses,” Io breathed. “The goddess’s daughter has sent us her horses.”
“Everybody mount up,” I said. It was a struggle getting everyone on their horses but we had no other option. We had to move.
Now.
Luna sat with me, and without a word, the horses all darted forward. I reached for the reins, but all they did was help me to hang on. The horses knew where they were going and shrugged off any attempt at direction.
The landscape around us was a blur. The horses ran so quickly it was almost like they were flying instead of running.
And the ride was the smoothest I’d ever felt.
They didn’t have to stop to rest or eat or drink. They ran all through the day, straight for Troas.
It was nearly nightfall when I first spotted the high walls and I wanted to weep. We had made it.
Alive.
“The gates are closed!” Zalira yelled to me.
I heard Io behind me say, “And the horses aren’t stopping!”
They were going to run us straight into a stone wall.
Just as I was about to throw my arms up to brace for impact, the horses leapt over the wall.
