He stood back as she approached the elk, giving her space to work. She was slow and careful with the creature, coming at it from the front in small, measured steps. To his horror, she removed her gloves and offered the back of her hand. He had to remind himself that she was an expert in this field, one of the finest wranglers in Gevra … and yet he stiffened when the creature bent down to snuffle at her pale skin, its large brown eyes wary as she laid her hand on its muzzle.
‘Your gloves,’ he said, unable to help himself. ‘Those antlers are full of poison.’
‘I know,’ she said, without turning around.
To the weaver elk, she murmured soft and low, stroking it all the while.
Alarik couldn’t hear what she said to the beast, only the melodic hum of her words, but he caught the moment the elk’s demeanor shifted. The tension leaked from its wide, rigid shoulders and it dipped its mighty head, drawing level with hers.
She rounded the beast, keeping her strokes soft and soothing. She moved those small, practised hands through the tuft of its mane, her fingers rising to trace the root of its left antler. Alarik clamped his lips shut, trusting her to keep herself safe, but he couldn’t help the sharp twist in his stomach as he watched her work.
Mercifully, the elk didn’t buck. It merely closed its eyes, content at her nearness.
She was soft – so very soft – with the creature in a way that made Alarik’s chest ache. It made him wonder how she might use her hands on him, alone in the dark, in a place where the only beast was the one that growled in his chest. His eyes glazed, his thoughts tumbling out of the meadow and into faraway, forbidden territory, his blood heating as he imagined the warmth of her fingers in his hair, those soft, breathy words brushing the shell of his ear.
He blinked himself back to propriety at the sound of a determined grunt. The wrangler leaped from the ground in one swift movement and climbed the mighty elk like a tree. She curled her fingers in its woolly mane and hoisted herself higher, until she was straddling the sprawl of its bronzed back.
There was no hint of fear on her face. Only determination, a telltale spark of triumph setting her eyes aglow.
And yet Alarik couldn’t help the swill of his own nerves. ‘What in freezing hell are you doing, Iversen?’
She smiled down at him, the wind tussling with her long copper hair, and though she wore no crown or beads or finery, she looked just like a queen, a ruler of something wild and deep and ancient, the soul of the earth made into flesh and bone and beauty.
The sight of her punched through him, scouring a hole in his soul. He wanted to fill it with her.
Snap out of it, you reckless fool.
Tor will take your head from your body.
And King Nilas will burn the rest of it.
‘You wanted to see the elks run,’ she said, oblivious to the war raging inside him. ‘So, watch!’
Alarik had no choice but to watch because she was already rising to her haunches, her hands fisted in the wool of the elk’s mane, her thighs clenching just behind its shoulders, as if to say,go, go, go.
The elk set off at a canter, its strides growing faster, harder. The earth trembled beneath its hooves, divots of frosted dirt kicked up in its wake. The beast was entirely hers, the wildness in their souls tangling so effortlessly it looked like the wrangler had been riding it her entire life. Like this day – this moment – was nothing but sport for her.
She rode faster still, the wind racing to catch her, and Alarik watched with unblinking eyes, praying she wouldn’t fall, and knowing, of course, that she would not. Soon, she was little more than a blur in the distance, a thread of laughter on the wind, a view he itched to return to his easel to paint.
Captain Vine and Princess Elva fell out of their conversation, wordlessly drifting to where the king stood watching her. And even Lief, who seemed to have no interest in anything beyond prayer rites and frock coats and centrepieces stood up in the sled to watch her go.
Just when Alarik thought his view of the wrangler couldn’t get any more arresting, she threw her head back and released a shout he had heard a thousand times before.
It was a call to arms, a cry of war, the sound so stirring he absently gripped the pommel of his sword.
There came a rattling thunder, but the sky held its rain. It was the earth that trembled as the rest of the elk broke into a run, charging headlong through the fields as though to chase their wrangler all the way to the horizon.
Alarik’s heart raced as he watched them spill out in a sea of bronze and gold, imagining all the soldiers they could trample on a battlefield of his making. It was even easier to imagine how this gentle, soft-eyed wrangler, who sang to her beasts and flinched at the mere sight of blood, might end up turning the tide of war – of history – in his favour.
Vine’s breath hitched at the sight of the stampede, the word slipping from her on a sigh. ‘Magnificent.’
‘Yes,’ murmured Alarik. ‘Yes, she is.’
CHAPTER 16
Greta
Greta replayed her trip to the grazing fields for days afterwards. It felt like a dream now, how the elk had responded so readily to her call, charging with her like wild things across the snow-kissed earth.
