He wore a smug grin, and bent around to show it off. “I thought you could instruct your own horse, Your Highness?” he asked.
“Cyrus,” Willoughby warned.
They shared a look, and reluctantly, my swordsman moved to the side. I took my place back next to him andscowled, very deeply.
“Should we be paying more attention to the weather?” Josie asked.
The three of us looked back at her, dumbly following her as she pointed to the canopy overhead.
Through the tiny slithers between branches, the clouds had begun to darken, and, becauseonlyin that moment could it have happened, a loudroarout of the sky shocked us all, even the horses, but especiallymine.
Each responded in various stages of fear. Cyrus, followed quickly by Ser Willoughby handled their steeds best. My cousin tried to settle Josie’s, but both Tails, and Ice reacted, castingtheir hooves into the air one after the other and practicallyhowling,setting each other off.
Josie fell and Willoughby dismounted to help her as swiftly as it had happened, but Ice— despite my ability to somehow remainattachedto her— clambered off the path and took flight, spiriting me away.
“Yeah! Yeah!”I heard Mr. Evergreen call. He rode determinedly, and while he and his mount could barely be heard over the thundering commotion of everything—the horse, the storm, the pounding of my heart—I felt relieved somehow, knowing he was there. Even if Isaacwasthe faster horse. And even if she was an uncontrolled, terrified horse, who’d taken me as her hostage. No amount of trembling or patting hands against her mane, or pleading eased her. I was left to accept fate as it would come, be it the rocky cliff or thrown and trampled, it was comforting to hear him yell after us.
Still, I bartered. “Ice! Please! Listen to me! Youmustslow down. You’re being ridiculous!”
Then suddenly, she reared a second time, screaming. I held her reins as tightly as I could, until my hands hurt so badly I thought I would fall back. But when the dirt she’d kicked into the air dissipated and her shoes struck the ground with two loud thuds, a figure appeared before us. Isaac continued to pace around in a quick oval and then I saw that it wasMr. Evergreenthat had startled her, somehow. He arrived there, as if by magic.
Cyrus rode up to her side and caught the leads in his hands, holding both horses with perfect control. Then smoothly andexpertly, he passed from Edith’s saddle to Ice, and maneuvered into place behind me, forcing us all into a brutal full-stop.
“Whoaaa!” he told her. “Whoa.”
I struggled to catch my breath, equal parts mortified by the ride, and flushed by his flesh so close to mine. I could feel his heat through my dress.
“I’ve got you,” he said. He loosened a hand and brought it to my waist with another word of reassurance. “I’ve got you, love. You’re safe.”
I couldn’t move at first, until the second warning flash of lightning cracked across the sky and shook me. Cyrus resettled me with his palm, flat to my ribs. He urged me to his chest.
“I’ve got you, Swan.”
“I,” I started. “I can’t believe that happened!”
“Aye.”
“She just lost her mind!”
“Aye.”
“I—!” Instinctively, I shot my hand over his and laced my fingers through it, squeezing. His breath brushed against my shoulder in response.
“It’s alright,” he said. “I’m here.”
I turned my face. We were so close. He checked the sky and then the woods. “The storm’s close.”
“But I don’t see the others,” I said.
“Yeah. We need to find shelter,” he said, just as it began to rain. He shook his head. “Ser Willoughby will do the same for Josie. Come on.”
A few minutes later, we emerged from one end of the clearing where the chapel was. The wind whipped around us, pulling the flowers nearly from their beds, and taking branches from one side to the other of trees.
My hair and skirt joined whipped, too, unraveling key points of my braid to block my vision.
When we came off the horse, Cyrus groaned, toting me by the hand. “Stay close. Don’t let go,” he said.
“What about the girls?” I asked. “Our horses?”
