“You’re so sure of yourself.”
“You do not know who I am.”
“Your ilk is more common than you think.” As he tosses his head back and looks at the sky with annoyance, I study his profile in a way I’ve not been able to do—and recognize him in all his grandeur. The wealthy and beautiful, be they men or women, are a tribe, far apart from the likes of me. “You’re a well-bred man of means, who gallivants through his mortal time on Anathos, doing what he wishes, going where he pleases, and bidding others to his whims because he was born to nobility and the court. And he’s so certain of his position that what was merely the luck of his birth he ascribes to his own intelligence and doing.”
“And you’re a commoner with no prospects who’s being offered the kind of security a woman of your station cannot even hope to marry.”
“Wrong,” I snap back at him. “But you’re close. I’m a commoner with no prospects who’s turning your arrogant offer down—and you should thank me for it. You can’t handle what comes with my aid.”
After what happened to Mare? I am never, ever drawing on that power again.Ever.
“I thought you said you have no special gift,” he drawls. Then he says in a very low tone, “I can force you, if I have to.”
That uncharacteristic fury within me kindles and I nearly look him in theeye as I start to unbutton his coat: “Try it and see how that goes. Wouldn’t beating a woman sit badly upon your spotless conscience.”
Abruptly, he covers his eyes and turns away. “What are you doing?”
My fingers attack the fasteners. “I’m giving you your clothes back—”
The high-pitched whinny of a horse cuts through the forest, and we both jerk toward the sound.
“Fates,” Julion says bitterly, “your helpful friend better not be stealing my stallion and leaving us both in the lurch.”
We take off running. He’s in front, cutting through the branches without holding any to the side for the person drafting in his wake. I don’t care. I’m shorter than him, and easily duck to keep from getting smacked in the face with the orange and red leaves.
In a clearing not far from where we were, his fine white stallion is tethered to a tree, and Merc is indeed standing before the magnificent warhorse. As he eyes the steed while it throws its head and whips its tail, he does look as if he’s sizing up a leap into the saddle, and I wonder if Julion’s opinion of the man I’ve so blindly put my faith in may be closer to the truth than I can bear to admit.
“Off hand thee!” Julion shouts as he breaks out into the knoll.
Merc’s head twists in the aristocrat’s direction. Then he raises his palms. “I’m not touching anything.” After which he assumes a smirk as he measures me. “More than I can say for you, evidently.”
I pull the coat back together and hastily redo the buttons. Meanwhile, the stallion keeps mincing in place, those finely shod hooves prancing divots into the ground like it’s warming up for a full-out bolt. Julion strides over to the horse and soothes it with a calm stroke on the snorting muzzle and soft words quietly spoken—
With eerie clarity, I see a beautiful young woman with deep brown skin and long, flowing black hair, reclining against silken sheets, fading away.
“I’m very sorry,” I say in a hoarse voice.
Julion takes a deep breath and glances over his shoulder, looking through Merc to me. “Please. Help me. There are things… I must do that I am unable without her.”
All I can do is shake my head and drop my eyes to his finely made riding boots.
“Keep the clothes,” he tells me with defeat. “If you change your mind, come to court and ask after me. I shall receive you at once.”
As he releases the reins from the branch he wound them around, he says, “Fates be with you.”
“May the crescent moon watch over your trail as well,” I whisper.
The golden knight mounts with an elegant economy of movement, and thestallion hips backward, clearly not willing to associate with lower-class women and men of questionable scruples for even a heartbeat longer. With a swoop of the reins, Julion turns the warhorse about and gives it free head, those hooves thundering off through the forest for the main road that leads north and east away from my village.
Not that it’s mine anymore.
I glance back at Merc, focusing on the beads that are tied on the ends of his braids. Before I can speak, he demands, “How much did he pay you for your service.”
“Nothing. Nothing happened—”
“Why are yousodetermined to deny your job.”
On the contrary, I’m not going to argue about how those buttons got unfastened. “We must leave now. Before the herders take the sheeplings and cows out to the pastures—”
