“Good boy. There you go. Settle down.”
Jack drops to a walk, blowing hard. His sides heave beneath my legs, his nostrils flaring with each breath. He tosses his head once, twice, then settles.
I sit there for a moment, breathing almost as hard as he is. My heart is racing. My thighs burning.
I look back toward the barrier and into the court beyond it.
There is no sign of Sebastian.
That stubborn, infuriating, self-sacrificing fool. That bastard! How dare he?
He’s going to get himself killed.
I should keep going. I should do exactly what he wants me to do. Ride south, find a settlement, start over. Forget about the Shadowfae King. But I can’t.
“Goddess give me strength,” I mutter.
I’ll need it to deal with a male like Sebastian.
He never planned to leave the court. He planned to wait for Queen Snow. To intercept her.
Blood roars in my ears.
And he’s going to die trying to do it, too.
That infuriating male needs me, whether he’ll admit it or not. We are stronger together. I proved it on that road. He can’t do this alone, and I won’t let him throw his life away without at least trying to talk sense into him.
I am going after him.
My father taught me how to track. It was one of the few gifts he gave me before the fever took him.
“The ground tells you everything,” he used to say. “You just have to know how to listen.”
I know how to listen, and I’m listening now.
I squeeze Jack into a lope, angling north along the tree line. Sebastian’s horse’s hoof prints are deep and fresh. The stride is long and even. He wasn’t zigzagging or trying to obscure his path. He wasn’t expecting to be followed.
I slow to a jog, and the sorrel responds. My grip on the reins is more natural now, my weight better distributed.
I follow the prints, keeping my eyes on the ground. Where the earth hardens, I look for other signs. At one point, I have to dismount, leading Jack. Looking backwards and forwards for any sign of a horse passing through here. It doesn’t take long to find a fresh scuff on a root where the gelding’s hoof caught the wood. I mount up, pleased when I manage to get into the saddle on the first try.
A little further, there are young ferns crushed flat by a heavy hoof, as well as a low-hanging branch with its bark scraped raw where a rider passed too close.
The forest thins, giving way to scrubby undergrowth and rocky ground. The tracking grows harder here, the earth less forgiving of prints. But Sebastian wasn’t trying to hide his trail.
I find where his horse’s hooves churned the loose gravel on a slope, leaving a skid mark as it descended too fast. Pebbles scattered downhill, the disturbance still visible in the otherwise undisturbed ground. A little further, there is a pile of fresh droppings, dark and steaming faintly in the cool air.
I’m close.
The rocky outcrop comes into view ahead. The large boulders are piled together like ruins.
The earth is loose here with deep grooves cut into the soft ground. It looks like Sebastian’s horse took off at a gallop.
I use my hand to shield my eyes, looking ahead, but there is no sign of the beast.
Why did Sebastian take off at a gallop? It doesn’t look like anyone gave chase.
I dismount, leading Jack backwards and forwards until I spot a footprint. It looks like Sebastian dismounted. I frown.
