I cannot believe I’mridinga horse.
Only soldiers and purelings ride horses.
It was one of Mamma’s favorite pastimes when she was a girl growing up in Tarespagia. She’d ride her precious gelding down the beach or through my family’s kingdom-renowned grove.
Furia stops walking so suddenly that my body pitches forward. Frowning, I glance around the man-made ditch, then attempt to see beyond its lip, but only standing atop the saddle would allow me a glimpse.
The crow cycles dizzyingly above my head while Furia’s pointed ears flick back and forth. Clearly, something is happening.
Something only the animals, with their unequaled senses, have picked up on.
“What’s going on?”
The vision of the gorge slams into my mind, complete with the din of rushing water, the mineral scent of wet earth, and the glimmer of an iron crow.
We’ve arrived.
Forty-Six
Morrgot lands on the side of the ditch. He must beckon Furia because my horse nears him, berthing his big body against the damp wall speckled in moss. I take it I’ll need to stand on the saddle and pull myself out of the trench on my own.
How I regret Furia doesn’t have wings.
I regret it harder when I attempt to coax my leg out from between his flank and the wall, and a cramp seizes every muscle in my thigh.
I groan as I lever it in slow motion, and then groan louder when I tug my other leg up and plant my foot on the saddle. Sweat salts my upper lip. To think all I’ve done to acquire such aches and pains is sit.
As I press my palms against the wall and pivot to face it, I lick my lips. And then I grit my teeth and heave my sore body to standing. How is it that all I’ve eaten is a handful of berries, and yet I feel like I weigh as much as a beached, century-old serpent?
Neither Furia nor Morrgot move or make a sound as I scrabble to better my grip on the stacked rocks before I swoon off Furia and crash onto the trench floor. I’m not sure I’d be capable of peeling myself up if I fell.
How in the three kingdoms and one queendom, am I supposed to venture down a ravine in my advanced state of decomposition? I’m going to fall into that stream and get carried down all the kilometers we’ve traveled. With my luck, I’ll wash up right at Silvius’s polished black boots.
Tugging my lower lip into my mouth, I scan the wall for a nook to use as a foothold. Once I find it, I lift my leg, and holy mother of Fae, I see stars. They glimmer on the edge of my vision, usurping every color but white and gray.
Are white and gray even colors?
I breathe in and out until the moss turns marigold again, and my clamped hands a reddened peach, save for my bone-white knuckles. Gnawing the life out of my lip, I feed my other foot into a higher nook, then scuttle higher and higher.
What feels like a decade later, I crawl out of the ditch onto a loamy embankment that’s cool to the touch. I could lie here a fortnight. But of course, Morrgot won’t let me. He hops until he’s standing right by my face, his molten eyes leveled on mine.
I sigh. “I’m getting up. I’m getting up.” I roll onto my back, my bones cracking like the wooden floor ofBottom of the Jug.
My desire to pry myself up rivals my desire to succor a mystical crow from a ravine.
“I’ve got an idea, Morrgot. A brilliant one. How about you fly down there, grab your friend, and carry him up to me, then I’ll remove the obsidian arrow that felled him?”
When I get no answering vision, I tear my gaze off the gauze of clouds and set it on the large black spot beside my head. The crow neither looks amused nor enthusiastic about my suggestion.
“Should I take your complete apathy as a no?”
An image flashes behind my lids of a hand, a very beautiful, masculine hand skimming an obsidian spike and turning to iron.
I frown out of the vision. If he’s trying to prove he’ll become iron-plated upon touching the spike, then why use a hand? Sure, crows don’t have human appendages, but he could’ve prodded the spike with his wing, and I would’ve understood.
I loose a deep sigh and begin the arduous task of standing. I roll onto my side and push myself up, my arms quivering like our windowpanes during the squalls that assault Luce when the temperatures drop too suddenly. It takes me almost a full minute of panting and teeth-clenching to seat myself and then another few minutes to get my legs underneath me.
I peer down into the trench at Furia, who stands motionless, eyes closed. Even though I’m not looking forward to this part of my trip, I’m glad that the stallion gets to rest. I do worry about food, and make a note of collecting leaves or handfuls of grass. What do equine behemoths, able to travel almost two days without rest, eat?
