“Now extend your palm toward her,” Dorian said. “Keep it flat.”
I hesitated, and then I forced my hand forward.There will be more food, Eury.
The sandy-haired filly’s head bobbed and then jerked out over the door, and she turned her head at an angle to get at the carrot on my palm. Her lips were velvet on my skin, and she was gentle. She chewed twice and the carrot was gone.
“Her name’s Pettifey,” he said. “Let her smell you.”
That word again. Words like that you felt low in your stomach, like pits.
It made me like the horse even more, just as I’d always preferred what was small and misunderstood.
I kept my palm out, and the horse’s large nostrils widened once, twice. She bobbed her head again, which seemed a nervous tic. No wonder—if she was small enough for me to ride, she was beyond prey.
“Hello, Pettifey,” I said, low, and stroked under her chin as Dorian had done with the roan. Her chin wobbled, and she went still.
“Good.” Dorian pulled a piece of long, thin leather off a hookbeside the half-door. He attached it to the horse’s small head, clipping at either side. In one motion, he unlatched the door and led the horse out into the aisle.
She stepped forward as soon as the door was open, tamping the straw beneath her hooves. Her tail was long and flirty, and she flicked it as Dorian took hold of a long lead that extended from the leather attachment he’d put on her face.
He led her out of the stables the opposite direction we’d come in, and I followed at a distance. We came into a much larger paddock, this one three times the size of the other.
Dorian led Pettifey into the center of the paddock and turned her around. He said to me, still six feet away, “Riding is an advantage. If one of the trials allows for it, then we’ll ride.”
“Why? You said horses are prey.”
“Not with us,” he said. “With us, they’re weapons.”
My chest tightened with anticipation. The more weapons, the better.
“Even one this small.” He set a hand on Pettifey’s long neck. “She’s faster than us, and she can run forever. She’s agile. And we have the intelligence to keep her from danger. Or at least uncalculated danger.”
“Have horses been used to win trials?”
“Many times. It aligns with one of Sylvanwild’s values.”
“Which?”
He stroked Pettifey. “Guess.”
I stepped closer, observing her. Dorian had said she was fast, agile, and she could run for ages. What would these people in this court value in riding a creature like this? The answer came to me as soon as I’d thought the question.
“Harnessing nature.”
Dorian’s hand paused on the horse’s mane. His lips seemed to quirk against his will.
“So I’m wrong,” I said, “and you deride me forit?”
“No, no. I just… had not thought you would get it so quickly.”
Oh.I came to her other side and set my hand on her mane. The hair was bristly and thick. “So we’ll begin with riding.”
He gave a single nod. “Yes. Every morning for an hour, until the day the trial begins.”
Just an hour? “I could go longer.”
“Not yet,” he said. “You’d ache so badly you’d want to die, and I’m already full to brimming with your complaints.”
Opposite me, his hazel eyes were lit. He’d sworn he would never mock me, but this…
