“I’m capturing a wanted criminal,” he countered. “Now, enough blathering. We have a journey ahead of us, and we do not want to be in this part of the forest when night falls.”
Ominous. I frowned, and then opened my mouth to ask him what he meant by that. He promptly interrupted me by bringing his fingers to his lips and whistling long and loud.
A sparkling silver mare galloped out from the brush, its mane a great, sweeping thing with strands of blue and gold. I stared, dumbstruck, at the majestic creature. Its black eyes gleamed as it met my gaze. Ferocity and pride churned in the very depths of them, and suddenly, I felt as if it saw me and knew me for everything I was.
“This is Cleatus.” Yuto’s deep voice snapped me out of my reverie, and I turned to see him watching me with an amused smile. “He’s been with me for the past four hundred years.”
I blinked. “Your horse is four hundred years old.”
“Cleatus isn’t a horse,” Yuto said as he untangled the leather reins.
My eyebrows winged upward. “Then, what the hell is he?”
He certainlylookedlike a horse, though not one I’d ever laid eyes on…but I was quickly realizing that things in Inishfall were not always what they seemed.
Instead of answering my question, Yuto slipped his gloved hands around my waist and hoisted me up into the air. My throat closed around a choked scream. I kicked out my legs, hoping to make contact with his stupid face, but it was no use. He easily plopped me on the back of his horse—okay, not his horse. His…whatever the creature was.
Curling my hands into fists, I hated that I just had to sit there dumbly while he leapt onto the back of Cleatus just behind me. He settled in, wrapping his strong arms around my body to grab the reins. I tensed. The warmth of his body invaded my senses. I could even feel the hardness of his muscles against my back. The scent of fire and ash curled around me, heady and overwhelming.
“Something the matter?” he asked, his voice laced with amusement.
I narrowed my eyes. “You smell like death. I hate it.”
A chuckle was his only response. Without another word, he flicked the reins. Cleatus cantered forward down a hidden path through the trees. I didn’t glance behind me at the shimmering portal where my old life waited for me. One day, I would get away from this dragonlord. But I would never return to the Kingdom of Eretia. Inishfall was my home now.
4
Aradia
We rode for hours. Back in Eretia, I’d never had many opportunities to travel. Not like my father and brother. Horse-riding had never been high on my list of skills to learn. Instead, my father made me focus on things like hiding, sneaking, and lying to anyone who might get too close to him.
And until I’d started a life for myself, I’d done all the cooking and the cleaning. We’d been wealthy enough to pay for help, but Father didn’t want anyone to know that. So, I did it all instead.
“Can we take a break?” I sighed.
Silence had followed us for most of the journey. It seemed that Yuto wasn’t exactly a chatterbox, and he hated answering questions. Try as I might, I couldn’t get much more than a single-worded grunt out of him.
“We’ve barely ridden half a day, and we have much further than that to go.”
“How far?” I tried.
He grunted.
With an exasperated sigh, I glanced down at his gloved hands. They sat on either side of me, his arms resting on my thighs. If I weren’t trapped in place—and bound by ropes, of course—I could probably get a good head start by leaping off the horse.
“My butt hurts,” I said, wincing as the motion beneath me continued. It turned out that riding a horse was pretty painful. My thighs were being rubbed raw, though I didn’t know how to explain that to him without going into the kind of detail that would turn my cheeks bright red.
“In an hour we’ll reach the River of Darkness. We can stop there and make camp for the night,” he said firmly. “Here is not a good place.”
I glanced around.Hereseemed as good a place as any. Nothing about this stretch of forest stood out as any different than the rest of it we’d passed so far. Looming trees, thick with moisture, and glistening leaves dripping with remnants of a recent rain shower. Thick brush lined each side of a skinny dirt path. Tiny insects darted through the humid air, their little red wings a flash of color beneath the sun.
Every so often, the path would branch to the left or the right. I could see clearings down some of them, places where others had made camp. The brush smoothed away, leaving only packed dirt, wooden huts, and the remnants of fire pits.
There’d been at least half a dozen of these things so far. We could have stopped at any of them. I had a feeling Yuto was taking pleasure in my discomfort.
Another hour stretched by, and the distant sun began to dip behind the canopy of trees. The gurgle of a stream rose up to meet the orchestra of the birds and insects. Yuto swerved left down a fork in the path, leading us to a clearing that sat along the bank of a babbling river.
The river shimmered, reflecting the oranges and pinks of the sunset sky. Tiny fish darted through the waters, their green and gold fins flashing through the clear blue. Yuto hopped to the ground, and then pulled me into his arms. My heart froze as my hands flailed, landing on his shoulders. Somehow, I had ended up smooshed against his chest. We were so close that I could feel his heartbeat.
