I press my heels into her sides and click sharply at the corner of my mouth, praying instinct—and research—are enough. She bolts forward. We crash through the doorway in a blur of motion. The man barely has time to shout before she knocks him to the side, driving him hard against the frame with a sickening thud before he collapses to the floor.
The air fills with the sharp scent of sweat and hay as she takes off toward the entrance. Thankfully, ahead, the doors stand open. Guards hold the entrance for a passing worker, unaware of what bears down on them.
Knowing the opportunity will vanish in seconds, I urge the horse faster.
I am not prepared for the violent burst of speed that follows.
Power detonates through her stride. Her muscles surge beneath me like an unholy storm that’s just been unleashed. The stable blurs into streaks of shadow and lantern light. I slip sideways, nearly thrown, and clutch desperately at her coarse strands of hair to drag myself upright.
Shouts erupt behind us.
A man lunges from the side and seizes my pant leg. The sudden pull nearly wrenches me free. I kick wildly, heel connecting with bone. He howls and loses his grip, skidding across the dirt as we thunder past.
The guards hesitate to fire their weapons, but their voices rise in panicked cries.
“Close the doors!”
“Stop her!”
It’s too late for that.
The beast tramples anything in her path—hooves striking with bone-jarring force, the ground trembling beneath each impact. Men with terror in their eyes dive aside, bodies colliding with stalls in their race to escape her path.
The guards at the entrance glance up to see us charging toward him. They abandon the door and jump in the opposite direction.
We burst into the open night, and cold air immediately lashes against my face. Elation burns in my chest. Holy Mary, Mother of Grace, I actually did it. I stole the White Night’s horse.
Chapter Nine
Disorder & Theft
Pollock
The model of the city sits before me—the bordering towns, every street and tower rendered with precise detail. It also encompasses the surrounding The Felled Forest, the parts with life brimming anew, as well as the parts lying in ruin, leading to endless fields of wasteland, The Ravaged Plains. Smaller replicas of the remaining territories stand on pedestals around the chamber, but this one occupies the center table. The artist I commissioned went to great lengths to provide exact miniatures of the territory I now rule over, which is what concerns me at present.
The three men I selected for my council stand nearby, each proposing strategies to handle the crises we’re currently facing—chief among them, the swelling number of desperate and homeless people. With new humans arriving daily from other parts of the world, we’re unable to rebuild fast enough, and we’re running out of places to house them.
Though most remain under my thrall, hunger erodes obedience faster than rebellion ever could. Crime has escalated in recent months. There is a dire need to train more guards and deploy them throughout the city to maintain law and order, especially now that the prison sits at maximum capacity.
It isn’t that we lack the means to grow crops. We have seeds—thanks to old government emergency contingency plans and the numerous secret silos of dried reserves we uncovered in underground bunkers. It’s the land that fails us. It has only partially recovered from the destruction wrought on this region of the world. What fields we do have struggle to produce a healthy harvest. The soil yields thinly, grudgingly.
It is a major problem and growing more pressing by the day.
Kahill’s excitement as he approaches is another. He’s amassed an army numbered in the thousands. An enormous force of able-bodied men and women of all ages, all emboldened and ripe with the need to commit violence. And I can sense Kahill’s pride in this.
However, their arrival will further destabilize the city. My ability to subdue and instill calm and hope will be tried more than ever.
Kahill was meant to slowly withdraw his influence and temper his power over the course of their long journey. Yet even now, I can feel he has not done so. The emotions pouring off the horde approaching us gather in my mind like a red-black haze. A kicked hornet’s nest. It thrums at the base of my skull.
I believe he’s testing me to see how long it will take me to subdue the wrath he’s stirred up within them.
That is one possibility.
The other is that he has given in to the beast residing within him—the one content to wreak havoc, sow strife, maim, and kill.
It’s part of his nature that resurfaces from time to time when he goes unchecked by my brothers and me, and usually, when this happens, mayhem follows. I do not yet know how far gone he is, but this does not bode well for me—or for the fragile order I have managed to hold here.
Arthur Lennox, my most trusted adviser, leans forward and moves the small cast-iron pieces positioned south of the city, in the dead part of the region labeled The Felled Forest. They represent contingents of the war camp. The large red horse head marks Kahill. Small red markers denote his inner circle of warlords. Tents and training yards have been carefully arranged. Flags indicate divisions of his army. Markers designate supplies, latrines, cooking areas, and gathering spaces.
