Page 24 of Bride of Ash & Dust

She lets me slip a halter over the mare’s neck, lead her to the tack room, and saddle her. The mare’s nose flares, and her ears go back when Alia approaches with the stallion. Good. I was hoping she’d be a bitch.

We lead the horses out of the stable, then mount up. I follow Alia past the exercise rings, past mountains of manure, and up a rocky slope toward a smattering of pine trees spread across the mountain’s base.

“This is the edge of the city,” Alia calls over her shoulder. “Too steep for farming in the foothills.”

I stare at the city spread out below me. Farms and fields cover the low, rolling hills. Far in the distance, there’s a thin blue line that just might be the ocean. Alia clucks, and I turn to face the granite wall of the mountains.

Behind the trees, the low saddle of Vederill Pass wears a wreath of clouds. It’s not the only way to cross the Barrier Mountains, of course, but it is the only easy way. And the only way that’s not controlled by the elves or patrolled by the dragons. Dungal once controlled that pass, but now Dungal is dust and ash, and all that’s left is the man I married.

That’s the secret to Vsenrog’s power, Elrick told me. They sit like a spider in a web, taking a bit of everything that crosses the mountains from the plains beyond. Blayne basically said the same thing in a lot more words. And without the spider metaphor.

I shiver, and the gray mare tenses beneath me, responding to my unease. It feels like bad luck to be thinking about spiders at the foot of these mountains, with all their secret caves and abandoned mine shafts. I keep my head down and run my palm across the mare’s soft neck.

Alia and I ride in silence as the sun slants through the trees and birds sing their songs all around us. Oddly enough, I realize I’m thinking about my husband, the last vestige of the vanquished Kingdom of Dungal. Where is he going, and why, and will I ever get an answer to any of those questions?

Alia stops short. Her stallion makes a little half step toward my mare, who responds with flattened ears and flared nostrils. The stallion steps back. I feel a surge of entirely unwarranted pride.

“There,” Alia says, pointing into the distance. “You see the lake?”

I shade my eyes. In the trees below, a spot of shimmering blue throws the sunlight back at the sky. I nod, and Alia grins.

“First one to the shore wins,” she says. “Sound fair?”

I smile sweetly. Then I lean forward, cluck in the mare’s ear, and let her fly.

The gray mare runs like the wind. I balance in the stirrups, keep my hands low, and lean over her neck as she lunges forward. Alia curses behind us, and then hooves hit stone as the stallion lunges forward. My mare puts her ears back as she approaches a bend in the trail, and I narrow my eyes against the sudden rush of wind.

The world falls away. This is all that matters, the horse beneath me, the wind in my hair, the trail leaping up to meet us. A fierce, wild joy howls inside of me, the certainty that no matter where I’m forced to go, I will always have this; a good horse, a strong seat, and the trail wide open before me.

We almost win, the mare and I.

I didn’t honestly expect to beat the stallion chosen by the stable master on a trail I’ve never run, but still, disappointment curdles in my gut when Alia pulls him up at the shore a heartbeat before my mare’s hooves hit the water.

“Damn,” I spit, completely forgetting all the manners that have been beaten into me for my entire life.

Alia laughs. She’s panting, and her face is flushed.

“You’re good,” she says, somewhat grudgingly. “Come on. Let’s give them a rest.”

She dismounts, and I follow her. Together, we take off the horses’ bridles and let them nose at the soft grass growing along the edge of the pond. Alia sits in the shade beneath a massive spreading oak tree and pulls a flask from her jacket. She takes a sip, then offers it to me.

I remember what my husband said about having no friends. Then, for just a moment, I imagine how it would have felt to slap him. I take the flask and bring it to my lips.

Whatever’s in there is awful. I cough as my throat burns.

“Oh, gods,” I sputter.

Alia laughs again, then takes another pull. I shake my head when she offers it to me a second time.

“Marion has good horses,” she says. She’s watching me like she’s trying to solve a puzzle. “How involved were you in their stables?”

I watch the mare raise her head and bare her teeth as the stallion tries to sniff her tail, and I think about all the things I’m supposed to keep locked inside my heart, the secrets I hold that aren’t fit for polite company.

But, hells, didn’t my husband just tell me I’m not a princess here? I suppose that means I’ll have to discover what I am now.

“I ran the program,” I admit.

“I knew it,” Alia cries, smacking her leg. “I fucking knew it. I’ve met your stable master, and he’s a godsdamned idiot. Uh, no offense.”