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Everything about him was pure. Unequivocal and unvarnished. Dangerous, indeed. Highly improper, certainly. Resolute, determined, decent.
Honorable.
Fear over love.
Or love over fear.
“I know where he is going,” she said.
His hand fell from the door. “Where?”
“I will show you. But we must hurry.”
Chapter 27
They rode at a gallop, Cassia on her own horse, who they’d taken from the stables. Despite their predicament, notwithstanding the encroaching peril, she felt excited and alive to be racing like the wind over the earth.
It had been so long since she’d galloped on a snorting, restive horse, a creature set free to run to his heart’s content.
So long since she had been let free.
But when she was a child, nine and ten years old… Oh, how she had galloped across the rock-ribbed wilderness of the Ware demesne, her father’s guards trying to keep up.
Age and station had confined her to the castle for many years now, and she’d forgotten those adventurous rides of her youth. How could she have forgotten? She was almost angry with herself. How could she forget how it felt to ride across the open land with the wind pulling back her hair?
Unfettered. Untrammeled. Free.
The way she had felt with Máel since the moment he offered her strawberries in the tourney stands.
Máel was freedom incarnate. He had no compunctions, not about himself, not about her. He did not regret or rue or disdain any of the wild, reckless things she’d done. Indeed, he’d urged her on in every one, to great effect.
“Come,” she called to him, her words grabbed and flung back as they galloped over the moors. “We are almost there.”
Máel followed her lead, taking back paths through the deserted lands. Villages were few and far apart in the north, towns even fewer. The desolation served them well.
Cassia rode with an expert seat, leaning over her horse’s withers, the reins held low and quiet. She’d twisted her long hair into an efficient braid. Only a few tendrils spilled out to be caught by the winds. His cloak, laid over her shoulders, lifted behind her, revealing colorful silk beneath. Her gaze was pinned straight ahead as she guided them through the emptiness.
She did not look anything like a character from one of her sad, romantic, English tales.
She did, though, look precisely like a character from one of his. A warrior-queen riding at the head of an army to save her people.
They topped a rise and paused to rest the horses.
“We are on Ware lands now,” she said quietly. Below was a winding river.
“You’re sure we will beat him?” he asked.
“He does not know these lands. He does not love them. I know them well. He will take the bridge crossing. It adds a half day’s ride.” She met his gaze. “We will ford it.”
It was a hell of a ford. The water rose above the horses’ chests, until they were swimming against the powerful current. They came out on the other side, fifty yards downstream and soaking wet.
“You’ve crossed that yourself?” he asked when they lay on the far side, catching their breath.
“When I was young, I did many things I was not supposed to do.”
She looked over to find him smiling. “Good,” was all he said.
They climbed the final passage. It was a stony, winding, narrow path, with the forest rising on one side, and a sixty foot drop on the other, ending in a rocky valley below.
