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Pater seemed unphased, saying, “I’m sorry for the late notice, but I wasn’t planning on having the two of you leave tonight. However, I was up working late when one of my spies dropped off a letter saying that the Skull King, Red Bones, and their supporters will all be at Jack Hacker tomorrow night. You two need to leave now if you want to have any chance of making it to Vicinus before this event occurs.”
Pater handed me the reins to the second horse, a gray appaloosa with a white braided mane. “This is Jasmine. Take care of her, for she is one of my favorites.”
I stroked a hand between Jasmine’s eyes and down to her nose, and she pushed her head against it in a loving gesture.
“She likes you,” Pater said with a soft smile, “and that’s much more than I can say for Equis and Bennett over there.”
Bennett glared at his father as he patted the black stallion. He placed a foot in the stirrups and with one graceful swing was atop Equis, looking as royal as ever.
Bennett looked at the city below and said, “We need to leave now, before people begin to wake. It will be safer for us to ride the distance of the city when the sun is still down, that way by the time we make it to the forest we will have some sunlight on our side.”
I nodded in agreement before stroking Jasmine’s mane and seating myself upon her saddle. I spoke for both Bennett and I when I said to Pater, “We will come straight to you when we return.”
Pater nodded, not an ounce of worry in his eyes. “Please be safe, and watch over him, will you?”
I laughed and Bennett said, “Shouldn’t you be asking me to protect her?”
“No, son, she is more than capable of protecting herself. She’s proven that to me time and time again.” He gave me a simple wink and my heart swelled at the thought of him being proud of me. “Remember everything we went over already, and do not risk yourself for the sake of the mission. Your lives are not worth the information.”
I’d never seen Pater get this emotional before sending me off on an assignment. I mean, he wasn’t crying or anything like that, but his words still made my heart race a little faster. I waved Pater one last goodbye, then steered Jasmine towards my newest adventure.
Bennett began to trot away from the castle, and I followed beside him. Once we were off of the castle grounds, we were able to gallop through the streets of Veladis and pick up some speed. The feeling was unparalleled, being able to ride through the city at night while everyone was asleep. The smile on my face was even bigger than normal when I rode, because Bennett could actually keep up with my speed and I wasn’t forced to slow down. The wind on my face made my eyes water and my hair was surely a knotted mess, but I didn’t care. Nothing and no one could interrupt the pure bliss and freedom that riding brought me.
When I looked over to Bennett I caught him smiling, too. He didn’t smile too often, but when he did it was breathtakingly beautiful. The kind of smile that was contagious simply for existing. He looked over his shoulder at me and caught me staring at him. I figured that joy would’ve been wiped from his face when he saw I witnessed it, but instead he just laughed and said, “Try to keep up.” He flicked the reins and was off.
I laughed as we raced all the way through the kingdom, enjoying the carefree happiness while it lasted.
???
By the time we reached the edge of the Silver Forest the sun was just about to rise.
“We need to keep going,” Bennett said. “The Veladins are going to start waking up, and we can’t have them see us exiting the kingdom this way. As soon as we are about a half kilometer in, we can give the horses a break and rest for a bit ourselves.”
The thought of spending any resting time inside the forest put me on edge. If it was just me on foot I would’ve continued through the forest even if it took me all day, but the horses had been running for hours, and I could feel Jasmine’s heavy breath under my thighs. She needed to rest, and I felt bad pushing her this hard.
I checked our surroundings to make sure no one was lurking, and when I was sure there were no eyes on us, I trotted into the forest.
Even with the sun beginning to rise and bringing some light into the forest, this place still gave me the creeps. Personally, I wouldn’t even call it much of a forest, considering all the trees looked dead. Supposedly they were meant to look like that, but I thought there was something wrong with them. All the trees were a silvery white, hence the name, and not a single one bore any leaves. One might think it could look magical, like the winter wonderland of Vicinus, but there was no snow here, so it gave off a kind of ghost-like aura.
“So, tell me about Vicinus,” I said, trying to make some kind of small talk to keep myself from being weirded out by this sketch forest.
“It’s good,” he said bluntly, not even looking in my general direction.
“It’s good?” Well, if that wasn’t the vaguest answer I’d ever heard. “What the hell does that even mean?”
“What do you want me to say?” he asked defensively.
“Gee, I don’t know, how about literally anything? You’re the one who grew up there.”
“It snows there,” he said tersely.
“Obviously.” I sighed, figuring this conversation was going absolutely nowhere, and decided to admit defeat when it came to attempting small talk with Bennett.
We rode in silence for the next two hours, my horse slowly drawing closer to Bennett’s as the calls of different creatures sounded all around me. Power in numbers, right? I usually didn’t mind the quiet—I actually found it quite peaceful most of the time—but when howls interrupted the serenity, the effect was quite the opposite.
My stomach made a loud growling noise, which the entire kingdom of Vicinus probably heard.
“All right, that’s probably our cue to take a break,” Bennett said. “The horses need a rest, too.” He brought Equis to a stop and slipped down his side. I followed suit, sliding off of Jasmine and giving her a good scratch on the nose. I stretched my legs, my inner thighs sore from the long ride.
