Page 10 of Power of Five
6
Leralynn
Iwake, as I usually do, before the sun rises. Shade groans his discontent as I extricate myself from his warm body, but he tucks his nose under his tail and goes back to sleep quickly enough. Slipping into the clothes the servants brought for me last night—a long-sleeved green dress that brings out my eyes and a pair of warm stockings, which all fit wonderfully beneath Tye’s cloak—I slide out of the room and make my way down the wobbly staircase. My mind spins with yesterday’s news, and I’ve always done my best thinking while working.
The inn’s small stable is right beside the main house, and the familiar scents of leather, hay, and horse greet me like old friends. Of the eight stalls, six are occupied with the males’ stallions—the horses being so big as to require stall partitions to be temporarily lifted to create larger quarters. Finding a set of currycombs, brushes, and hoof picks on a dusty shelf, I bring Coal’s horse out of his stall. The black stallion follows me with his ears forward and his nostrils flaring in excitement. He reminds me of his master—proud, quietly strong, with more than a touch of untamed wildness under the surface. A preternatural beast that is too great and beautiful for this world.
“Sorry, boy—we’re not actually going for a ride. Best I can offer is some grass while I brush you,” I inform the horse, who is already pawing the ground. Bringing him outside, I let him graze on a patch of lush grass while I work the toothy currycomb through his glorious velvet coat.
I’m working on the horse’s hooves when a stable lad of about ten appears, a heavy saddle balanced on his hip. “You’ll be wanting his tack, then, mistress?” the boy says, eyeing the horse appreciatively.
I’m about to say no when a new thought strikes me. If I’m going to be riding with the fae, it would little hurt to get comfortable in the saddle. Given my body’s protest at the mere thought of mounting the horse, I would rather conquer that bridge without an audience present. “Do you think you could help me?” I ask the boy. “I’d just like to ride him around the paddock here, but I could use a bit of instruction from a horseman like yourself.”
The boy nods sagely, freckles shifting with his growing grin. “I’ll fetch you a mounting block, mistress,” he calls, racing to retrieve a small stepstool while I ease the saddle onto the horse’s back and tighten the straps.
By the time the boy returns, I have the stallion saddled and bridled. The horse’s excited whinny adds courage to my plan, especially when he walks eagerly to the mounting block and stands rock still as I haul my aching body into the saddle.
The next three heartbeats are the most glorious of my life. My head, spine, hips, and heels align together, the perfect power of the horse beneath me rising through my core. It’s as if the whole might of the world has been condensed and made into a stallion and, through him, into me.
“Looking fine, mistress,” the boy says approvingly, removing the mounting block. “Take up the reins now.”
I reach for the leather. Sensing a shift of weight, the horse steps forward, the saddle moving beneath me. My heart quickens and I grab on to the pommel, my legs clamping around the stallion’s sides to keep me in place. “Take up the reins,” the boy calls, a hint of alarm entering his voice.
I snatch up the leather strips with due haste, pulling them tight to my body.
The stallion shakes his head angrily, pulling the rough leather right out of my fingers. I make a grab for my target again, this time holding fast against any further attitude. As my grip tightens on the reins, the horse brings his weight onto his hindquarters, throwing me against the tall back of the saddle. I yelp, my body tightening just as the stallion lurches forward with a speed to rival a storm. The stable boy shouts something I can’t make out over the rushing wind and my own pounding heart.
Terror rips through me as the ground and trees race by in streaks of color and stone. My hands, still clutching the reins, claw into the horse’s mane, my feet losing the stirrups as my rear rises and crashes. The stallion turns sharply and my stomach sinks as I lift off the saddle, crashing back onto it through sheer fortune.
My heart stutters.
Thud-ump, thud-ump, thud-ump,the horse’s hooves pound, each step threatening to end my life.Thud-ump, thud-ump, thud-ump.
A branch hits my face and I look up to find Mystwood rising before me, its trees thick and foreboding. Animals hate those woods, and I breathe a sigh of relief that the stallion will slow and veer away rather than enter.
Instead, the horse’s ears press flat against his head and he thunders directly into the thicket without slowing his step. Right—it’s a bloody fae horse. It probably thinks it’s heading home for bloody supper.Thud-ump, thud-ump, thud-ump.The world flashes before me—the stones that will turn the horse’s legs, the tree trunks that come within a hair of slamming into my knees, the males who I may never see again. Another branch strikes my face, leaving a bloody gash across my cheek, as the horse gallops on along the winding path of Mystwood, the reins and my screams trailing in his wake.
These woods are nothing like any forest I’ve been in before, the moss-covered trees seeming to lean in as I approach them. The sun shines in some places, but others are as dark as night under many feet of green canopy.
Another sharp turn. Another miracle of survival. And then my fortune ends with a fallen tree blocking our path four feet off the ground.
I register the barrier, my eyes widening with the lack of options. There is no place to turn. Nowhere to go but up, up, up, higher than I can survive. My mouth opens in a wordless scream but the horse shows no sign of slowing. Five paces to go. Three. None. The horse braces his weight on his hindquarters and leaps into the air.
I fly off. The ground races up to meet me. The triumph of impact comes before the shocking echo of it, my shoulder screaming in pain as the world blinks in and out of darkness. I whimper, curling around my left arm, telling myself that I am alive.
I hear it then. A horrid, immortal sound, like the scrape of nails on a slate mixed with the lower notes of gurgling phlegm. The woods crackle, branches snapping to my right. And left. And... the gurgling growl sounds again. More than one now. Closing in on me from many directions at once.
Whatever beast has found me in Mystwood, it did not come alone.
