Page 10 of A Court of Masks and Roses
Three paces.
“Watch out,” the boy calls, as if I simply might have overlooked the sprinting beast.
The stallion lays his ears flat against his head and glares. His nostrils flare and foam slips down his scar-marked flanks. Chunks of earth and debris scatter from beneath his hooves.
I hold my ground. And my breath.
An arm’s length short of trampling me into the dust, the stallion skids to a sideways halt, his sides heaving and his muscles so tense, they tremble like the leaves.
Moving with more calm surety than I feel, I grab hold of the dancing animal’s headstall.
His nose dips in subordination, and I finally let out a slow breath. That was more dangerous than I intended.
“Not... bad.” The fallen boy pushes himself up, pressing his sleeve against a bleeding gash over his right eye. About sixteen and more beautiful than handsome, the boy has golden hair, a slender waist, and long, dark lashes. His breaths come in ragged gasps, which he attempts to conceal behind a cocky smile. “Maybe... you should... be wearing a horse master uniform... instead of a guard trainee’s.”
I survey the boy from head to toe. He’s bloody fortunate to have survived the fall with his head and bones intact, butwhether the damage he did take is superficial remains to be seen. Preferably by a healer.
“I’m all right,” he says. The words come quicker and sharper than they have any right to be.
“You’re a decent liar, I’ll give you that.”
The boy laughs. “What’s your name?”
“Kal. First day.”
The boy nods but offers no return introduction, and I wonder if I’ve overlooked one of the many unspoken rules of male etiquette. Maybe I should have cursed and questioned the boy’s lineage. Too late now.
I stroke the stallion’s nose, watching as his heaving chest calms under my touch. “Spirited, aren’t you?” I murmur to the horse, who snorts into my shoulder and digs the ground with a hoof. A shoeless hoof. I run my hand down the horse’s legs, checking all four feet. “He threw a shoe,” I tell the boy over the horse’s back. “That probably set him off.”
“I know.” The boy shrugs, wobbles precariously, and braces a hand against a tree. “Saw it fly off when we left the stable. It was a good ride until that final dismount, though.” He grins as if this was all an amusing prank instead of a near bone-breaking disaster—for him and the horse, both.
I keep my silence. If getting thrown failed to enlighten him to the problem of taking a horse with a missing shoe for a gallop through stone-filled woods, my words will do nothing but waste breath. Between Firehorn and the keep, I’ve enough to contend with just now. For a heartbeat, I consider taking the horse back and leaving the boy to the consequences of his recklessness, but I thwart the temptation. We are too deep into the woods for my comfort—especially now, with Viva Sylthia actively demonstrating its displeasure over the Everett ceasefire. “Can you mount up?” I ask. “I’ll lead you back to wherever you are going.”
He cocks his head, examining me curiously, and I once more wonder what I might have said wrong. “Thank you,” he says after a moment. “The palace grounds, please. The stables.”
Holding the horse steady, I help the boy mount, and with a click of my tongue I start us into a walk. With an injured rider and a three-shoed horse, it’s half an hour before the palace grounds shimmer between the trees.
“Hold up,” the boy orders as we approach the forest line. Looking ahead from his high vantage point, he curses under his breath and speaks quickly. “If anyone asks, you saw me abusing the horse, all right? That’s why he threw me.”
“What?” I frown up at him.
The boy squares his shoulders, trying to appear less injured than he is. “They can put down the horse—they can’t put downme,” he says quickly, his gaze tracking someone’s approach. “I’ll try to talk around the fall altogether, but if I can’t... please. He’s a good horse.”
Before I can reply, a girl of thirteen or fourteen, as pretty and long-lashed as my companion, steps into our path and grins like a lioness. Her golden hair is curled into a complex set of locks that cascade over the shoulders of her velvet gown, orange as the fruit. “You are insuchtrouble, Wil.”
“Shut up, Violet,” the boy hisses at her.
Violet’s grin broadens, a dusting of freckles dancing along the bridge of her nose. “Father!” she screeches. “I’ve found Wil! He went out alone again!”
Wil. Violet. The names hit me like a lance in the gut. My head jerks to the boy in the saddle, who gives me a look of rueful apology before straightening his spine to face his father, King Firehorn.
7
KALI
King Firehorn, flanked by a team of guardsmen that includes Luca and Trace, strides into the clearing and glares at Wil and me with a mixture of relief and fury. The prince. Of all the people I could have entangled myself with, I managed to find the royal prince. No wonder Wil paused a moment too long when I didn’t know his destination.
Luca’s attention darts between Wil and me as he no doubt wonders how Kal could have gotten into such a mess when Luca had just left him less than two hours ago. Trace, standing behind the king, is thunder incarnate as he quietly instructs one of the other guards to call off additional search parties.
