Page 76 of Untempered
I’d gotten them a mage. It was all I could’ve done, and it hadn’t worked.
Rather than retreat to my bed to cry, I snatched up my cloak and left the tower.
The stables were warm and peaceful. Isolde followed me, setting a torch in a bracket silently. I went straight to Storm, who nickered at me and came to snuffle my hair.
I drew in a deep breath, feeling the ground beneath me, just as she did, just as Isolde had taught me. I ran my hand down her smooth muzzle, smelling the hay and horse scents that spoke of safety. She searched me for treats half-heartedly, and I drew from her strength.
“What can she hear?” Isolde asked me, the question patient.
I listened, moving around her to run my hands down her neck. The sounds of the city were different than usual, but not in a way I could put my finger on. Not alarming, just unsettling. In the foreground I heard Vixen in the stall next to her snuffling, and Chay’s horse chewing his cud. And then the creak of the door, the torch fluttered threateningly in its bracket with the gust of wind. The jangle of Chay’s approach.
I expected more barbs. Bracing myself, I waited, staring at Storm’s long, strong neck and the silver, neatly trimmed mane that teased my fingertips.
Instead, I heard the slosh and clatter of a bucket of water, the rattle of brushes, the happy equine snuffles that had once seemed so odd coming from an infamous Raider’s Ban warhorse.
Isolde didn’t prompt any more questions, just brought me Storm’s grooming items, and moved over to her mare.
The three of us worked without speech, and I was lulled by the rhythmic motions. Storm leaned into the brush, and I felt the gentle pressure of her gratitude from the palms of my hands all the way to the soles of my feet.
I’d done what I could. It hadn’t been enough that day. Mayhap next time it would be if I tried to learn more and do better. If I didn’t forget.
In the aftermath of the emotions, the tiredness crept in. I packed up slowly, loathe to leave Storm but knowing I needed sleep.
Next time, we’ll ride,I promised her silently. And a small part of me imagined riding into the sunset, tracking the evening shadows down to the Matri’sion lands. I could imagine the wind buffeting my face and the feel of her strength beneath me, connecting me to this world.
I’d ride, instead, through the apple trees. Because while a part of me wanted to leave, another part of me needed to stay.
As I waited for Isolde to finish, my eyes fell on where Chay was leaning up against his gelding. His expression was one of pain, and whilst the ground threatened to swallow me to see it, I could also see the peace he was drawing from his friend, much as I had with Storm. Demanding he leave would’ve been so easy. Expected, even. Instead, I turned away quietly to give him what privacy I could. But the image, once seen, was not easy to forget. The furrow in his brows that raised a little in the middle and turned down at the edges, as if in hopelessness. The downward curve at the corner of his lips, the slump in his shoulders, the way his hands had rubbed slow, deep circles in his friend’s shoulder in a way that made me ache.
He was angry with me, and that was fair. I’d known he was hurting. It shouldn’t have made a difference that I’d seen the evidence of it.
Drawing in a deep breath, I told myself that his horse, at least, could comfort him. Even if I couldn’t.
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
AUDREY
“Gaelena said, ‘What is a curse if not walking the path you are destined for, but did not choose?’ But Hruudwulf, in his grief, only heard the words she said and not the magic she wove in the background. Staring at his loved ones, his fangs grew.”
~ Southern lore
He stood broodingly beside the fire. I’d given him space last night and this morning, too. He didn’t want to talk, and I didn’t know that I really did, either. But I would’ve been able to focus better on my own tasks if he didn’t glower quite so much.
“So, we’re leaving the tower,” Chay said, settling himself beside the fire, his hand on the mantle white-knuckled. The throat of his shirt was open, and the planes of his chest were as tanned as the rest of him. “Anything I ought to know?”
I pulled my eyes away from his chest, and fury pulsed in my head. “There are many things you ought to know. I don’t believe it’s my role to explain them to you, sir.”
“Ah, andnowyou want me to tug my forelock and kneel? I see. And what am I booked in for this afternoon, my lady? Am I a co-conspirator or a yes-man?”
I reminded myself I’d stolen him from his life and forced him to take the lives of others. And I still couldn’t stop myself from saying, “I think it’s safe if you book yourself in as an unsufferable lump for the remainder of your service, sir. We can decide on details as they arise.”
“Today is a fiery day. Noted.” He shifted his sword, making a show of loosening it in its scabbard. “At your service, my lady. Since I’ve no choice.”
“I wonder which one of us regrets that more,” I muttered, wishing I could get comfortable and dive back into the columns I’d been deciphering. But comfort would mean creasing skirts, and I needed every starched scrap of credibility I could shroud myself in.
“I don’t.” There was real bitterness in his words as he turned away from me, and despite the way he jangled and the entirely just anger he held onto, my heart twinged for him.
He wasn’t likely to forgive me any time soon, and I could live with that. But I didn’t have to live with being his jousting dummy, either. I sat there, staring at the page in front of me, running through the different conversations I could have that would explain all fault tracked back to my father.
