Chapter 19 #2
“I’m guessing you weren’t exactly sold on life in the Underworld when you first arrived.
” She appears at the door to the stall and shrugs.
“Can’t say I blame you—it’s not like we chose this place either.
But it has its charms. Looks like you’ve discovered one of them.
” Her eyebrows rise as she casts a meaningful look in the direction of the stable yard and my interaction with the king.
I give a sickly smile as she turns and busies herself with the horse inside the stall. At least I’m forgiven, I suppose.
It’s the same white horse with brownish-gray flecks that Drystan had ready the other day.
I remember now that the book on steeds said a horse with this flecked pattern of coat was known as a flea-bitten gray.
Still, it seems strange to call such a pretty creature “flea bitten” and even stranger to call a white horse gray.
Astrid fastens a saddle on to the gelding with ease, using her arm to hold the girth in place as she buckles it with her hand before I can offer to help.
Just as she’s working on the bridle, Min peers through the door. “Annon? Is everything all right with your clothing? I got a message asking me to—” Her eyes widen when they land on Astrid’s red hair and broad shoulders—she’s already moved on to saddling up a bay for herself.
Min’s silent, but she gives me a pointed look, eyes wider than I’ve ever seen them.
“That’s right, Min. I asked you to join me for my riding lesson.” I flash my eyebrows up at her and give an encouraging nod. “You don’t mind do you, Astrid?”
One arm slung over the horse’s back, Astrid turns. She gives Min an appraising once-over. “The more the merrier. I’ll get one of the boys tacked up for you.”
She does so while Min shifts uncomfortably and shoots me looks she thinks I can’t see out the corner of my eye.
The pair of them lead out three horses who amble along at a sedate walk. Compared to my ride with the king, this all looks very manageable. Although Astrid has a vicious-looking sword strapped on one side of her saddle and a bow across the back, so maybe she’s expecting trouble of some sort.
In the yard, she gives me a boost on to the flea-bitten gray and shows me how to sit. With Astrid ahead and Min behind me, we file into an adjacent paddock as Bran swoops past and perches on a fence post.
Astrid stands at the center, watching me, while her horse waits tethered at the gate. Min rides behind, ready to come after me and grab my horse’s reins if he runs away with me or whatever else can go wrong with horse riding.
I’m trying not to think about that.
Whenever I’ve seen people ride, it’s looked straightforward, easy, even.
After all, the steed is doing all the work.
But I soon realize that while the rider isn’t the one walking, they’re still active—even when they’re not clinging to a galloping horse controlled by the King of Death.
My hips move to absorb the jiggling caused by the horse’s walk, and once I get the hang of stopping by making a low sound, starting by squeezing my legs and turning by touching the reins to the side of the horse’s neck, we try trotting.
It’s a lot like being shaken around in a dice cup. I cling on, hoping not to be thrown off to see which way up I land.
Astrid calls instructions. Keep my legs loose. Rise as this leg comes forward. Up, down, up, down, up, down.
By the time I get the hang of that, I’m out of breath and my thighs are burning. This was meant to be a nice, calm, easy activity to get Min and Astrid together, not more exercise after a day trudging through the labyrinth.
It’s a relief when I can slow my horse to a walk and sink back into the saddle.
“Good work, Annon.” We dropped the “my lady” somewhere along the lesson. From her spot in the center of the paddock, Astrid glances behind me to Min.
“What do you reckon? Is she ready for a ride out?”
I can practically feel Min’s doubt wafting through the air. “Well, I don’t know. She’s only just—”
“Astrid is such a great teacher.” I throw a reassuring smile over my shoulder. “She’ll make sure I don’t get hurt, plus I’ll have you to keep an eye on me, too, right?”
Min’s lips press together as she turns from me to Astrid.
“Lady Min,” she speaks solemnly, hand over her heart, voice low, her easy smile gone, “you have my word, I won’t let anything happen to our future queen. Or to you.”
I get a second-hand flutter in my belly at the way she ever so slightly inclines her head as she holds Min’s gaze, like a knight of yore pledging his life to a lady’s protection.
I think Astrid might like her back. Is matchmaking really this easy?
The urge to squeal comes from deep inside, but I hold my breath until it passes. I’m sure it would break the moment.
Instead, I smile to myself, heart at once full and aching. This is how it was when I was a girl and had friends down in the village school and we’d tell each other about the boys and girls we liked.
The last time I knew anything like this was before my illness took a turn, when I would go with my father to a market town inland and I started a fling with the baker’s eldest daughter.
It was only physical, but she could make my belly flutter with just a look, and I’d have taken more if she’d offered it.
“We’ll stay this side of the river,” Astrid goes on, “and I have my sword and bow.”
Min blinks as though coming back from somewhere far away.
Sluggish, she turns to Astrid’s horse as if seeing it for the first time.
At last, she nods. Her cheeks have gone pink since I last looked around at her, and I’m willing to bet good money that has nothing to do with the nip in the air and everything to do with the redcap who’s now mounting her bay mare.
As we ride out, I hang back, letting them talk. Well, letting Astrid talk, because Min seems to have forgotten how.
The redcap tells us about the scant trees studding the snow once we’re a few hundred yards from the fortress’s walls. She tells us how the land seems to have warmed a little, because the dead can no longer cross the river, so there must be running water beneath its frozen surface.
I shiver at the reminder of the dead. “Astrid?” I can’t help interrupting for the question burning on my tongue.
“You should call me Asti.” She turns to Min. “Both of you. I’d prefer it.”
It takes every bit of discipline in my body not to turn to Min with a crow of triumph. Maybe Bran feels it in the air, because as she circles overhead, she gives a low croak.
“Asti, then. I was curious… You said the dead can’t pass over running water, but what about a bridge over the sea? Does that not count because it’s salt water? Or is the sea not technically running? Or is it because—?”
Asti raises her hand, laughing. “Woah, there. I’ll answer your question if you give me a chance.” She gestures for me to come up alongside her—the opposite side from Min, I note.
I almost mutter an apology, a little bashful from bombarding her with questions. “My curiosity ran away with me.”
“Curiosity is a good thing. Especially since the Underworld is very different from the surface. The only way you’re going to find out more is if you ask.
” She spreads her arms. “As for crossing water—it isn’t the water that’s the factor here.
I’m willing to bet this isn’t a hypothetical question.
You saw the dead cross while you were on the surface world.
” She cants her head and the corner of her mouth twitches as though she’s fighting a laugh.
“Perhaps when a certain king came to collect you?”
“You would win that bet.”
“The dead you saw—risen—they were just husks. Bodies without souls. They aren’t contained by the same rules as spirit-made-flesh, like the dead who rove here.
These are still people, still have souls, memories.
At least, most of them do. If they linger too long, they lose themselves, even though shreds of their souls remain.
It’s the spirit aspect that stops them from crossing running water. ”
That aligns with what I observed. Some who’d lost themselves, some who remembered. I try not to think about the shambler.
“Have you ever been to the surface?” Min asks softly, eyes downcast, even though Asti’s attention leaps back to her before she finishes the first word.
“I’ve been on raids, occasionally. But not for a long time.”
“Not since you joined the Twylth?”
“I pledged to guard His Majesty and that doesn’t leave room for raids.
Even though that would save him the exorbitant costs of buying horse feed from our neighbors.
” She glances at me. “This is one of the few times I’ve worked away from his side for years now.
He wants to take good care of you, if he’s letting me leave him. ”
“He wants to protect his investment,” I mutter before I even think to keep my mouth shut. Shit.
I’m sure that’s the truth. It’s been echoing in my mind since Kishel told me about the power a king’s consort can access. That’s why he wants to marry me.
But my statement isn’t exactly fitting of an enthusiastic bride-to-be. And I did promise. The last thing I want is for Drystan to decide I’ve broken our bargain and remove my opportunity to leave, especially now Kishel has made it clear I’ll succeed.
I clear my throat. “I mean—he’s been waiting for me before he could take a bride, right? Imagine if he waited all that time and then I got killed because of some silly Underworld danger.”
Asti’s jaw tightens and she scans the snowy plane. “I wouldn’t allow that to happen to you or to him.”
My thoughtless comment puts a bit of a dampener on Asti’s mood, and I struggle to stoke the conversation, until I get Min started on a style of sleeve she’s been developing.
I don’t entirely follow her explanation—a diagram would help—but I note the close attention Asti pays to her hands moving as she describes the delicate bell shape and the gather over the wrist, and that’s enough to get me to stop cursing myself for slipping up.
Riding is fun. I think. I’m stiff after but it’s easier on my body than walking, and I still feel like I’m getting some exercise. I’m sure I’ll get used to this new kind of movement.
I used to love walking along the coast to the beach, but I haven’t been able to do that for a long time. From horseback, I get the chance to observe parts of the Underworld that were only a blur when the king rode out with me.
It lets me imagine a version of home where I ride and see the surface world. I’d need company, of course, just in case I had an episode. And I’d carry a waterskin, ready to take a gulp with my belladonna. But it feels possible.
We wouldn’t be able to afford to buy a sabercat, never mind feed one, of course. Maybe I can find a way to borrow one, even if it’s just once a month.
But the ride doesn’t last. We return to the fortress, and Asti’s called away by guards, leaving us to return her horse to the stables. Threnn is there, though, ready to take over guarding me.
As we enter the yard, Min straightens, head cocked at some noise I can’t detect. As a stable hand rushes forward to take my horse’s reins, she dismounts and helps me down. “What’s happening?”
The hand glances at her colleagues who bustle through the yard and stables. “Effan is missing. You know, him—he works in the kitchens, does all the bread.”
“Effan?” She pulls a skeptical face. “Are you sure he’s not just curled up somewhere cursing himself for drinking too much?”
The stable hand shrugs, mouth twisting. “Cook’s asked us to search the stables. There aren’t any horses missing, so he can’t have gone far. But you could be right and we’ll find him passed out in the hayloft.”
“I’ll help look once I’ve take Lady Rhiannon up to her rooms.”
The stable hand’s eyes bulge as she sucks in a breath. “My lady, of course.” She sketches a bow. “I should’ve realized. I should’ve bowed at—”
“Don’t worry, please. You have more important things to be thinking about than bowing to some human you don’t know. I hope you find Effan.”
She inclines her head with a look of gratitude, and I can’t help wondering if she expected me to lop off her tongue for such a minor infraction.
Only once Min and I are away do I ask about the missing baker.
“It’s nothing to worry about. He’s the restless sort.
Likes to lean on his status as His Majesty’s half-brother to get away with not doing much work.
” At my wide-eyed look, she adds, “Not The Morrigan’s son—the old king’s.
Think he’s a bit too used to court life over kitchen life, though, so a lot of the baking ends up falling on the patissière.
” The way she purses her lips tells me exactly how much she disapproves.
“But a few months ago one of the stable boys went missing. There were no footprints outside the walls. Not even the Wild Hunt could track him. No one’s seen him since.
I just hope this isn’t more of the same. ”
The king’s brother. That explains why he reminded me of Drystan. And his behavior when we were introduced matches Min’s summary. I give my most reassuring smile. “I’m sure Effan’s just snuggled in the hay sleeping off the wine.”
She eyes my hand and opens her mouth to speak, when Threnn’s shadow falls over us.
“Perhaps you’re right,” Min mutters and we go the rest of the way in silence.
Still, it tears at me to be retreating to my room when I could help search. But my eyelids are heavy and my legs grow heavier with each step. I need to rest if I’m to stand any chance of making progress in the labyrinth tomorrow—or is it later today?
I’ll get some sleep and they’ll find Effan by the time I wake up. I’ve seen how impossible it is to run from Drystan’s court, and, unlike me, it sounds as though the baker enjoys his life here. He has no reason to run.