23. The best possible wingman #2
When I finally reached the last row and stared down the ten-foot drop to the arena, I cursed and hauled myself over, landing with a groan I failed to stifle.
Mina, my knees were not what they once were. I recovered quickly, though, and in time for Enora’s attention to snap over.
“Max?” she breathed in disbelief, and the utterance warmed the fuck out of my chest.
Being back to preferred names was a win I’d gladly take, though I had an abundance of other, more immediate concerns as I approached her and my poorly mage.
Namely, how Enora was still wearing the dress she’d worn to the pyres, and not only did white paint still streak her face, but jarring dark circles framed her eyes.
I’d seen soldiers in better shape after being trampled.
None of which were things I had a feeling she would appreciate me pointing out at that precise moment, especially if I didn’t want to end up a mirror image of Jasper.
“The one and only.” I flashed her a quick smile before I glanced at the mage, kneeling, cupping his nose and his balls as blood rolled off his face and spattered onto the earth. “I don’t mean to interrupt…”
Enora opened her mouth, but Jasper croaked out, “Oh, please do.”
“Right. Well, I had a bit of a fraught morning, trying to get things organized between the council and the elders and getting notice out to Embervale, but everything is now well underway for the first official Agōn Ferr event in a couple of weeks.”
“Oh. A…a couple of weeks?” Enora was still fighting to catch her breath, her hands braced on her thighs and her messy blonde hair hanging in a curtain around her face. “Fuck. Okay.”
Now that was a remarkable change in tune if I’d ever heard it.
Nowhere in sight was the woman who’d told me quite proudly that she, a well-tenured cavalry soldier, did not need any training for the Agōn Ferr. Certainly seemed like a thread of doubt had worked its way through the stone wall that encased her resolve.
“The first event is usually…straightforward,” I tried to reassure her. “I’m just not at liberty to discuss any specifics about that.”
Enora cast me a withering glance, and, for a moment, she looked downright formidable, sheened in sweat and dirt and spattered with Jasper’s blood. “Of course you aren’t.”
“It’s nothing personal, I promise.” Her displeasure did not ease at the smile I flashed her.
“I am bound by oath, unfortunately, to not share any of the details of the Agōn Ferr with those who are participating, including yourself. It would be seen in bad faith to even give the illusion someone may have the advantage of my favor.”
“Well, count me just thrilled to be included among your honored participants,” she huffed. “Betrothed or not.”
Mina help us; she was in a right mood.
I hadn’t known what to expect, not after seeing her in such an elated state when I’d interrupted their sparring the day before, and certainly not after the revelation she was dealt shortly after that.
But this only confirmed that whatever transpired between when I left her at the pyre last night and when Jasper brought her to the stadium wasn’t good.
I tried to glean a bit of non-verbal communication with a glance in his direction, but he was on his back, his hand draped over his eyes, chest heaving away.
“Don’t they say distance makes the heart grow fonder, or something like that?” I tried to quip, but Enora looked like she was having none of it. “Just think of how overjoyed you’ll be to spend unrestrained time with me once our nuptials come around.”
“Oh, I’ll be fucking thrilled.” She wiped at her dirty face and sighed. “I need something to eat. And, ugh, a bath.”
“You both look like you could use those and some rest in ample measure.” I earned another scathing look from Enora. “Might I recommend we call it here for today, and the two of you can pick back up bright and early tomorrow?”
Jasper was making his way upright with no shortage of miserable noises. “Just give me a few minutes, Nor, and I’ll take you back to the Keep.”
“Oh, I am not going back with you and spending the rest of the day with my head in a bucket.” Enora barked the words at Jasper with such distaste, I stiffened. “I’ll walk barefoot back to fucking Odessa before I let you do that to my body ever again.”
How interesting.
One could easily deduce what Enora had meant by ‘that’, and it left me with some significant questions.
Jasper was an uncommonly skilled Plane Stepper, so much so that I had a hard time fathoming his abilities sometimes, with the nonchalant way he carried himself.
Any Stepper was an incredible asset to have in an army, but someone like Jasper was fucking gold.
The sheer volume of bodies he could move from one place to the next was remarkable, made even more so by how little it taxed him or his living cargo.
Something clearly had not gone to plan.
Amusement was probably written all over my face when I glanced between the two of them. “You stepped here? Did it not go well?”
Enora scoffed and parroted back, “Did it not go well?”
I fixed Jasper with a look, and he just shook his head. “Nora got well acquainted with the inside of one of the planters out on the walkway.”
“Go a little hard on some drink after the pyres, or…?” I chuckled, glancing back at the princess, but she just rolled her eyes and set about wiping the sweat off her brow with her filthy arm.
“Right then. I can walk you back, or you can take my steed, and I’ll step with Jasper.
I thought you both rode here, so I did the same. ”
“Don’t be stupid. You and I can just ride together.” Enora stilled and cast me a look full of judgement. “Wait…you can fly, can’t you? Why did you ride here?”
“Because I don’t take to the skies during the day.”
A simple answer I delivered a little cooler than intended. I really did not feel like discussing any of those cursed semantics at that moment with Enora, even less than I wanted to ride with her.
It was a discussion better suited for post-marital bonding.
“Right…” Shockingly, Enora left it there, but she sighed and glanced around the stadium.
“Is there a spigot or something I can rinse off at? I didn’t exactly have time to change or wash up this morning”—she shot Jasper a scathing look that left me with a lengthy list of questions—“and I feel disgusting.”
That, at least, was incredibly considerate of her, considering the sheen of sweat muddled with dirt and paint flecks that covered most of her visible body. A body I was going to spend the next hour in incredibly close quarters with.
“Just through those and the hall to the right,” I said as I gestured to a set of doors opposite us. “Go wash up. I’ll meet you outside, I guess.”
Enora headed towards them without another word, and Jasper had vanished into mist when I turned back to him. How incredibly convenient.
While I waited outside the stadium for Enora to freshen up, it felt like a prudent time to have a quick heart-to-heart with my incredibly ornery steed, Apollo.
“I know you’re…particular,” I whispered as I ran my hand up the bone plate of his muzzle. “But I’d rather appreciate your cooperation with this, alright? She’s a little…well, she’s actually a lot loud, but she’s going to be around…permanently, with you and me, so we both have to get used to that.”
Apollo’s crystalline eyes closed, and he snorted as he tossed his head, sending tendrils of irritating dyrehorse mucus towards me that I narrowly dodged.
I sighed. “I mean it, okay? And she’s going to think you’re striking, so do not let that go to your boney—”
A loud gasp had me going stiff as an iron bar, and Apollo’s eyes snapped open.
“What is that?” came Enora’s awestruck, breathy voice as I glanced back to find her just feet away, jaw slack and hazel eyes wide.
I’d thought she’d find Apollo magnificent; he was an admirable specimen of his breed, after all. But I had possibly overlooked the fact that she wouldn’t even know what to make of him. The odds that a Grimmorian dyrehorse had made it all the way to Odessa were damned near impossible.
From the bone carapace that decorated his muzzle and head to his luminescent blue eyes and ink-black coat, he was probably unlike anything she’d ever seen before.
“This,” I said, “is Apollo. He’s a dyrehorse, and a rather fine one at that.”
Enora was silent for a long moment, glancing between Apollo and I, before a wide grin dimpled her cheeks, and she took a couple of steps towards us.
“He’s incredible,” she breathed with her hand hovering tentatively just in front of her. “Can I…?”
I moved to the side with a sweep of my hand, casting Apollo a hasty bit of pleading side eye as I did.
He chuffed and lowered his head as Enora approached him.
As I assumed a well-versed rider like herself would do, she brushed her fingers slowly up Apollo’s nose while she muttered a quiet greeting to him, clearly not sure what to make of his built-in armor.
“Is this…natural?” she asked without even looking at me. “Part of him?”
And Apollo—as both a blessing and a shock—shut his eyes and nuzzled into her touch.
“It is.” I stepped in to give him an appreciative scratch behind his ears, fringed with silky-black hair. “Their plates are quite small and soft when they are born but grow quickly, as they do. He has similar plates on his legs too, underneath those wraps.”
Enora’s attention drifted to where thick gray wraps were bound around Apollo’s forearms and cannons, and ink-black feathering spilled out around his hooves.
She shook her head and let out a huff of disbelief, but she moved right into smoothing her hand over the muscular pillar of his neck.
“We’ve got incredible horses in Odessa, you know?
Ones for pleasure riding, ones for work, ones for long travel, but this… ”