Chapter 13
Thirteen
The stallion follows me down the aisle, shaking his head and swishing his tail. At the sight of the outer yard, he leaps forward.
The reins dig into my fingers with the effort to hold him with me. “Whoa, there,” I murmur.
Other students are leading out their horses around us. I guide Toast farther away from the stable so we’re not too close to anyone else. Then I grip the pommel and back of the saddle, set my foot in the stirrup, and heft my other leg over.
Before I’ve quite landed on the leather surface, Toast kicks up his back legs. I jolt forward, just barely catching my balance by clutching the pommel and his mane.
A nervous sweat breaks over my skin. Dotty showed some attitude from time to time, but she never did anything like that.
Julita sighs. You know how he got his name? Because the trainer said anyone who rides him without knowing what they’re doing is toast.
I grit my teeth. I do know what I’m doing, and I’m not going to let a few stuck-up nobles mock me into fleeing from the challenge.
Even if my heart is now thumping faster than before with the knowledge of just how big a challenge it might be.
I gather the reins and keep a firm but not aggressive hold on them as I nudge my heels against the stallion’s sides. He whirls around and nearly bolts off across the field before I rein him in.
The muscles in my arms strain with the toss of his mane.
Anya shoots me a coy smirk from the back of the mild-mannered gelding she’s perched on. “I hope he doesn’t give you too much trouble.”
“Oh, we’re getting along perfectly well,” I say, pretending my palms aren’t sweating from the effort.
When I manage to keep Toast standing relatively still for a minute, my confidence begins to recover. Then the dumpling-faced hunt master weaves between the horses with a couple of helpers, handing out… bows.
I can’t help staring as even Anya slings one over her head and touches the quiver of small arrows that’s been fixed to her saddle. Somehow I hadn’t quite processed that the hunt required all of us to actually… hunt.
It’s all right, Julita says. We don’t kill anything. Just take our aim at the conjured targets and see who can hit them best.
The other students are chattering with each other enough that I risk murmuring, “I’m not sure I’ll hit anything at all.”
Haven’t you ever used a bow?
I give my head a subtle shake. The woman and her helpers reach me, and I force myself to grasp the reins with just one hand while I accept the curved wooden weapon.
I’m a knife person. A bow isn’t going to do much for you on the streets of the fringes, and I sure as shit can’t hide one under my tunic.
I get the impression Julita winces. Well, we’re not here to impress them with your fantastic archery skills. I’ll coach you as well as I can. Mostly focus on staying on that beast of a horse.
Toast has definitely noticed that my attention has become divided. He scuffs his hooves impatiently against the ground until I give his reins a light tug so he knows I’m staying on top of him. My mouth has gone dry.
I have to learn archery on horseback while handling a horse who’d like nothing more than to get me off his back. This should be fun.
Across the stable yard, one of the mounted noblemen yelps. As my head jerks toward him, his horse rears and shudders.
“Daimon,” someone near me mutters like a curse.
The rambling spirit-creature isn’t satisfied with a brief disruption like the one that provoked the charm merchant’s gelding. The rider yanks at the reins and shouts out, but the horse keeps bucking and heaving as if it’s afraid to let its hooves touch the ground.
While the nearest students draw their own mounts back, the hunt master rushes over. Before she can reach the frantic horse, it flings its haunches so forcefully its rider careens right out of the saddle.
And under the next fall of its stomping hooves.
Bone cracks. The man cries out, reaching toward his leg that’s now bent at an unnatural angle.
The dumpling-faced woman catches the reins. “Get a medic!” she hollers at one of the helpers.
The horse has settled down, as if the spirit that was harassing it slipped away as soon as it’d done some real damage. Which, given what I’ve seen and heard about how the daimon are behaving at the college, might be the case.
Unbidden, my eyes seek out Benedikt. He meets my gaze just for a second, his usual smirk gone tight.
This obviously isn’t a typical incident.
“Blasted spirits,” someone mutters, and someone else hisses at them to keep quiet as if they’re worried the daimon might come at us all.
Several of the students graze their foreheads, chests, and gut with the three-fingered tap of the gesture of the divinities.
They might not be wrong to worry. The minor divine beings of this place appear to be plenty pissed off and perfectly willing to take it out on us.
The hunt master has knelt beside the injured student. She lifts her head and swings her arm at the rest of us. “He doesn’t need an audience. Go on. You know what to do.”
Er. That’s debatable.
Nevertheless, I direct Toast to the right, following the train of horses setting off toward the stretch of woods at the back of the school.
Lovely. I’m going to be hunting on horseback with a bow and arrow while there are also trees in the way.
What’s next—the teachers set the trees on fire?
Toast huffs and does his best to spring ahead or veer off in a detour, but my firm grip keeps him reasonably in line. Anya glances back at me, and I find her frown immensely gratifying.
At least for the few seconds before Toast decides to take a page out of the other horse’s book and get a good rear in.
My ass slams into the back of the saddle and nearly slides right off. I bite my lip and snatch at his mane.
“Down,” I order him. “You want to move, then let’s move.”
Rather than trying to rein him in, I tap my heels to send the stallion trotting forward. He huffs another breath, sounding more confused than irritated now, and lopes past a few of the other horses before slowing down of his own accord.
Da always told me the easiest way to work with a horse was to show you respected it—that you’d give it room to tell you what it wanted too. Back when he still talked to me enough to offer any kind of lessons.
It seems he was right.
As soon as we’ve urged our horses down the winding path into the stretch of forest, I see what Julita meant about the conjured targets. Here and there, glowing shapes flicker into view amid the branches and on the forest floor. Some look like ghostly animals, others like random blobs of light.
One arrow flies, and another, and another. Around me, the students are claiming their hits like escalating bets in a card game.
Keeping a careful watch on my steed, I ease my bow off my shoulder.
Set the base of the arrow against the string, Julita says. And rest the side of the shaft near the head at the middle of the curve in the bow. Pull back as hard as you can and sight down the shaft.
Easier said than done.
My first arrow falls off into the brush. The second zings into a tree at least a few feet from the target I was aiming at.
At this rate, I’m more likely to hit one of my fellow students than any magical shapes.
I restrain a grimace. At least Toast is playing mostly nice for now, though I have to grab the reins once to slow him when he tests me.
Esmae comes up behind me, the scattered sunlight glancing off her pale face and the mauve patch over her one eye. “I suppose you haven’t done much horseback shooting before.”
“No,” I say, because it’s obvious, and don’t bother to mention that I haven’t done any shooting with my feet on the ground either.
“It took me a while to get the hang of it.” She motions for me to watch her. “You’ll have an easier time if you keep your elbow higher. And pull back just a little more, right before you release the arrow.”
I give her instructions my best attempt, and my next arrow flies only a foot away from the luminescent deer head I spotted through the trees.
Oh, well, I’m not here to become an expert archer anyway.
I wet my lips and notch another arrow. “Thanks for your help. You’re rooming in the same dorm as Julita—do you know her well?”
I already know from Julita that they weren’t close, but it seems like the sort of thing a person would ask of a stranger who’s randomly helping them. All Esmae knows about me is that I knew Julita.
Esmae cocks her head as if considering the question. “Not exactly. But she’s the kind of person you can’t help noticing. She’s always… Having her around keeps me working hard to impress the teachers just as much as she does.”
Hmm, Julita says. She makes me sound like a bootlicker. I didn’t ply for their favor that much.
I open my mouth, forming my next question, and a sharp voice carries from farther behind me. “So, Ivy of Nikodi, you landed that assistantship with Ster. Stavros right out from under the rest of us.”
I peer over my shoulder and make out the speaker in the shifting forest shadows just beyond Esmae. The tall, athletic woman whose name I don’t know holds her bow like it’s part of her body.
Julita supplies her name. Romild. Her province is on the border—vulnerable to military incursions.
So maybe she was hoping that getting close with Stavros would mean more protection from the royal forces.
I can’t blame her for that, but I can’t give her the position either.
“The timing happened to be right,” I say. There isn’t much else I can mention to justify it.
Romild snorts. “And you can barely manage to hit thin air. Exactly how many other ways did you please him to make up his mind?”
Her insinuation couldn’t be clearer from her tone. My jaw tightens against a flicker of anger.
As if I’d ever lower myself to “pleasing” any man, let alone a jerk like Stavros, to get their good will.
I manage to keep my tone calm. “There’s more to military skill than archery.”
She guffaws. “You keep telling yourself that. We’ll see how long it takes before he can’t justify keeping you on. There are a lot of us who’d want the chance to work with a legend like him.”
I don’t see how any good can come from debating the subject further. I clamp my mouth shut and ignore the squirming of magic inside me that wants to teach my accuser a thing or two about combat.
But it doesn’t seem wise to let her comments go completely unchallenged among all these witnesses. If I want my noble schoolmates to treat me as more than dirt, I have to prove I can give as good as I get.
I direct Toast to slow between the next couple of targets so that we fall back in the procession. With my bow temporarily slung over my shoulder again, I let my hand slide over my parted skirt and my fingers hook around a small hilt in a sheath fixed to my thigh.
I might be playing noble, but I earned my unrequested title as the Hand of Kosmel.
Romild nudges her steed past me with a fierce flash of her eyes. I nod respectfully—and flick out my hand between us right as she passes.
Her horse makes it a few more steps before her saddle sways to the side. My knife is already tucked back in its hiding place.
Romild lets out a strangled noise and gropes for the horse’s mane, but it’s too late. The saddle with its split girth slides right down the horse’s side, and she tumbles to the forest floor with an audible oomph.
As she scrambles to her feet, I hum to myself. “Perhaps General Stavros prefers an assistant who knows how to stay on her horse.”
Several of the other students have stopped to watch. No one can prove I actually did anything, so no one makes an accusation.
But they all know the accident probably wasn’t a coincidence.
Benedikt’s gaze rests on me with apparent delight. The other expressions aimed at me look newly wary… with both respect and hostility.
I send Toast trotting past her again, and Romild tracks me with furious eyes. My magic wriggles between my ribs again—wanting to shield myself, wanting to heave her away—and I tense against it.
She’s only a minor threat. Nothing that should bother me much.
Except the next second, an all-too-familiar agony spikes out from my sternum. I clamp my teeth hard against a gasp of pain.
Gods smite me, what now? An incident that small has never set off my power’s full backlash before.
But it definitely is today. The pain burns through my organs, and my hands shake where I’m clutching the reins.
Ivy? Julita says tentatively, but I can’t say anything to reassure her right now.
Toast sidesteps beneath me. A quiver runs through his frame.
The stallion can sense that something’s off with his rider. If I’m not careful, I’m going to end up tumbling off too.
I can’t let anyone else see what I’m grappling with. I can’t let them suspect there’s anything wrong with me.
And I have to stay on this cursed horse.
I focus on the thud of his hooves against the forest floor. I flex my thigh muscles against his sides, assuring him that I’m still here. I rock the reins in a gentle rhythm.
My awareness of the stallion’s presence, the flow of his life with his breaths and his own thumping heart, helps me tune out the wrenching sensation inside me. With a few more breaths, the throbbing subsides.
My back feels drenched in sweat. I hold it straight as I gather myself to make another attempt with the blasted bow.
I’m okay. I made it through—I made it through all of it.
But how much longer can I keep that up if the cracks in my soul are widening?