12. Mira
MIRA
I stride out of the barn with my hands clenched into fists, Renat's words still ringing in my ears. Mind your lane . The phrase burns in my chest, leaving me hot and bitter. I make it halfway across the yard before I have to stop and breathe. Anger makes my vision blur at the edges.
The morning air bites at my flushed cheeks as I lean against the paddock fence, gripping the weathered wood until splinters bite into my palms. Rusalka watches me from the far corner of the pasture, ears pricked forward with curiosity as Renat guides her toward the track.
Even from this distance, she can sense my agitation.
"Rough morning?"
I turn to find Batya walking toward me from the equipment shed, a coil of wire fencing in his hands. His weathered face shows concern as he takes in my rigid posture and the way I'm gripping the fence rails.
"The gate in the far pasture is sagging again," I say, avoiding his real question.
"I'll fix it later." He sets down the wire and joins me at the fence. "What did he do?"
The question catches me off guard. "What makes you think?—"
"You've got that look. The one you used to get when the barn cats would scratch you for trying to help them." Batya 's pale blue eyes study my face with understanding. He raised a stubborn daughter. He knows how this works. "Same wounded anger."
I want to deny it, to deflect and change the subject the way I always do when conversations get too personal. But the fury is still too fresh, too raw to hide completely.
"He told me to mind my lane," I say finally.
"Ah." Batya nods, unsurprised. "And what lane would that be?"
"Training the horse. Staying out of strategy decisions. Keeping my mouth shut and doing what I'm told."
"Sounds about right for a man in his position."
The casual acceptance in his voice makes me turn to stare at him. "Right? Batya , this is my horse. Our ranch. How is any of that right?"
"It's not." He leans against the fence beside me, his shoulder bumping mine. "But it's predictable. Men like him don't know how to handle women who push back."
"Men like him?"
"Dangerous ones. The ones who've been taught that control means survival."
Something in his tone makes my chest tighten. The way he says it—with understanding rather than condemnation—suggests a familiarity I don't want to examine too closely.
"You sound like you know what you're talking about."
Batya is quiet for a long moment, his gaze fixed on the horses grazing in the distance. When he speaks, his voice carries the weight of old memories.
"I've been watching more than just the horse, malen'kaya . I see the way you look at him. The way things have shifted around here since he arrived."
Heat rises in my cheeks, but I keep my voice steady. "I don't know what you mean."
"Don't you?" He turns to face me fully, those perceptive eyes seeing straight through my deflection. "You think I don't notice when you disappear for hours at a time? When you come back with hay in your hair and that look in your eyes?"
I want to argue, to maintain the pretense that nothing has changed. But Batya has always been able to read me too well, even when I was trying to lie to myself.
"It's complicated," I say finally.
"Is it?" He straightens, crossing his arms over his chest. "Because it looks pretty simple. You're getting involved with a man whose job it is to destroy everything we've built."
The words sting because they're true. I climb onto the fence rail, needing the height to feel less small under his scrutiny. The wood is cold beneath my thighs, but the familiar perch gives me a moment to collect my thoughts.
"You think I don't know what he is?" I ask.
"I think you know exactly what he is. That's what worries me." Batya 's voice stays gentle, but there's steel underneath. "I know what it's like to believe someone dangerous might carry some good inside them. Your mother was drawn to broken things too."
The mention of my mother makes my throat tighten. She died when I was eight, but I remember her gentleness with injured animals, the way she'd nurse wounded birds back to health even when everyone said they were beyond saving.
"But men like him, Mira—they always belong to other people. Bigger things. They don't get to choose their own path, no matter what they might want."
We sit in silence for a moment, watching Renat work Rusalka harder than he should be. That hitch is gone, but I know she's not fully healed.
"Do you remember when you were nine?" Batya 's voice is softer now, tinged with memory. "When Firecracker colicked?"
My chest aches at the mention of our prize colt. He'd been my favorite, a bay with white markings who would nicker whenever he saw me coming. The night he colicked, nothing the veterinarian did could save him.
"You wanted to sleep in the barn that night," Batya continues. "Said you needed to be there in case he came back."
I remember. The way the empty stall felt like a wound in the barn's heart. The way I'd stood there with a brush in my hands, running the bristles along the walls where Firecracker used to stand. As if the motion could somehow call him back from wherever horses go when their bodies fail them.
"You stayed up all night brushing those stall walls," he says quietly. "Like you could brush the emptiness away. Like if you just worked hard enough, cared deep enough, you could fix what was already gone."
The memory burns in my chest. I'd been so certain that love and effort could overcome death, that wanting something badly enough would make it true.
"I was a child," I whisper.
"Were you? Or were you just doing what you always do—trying to save something that might be beyond saving?"
His hand settles on my shoulder, warm and steady through my flannel shirt. The gesture is achingly familiar, the same comfort he offered that night nine years ago when I finally accepted that Firecracker wasn't coming back.
"I'm proud of you, Mira," he says quietly. "Proud of the woman you've become, the way you fight for what's right. But I won't watch you trade your future for a man who might be gone by month's end."
The words settle in my stomach with the weight of truth I don't want to acknowledge. I lean into his side for a moment, drawing comfort from his solidity the way I did as a child when the world felt too big and harsh.
"He's not—" I start, then stop. Because what can I say? That Renat is different? That he cares about more than just his orders? The evidence suggests otherwise, especially after this morning's confrontation.
"Just remember what I said," Batya murmurs against my hair.
I straighten and climb down from the fence, brushing dirt from my jeans. "I should get to work. Rusalka needs training."
"Does she? Or do you need the distraction?"
The question hits too close to home. I've always used horses as my escape, losing myself in their training when human relationships became too complicated or painful. But this time feels different. This time, the complications follow me even into the round pen.
"Both, probably," I admit.
Batya nods, understanding. "Just be careful, malen'kaya . With the horse and with yourself."
I head back toward the barn, needing something to occupy my hands, even if there’s nothing left this morning to fix. The sun’s higher now, burning off the chill from the grass. My boots leave wet prints on the stable floor as I step inside.
I hang the coil of fencing Batya left behind and wipe my hands on a rag, but I don’t go far. The tools don’t need sorting. The feed’s already measured. The only thing left is silence—and that doesn’t settle easily in my chest.
But it doesn’t last long.
Rusalka’s hooves clatter on the hard-packed earth outside, followed by the even pace of Renat’s boots. I move to the edge of the aisle just in time to see him leading her in, lathered from a full workout. Her chest rises fast, flanks damp, ears twitching as she glances toward me, then back to him.
Renat doesn’t say a word. He ties her off in the cross-ties, checks her legs, and reaches for a sweat scraper. His motions are efficient but not rushed, and even with the hitch gone from her gait, I can see how tight she still is through the back. She’s holding tension she didn’t have two days ago.
He drags the scraper down her side, and she flinches. He pauses, adjusts his grip, and keeps going.
I stay where I am, half in shadow, arms crossed under my ribs.
He knows I’m watching. That much is clear in the way his shoulders shift, the way his head stays down as he works. But he doesn’t speak, doesn’t try to explain himself or justify the morning. Maybe he knows better. Maybe he doesn’t care.
My jaw locks tight as I watch him move around the mare, drying her coat with methodical strokes. There’s blood on his shirt sleeve again—old or new, I can’t tell—but it’s a reminder of last night and of everything Batya said afterward.
Don’t trade your future for a man who might be gone by month’s end.
Renat unclips the cross-ties and walks Rusalka down the aisle toward her stall. As he passes, the distance between us narrows to just a few feet. He doesn’t glance my way, but I feel the tension in his body, feel the weight of everything that should be said but won’t be.
Whatever's growing between us, whatever pull I feel when he looks at me with those intense eyes—it has to stop. I can't save him any more than I could save Firecracker all those years ago.
Some things are beyond saving. Some people belong to forces bigger than love.
And some futures are worth more than the desire to brush emptiness away.