Chapter 15 #2
Opposite me, his hazel eyes were lit. He’d sworn he would never mock me, but this…
This was different. This wasn’t mockery; it was play.
In one way, he’s like Theo.
Well, he had not known I was trained by the best in the Dip.
I ran a hand over Pettifey’s mane. “I should learn to pace by moats and crush blossoms in silence, like you.”
His mouth tugged, but he kept his lips together. “Let’s get started.”
I gripped Pettifey’s mane. “Do I just climb on?”
He swept out his hand toward the horse’s sloping back. “You can try.”
That had sounded like a challenge and a jeer. Which was exactly what motivated me.
I sat in the dusty paddock and stifled a groan. The horse trotted to twenty feet away, her leather lead dangling. Dorian leaned against the fence line, arms crossed over his chest.
“I’d like a different horse,” I said, pushing myself onto my feet. “This one can’t be ridden.”
Dorian tilted his head. “The acid queen who’s never ridden a horse is making demands?”
For once, I preferred rabbit.
I swiped dirt off my pants. “Can’t you just hold her steady?”
“This is the lesson, Eurydice.”
I eyed Pettifey, who had come to a stop.
She stared back at me, head bobbing. I had tried eighteen times to get on her back, but every time I’d grabbed hold of her mane and tried to swing a leg over, she’d gotten nervous.
I’d end up hopping one-legged with her and eventually—twelve times now—fallen into the dirt.
My backside couldn’t handle a nineteenth.
When I came up to Dorian, he gazed at me with one eyebrow arched. “The horse is that way.”
“Give me one of those carrots.”
“What makes you think I have another?”
“Because you wouldn’t bring just one.”
“That’s a leap in logic.”
I put my palm out. “You have more carrots.”
His eyes narrowed, and then his lips pressed together like he’d been unwillingly seen through. He reached into his jerkin pocket and pulled out another carrot.
I swiped it from him, turned on a heel, and stalked toward Pettifey. The horse’s eyes locked onto the carrot. Her tail flicked.
“That’s right,” I said. “I’m the source of all that’s good.”
I came to a stop eight paces from her, palm outstretched. Even with so little wildlife in our kingdom, I did know one thing from my time in the southern district: prey would run like a flame in dry grass, but there was one universal lure.
Pettifey approached. She extended her neck, and I pressed the carrot into her mouth while stepping forward. I took hold of her mane with my free hand, gripping tight while she chewed.
With one delirious swing of my leg and a jump, I was on her back.
The horse surged forward. She was quicker than I had expected, and I managed to hang on one-handed for a dozen paces before she veered at the fence line and my momentum threw me off.
I hit the dirt and rolled, shoring up near the fence in a cloud of dirt. I lay still, waiting for pain. None came, at least not acutely—just the sting of knowing I’d failed again.
Through the cloud, Pettifey trotted toward Dorian. She knew more carrots were tucked away.
He approached me, the horse following, his shadow blocking the sun. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” I pushed myself up to a seat.
“You rolled—that probably saved you from injury.”
“Completely intentional.”
He reached out a hand for me to take. “Enough for today. The dew’s gone and the horse won’t want to be out in the heat.”
I didn’t take his hand. “But I haven’t ridden her.”
“Didn’t you? I saw you hang on for several paces.”
Several paces wouldn’t take me half a block in the Dip.
I stared at him a moment longer, then I took his hand. He pulled me up with ease. Together we walked back to the stables, Pettifey following and nosing Dorian for a carrot all the while.
“What does that name mean?” I asked as we walked. “Pettifey.”
“I’m sure you know.”
“Small,” I said. “Weak.”
Dorian didn’t answer. We came into the aisle, and he finally pulled out a carrot, guiding the willing horse into her open stall. She went inside without protest, and Dorian gave her the carrot as he latched the door behind her.
“That’s what your people think of me,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Do you blame them?”
“Blame? No.”
Dorian walked down the aisle, and I walked at his side. “Hate?”
“Not because of a word.” Because of everything else.
Beside me, I felt him stiffen. I wondered if he would say something soft, something kind—
“Tell me what weapons you’re proficient in.”
Of course not. “The short sword, the dagger, the bow and arrow.”
“Bow and arrow? Absolutely not.”
My eyes wandered; we had left the stables and were headed down a path I had not been on, toward the far side of the citadel. “I can hit a target’s eye from thirty paces.”
He snorted. “Multiply that by three and you’d be half as capable as Rhiannon.”
A target’s eye at ninety paces. I didn’t know anyone in the guard with that eye, that strength. Awe and jealousy warred in me.
Dorian seemed to sense it. “You don’t want to be in her sights when she nocks an arrow.”
No, but I did want to be that arrow.
We came to the moat and passed over a third bridge. I made a mental calculation: there were at least three bridges, and probably a fourth around the citadel.
A circle. Just like on the tapestry of the four courts.
Here, the enormous tree’s branches hung low, forming a natural arch shading a swath of land. And beneath that arch was the Sylvanwild barracks. It wasn’t a building so much as a structure grown into being.
Thick boughs curved downward from the tree itself, twisting together to form a roof of interwoven limbs and moss-veiled beams. Vines climbed the supports like living banners, and the scent of oiled leather and pine clung to the air.
Weapons racks lined the outer edge, some carved into the very trunks that supported the structure.
Dozens of blades gleamed in the filtered green light, ranging from leather-wrapped daggers to long, curved swords I didn’t recognize.
There were spears with obsidian tips, axes with vines coiled around their hafts as if claiming them.
And then there were the bows, racks and racks of them, some as tall as I was, others delicate and compact, strung with fine gut or twined silver thread.
A floor of hardened earth was swept clean and stamped flat from years of footfalls, and on the far side, a small firepit glowed low.
Around it, stools and benches were carved from living roots, shaped to cradle fae bodies at rest. No walls, no doors, just the forest’s embrace, and the weapons of those who lived in it.
Beyond the barracks, under the wide-open sunlight, stood an older blond man with a bow almost as large as me, an arrow nocked. He faced a target forty paces away, his back to us.
Dorian and I paused as he pulled the string taut.
“Watch,” Dorian murmured by my ear. “Watch his form.”
It was angular, perfect. He reminded me of my instructor from the guard, but then there was an unprecedented lethality to the way this man released the arrow with a snap. It whistled and hit the target dead-on before my eyes could follow.
The feathered fletching. It was white.
“I saw those feathers,” I said. “The night you brought me here.”
“You noticed?” Dorian sounded surprised.
“You do when someone tries to end you.”
Dorian started forward. “If I tell you it was this man, would it improve or worsen your aim once I put a bow in your hands?”
I followed. “Was it this man?”
He didn’t answer, just let out a two-note whistle.
The blond man’s head turned, and he lowered his bow. “You’re late.”
“The riding went long.”
We came under the shade of the tree, and I craned my neck. The branches above us were so wide around, I could barely take a single one in.
The blond man’s eyes were on me now. “Did she even mount the filly?”
“She did.” Dorian passed him, approaching a weapons rack holding short bows. “Once.”
The blond man’s eyebrows went up. His eyes, blue as a clear sky, were on me. “I expected nonce.”
Good. Better to be a pettifey in their eyes.
“I’m Eurydice.” I pointed at the target where his arrow still quivered. “Your shot was incredible.”
“Haskel,” the blond man said, as though surprised I had a voice. “And the shot was off-center. But it’s still early in the day.”
I eyed the target. The arrow looked dead-on to me.
“We need a child’s bow,” Dorian said, already scanning the racks. “At least to start.”
That wasn’t a barb; I could see in his face he was on business, just as he had been about the horse.
“It’s not about the size,” Haskel said to me, as if in apology. “It’s about your strength to pull the string taut.”
A fae, apologizing?
“Don’t suck up to her,” Dorian said, bending to grasp a bow. He took up a quiver of equivalent arrows, their feathering black. “Kindness is anathema to that one.”
“For once he’s not wrong,” I said.
Haskel laughed. “Are you sure this one isn’t of Sylvanwild herself?”
“Aside from Rhiannon, Haskel’s the best shot in the court.” Dorian extended the bow and quiver to me. “You’re better off with his training, at least to start.”
I slung the quiver over my shoulder. The bow was light and the same size as the ones I’d trained with in the barracks. “Will you be in the trials?” I said to Haskel.
He straightened, chest puffing. “I suppose I do have the blush of youth still.”
“Irin’s breath,” Dorian muttered.
Now that I observed the older man, I saw the white laced through his blond hair and the lines around his eyes. He had the physique of a young man but the markings of a much older one.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“Lies don’t become you,” Dorian said.
Haskel broke into a smile. “I do like her.”
“Is there an age limit for the trials?” I asked him.
Dorian set his hand on Haskel’s shoulder. “How many years since you passed the limit? Fifty?”
Haskel stuck his thumb under his front teeth and jerked it toward my partner. “Be glad I don’t rail you with a birchwood bow.”
Dorian smirked and backed away into the deeper shade of the tree, palms up for peace.
Haskel turned to me. “Tell me what you know of shooting.”