Chapter 55
“Princess, I’ve saddled these three horses. As you requested, they aren’t royal ones, for safety reasons,” Lysande said, holding the reins of the three smaller horses in his hands.
“Where did you disappear to this morning? We were waiting for you,” I asked, raising an eyebrow and crossing my arms over my chest.
For a moment, his eyes flickered to the side before returning to me. Still, he couldn't quite meet my gaze.
“I went into the city to buy some supplies for the journey,” he said, lying straight to my face and doing a terrible job of it.
“Hm.”
That was all I said before shaking my head.
As much as I wanted to continue the conversation, I knew doing so would immediately ruin Welme’s excitement and perhaps even the entire journey.
So I just nodded. “You've saddled the horses, I see. There’s no reason for us to wait any longer.”
I reached for the reins of the first horse in his hands, but he gently pulled them back.
“This one is yours, Princess.”
He cleared his throat and placed pink reins into my hands, attached to a medium-sized mare that was clearly of a poorer pedigree than horses from palace. I glanced toward him from the corner of my eye, and his gaze remained fixed on me, a strange little smile resting on his face.
“My lady.” He handed Welme the second horse before mounting his own.
Still stroking the mare, I noticed that her hooves were slightly different from those of the other two horses. Her legs were bare, without the long hair that fell over the front hooves.
With my brows raised but still without saying anything to him, I climbed onto the gray horse and ran my tongue along the inside of my right cheek.
Lysande tried not to look at me, keeping his gaze fixed ahead, but he couldn't hide the faint redness creeping over his ears.
While Welme mounted her horse and adjusted the bag secured against its thigh, I rode closer to Lys. I pressed my unfamiliar animal alongside his and leaned toward him so only he could hear me.
“I know you're lying, Lys.”
I whispered it close to his face, and the blush immediately spread across his cheeks.
Every horse in our kingdom, when it came to royal breeds, belonged to a rare eastern breed from the islands, recognizable by their long legs, glossy manes, and thick hair that fell over their hooves.
The other horses we used whenever we wanted to keep a low profile were usually crosses between eastern horses and mustangs, which always retained the long hair on their front legs.
Judging by her appearance, this horse was neither.
I flicked the pink reins, and the mare moved forward, but I kept watching Lys the entire time who remained as still as a statue in his saddle.
After five days of travel and five nights spent sleeping outdoors, enduring a level of discomfort I was absolutely not accustomed to, and bathing in painfully cold water, on the sixth morning we saw a village from the hills ahead of us.
“It's enormous,” I said, looking down at the “village” spread beneath us. It was almost as large as a quarter of Seapoint.
Welme only nodded, her eyes already filling with tears.
Her face was glowing with so many emotions that her lips trembled with both fear and excitement. Her hands gripped the reins so tightly that her knuckles had gone white beneath the pressure, the veins standing out across her skin.
“I passed through here once, many years ago,” Lysande said, more to himself than to either of us. “It isn't really a village. More like a town. It has its own trade routes. I think they grow some special kind of apple here or something—”
“Pears. For wine.” Welme spoke for the first time in hours.
“They also have a special breed of pig that only eats acorns, and they sell its meat all the way to the kingdoms across the sea.
“ Her words were barely making it past her tears.
Her wild hair had been tamed into a thick braid, and her face now burned with pure determination.
She struck the reins and began riding down the rocky slope.
“What you've done for her is truly beautiful, Isolde,” Lys said, and warmth spread through me as my cheeks began to burn.
Before I could answer, he gave his own horse the command to move and began riding down after her.