Chapter Two Romantic Failure
Geese honked overhead. Circling the camp, the trees contemplated autumn. One large, looming oak at the end of the meadow had turned completely red.
I finished my list of questions for Sorrel last night and now camp was breaking for another day of riding.
I had been told we would come to the most northern town of the valley lands that afternoon, Sage Ravine.
We’d seen small groups of thatch-roofed farmhouses here and there, even a crossroads with a smattering of village but, for the most part, our route had been green forests and shady, glacial-carved valleys.
In my first days in Landsome, I spent little time in the hillside town clustered around Castle Creneda. I was eager to see another side of Landsome as well as break up the routine of the road.
“No, Peanut Butter, whoa.”
I stood on the wooden stepping stool the groom delivered with my horse. I held the reins tight in my hand, but every time I lifted my left leg for the stirrup, Peanut Butter shifted away, meaning I had to climb off the step, reangle the stool, and try again.
For the last time.
I vaulted onto Peanut Butter’s back, stomach over saddle, feet dangling on one side, neither on the stool nor in a stirrup. Peanut Butter wasn’t a tall horse, but he was tall enough.
He took a step forward.
“Whoa! Whoa.” I tried to make my voice deep and authoritative.
Peanut Butter took another step, and I hefted myself up and forward to get a leg over to the other side.
I felt my hips groan at shifting back into the weary riding position.
I sat partway up but lost the reins, didn’t have a foot in either stirrup, and promptly slid to the ground with a jolt.
Peanut Butter took a dainty step away, as if to distance himself from me.
My arms were sore from last night’s mandatory sword drills and now my butt was throbbing from the fall.
A moan grumbled out of me as I stooped to my feet and caught the dangling reins before Peanut Butter accidentally stepped on them. If he jerked his head up with a rein under his hoof, that would be a true disaster. He could break the bridle, even get hurt.
“Do you need help, Lady Dottie?”
Lady Ariana, the queen’s lady-in-waiting, was atop her handsome dappled gray.
The horse’s mane was trimmed neatly. Ariana wore a split dress of deep ocher that allowed her to put a leg on either side of the horse while appearing to be in a full skirt.
The yellow set off her brown skin and dark eyes.
Her thick black braid was straight down her back today, the tail of it touching the saddle.
She was perhaps a few years older than me and had that effortless aura of calm confidence.
My own horse was short with a black tail and mane that fell shaggily on both sides of his neck.
(Was I supposed to be the one brushing it?) Peanut Butter was currently trying to snatch a bite of grass despite the bit in his mouth, and I was dressed in the wrinkled hunting greens I’d worn yesterday morning while drilling, then while riding in the afternoon, again at evening practice where I tried to convince Omar that meditating was an important first step on the road to enlightenment for young magical folk, and still again this morning at drills.
I was a fraud. I was pretty sure I was starting to smell. And there was a handsome man I was trying not to be alone with so I could make a move on another.
It was a long cry from the romantic vacation Sorrel had promised.
“You need to move with more confidence,” Ariana said. “Your horse doesn’t respect you at all. He’s going to continue taking advantage until he realizes you’re a serious rider.”
“I’m not a serious rider. Peanut Butter knows it.” I brushed grass from the back of my pants.
“Peanut Butter.” Ariana tried the name. “As in ghee?”
“Kind of but made from ground nuts.” I would have appreciated it if Sorrel had thought to pack a jar.
I moved warily around Peanut Butter’s front and reached to pull the stool forward.
“Ah, that right there,” Ariana said from atop her well-behaved horse.
“Dottie, don’t accommodate Peanut Butter by moving the stool forward.
Instead, stand to the right, shorten up those reins, and gently push them back toward his chest. He needs to correct his poor behavior by backing into position himself. ”
A little self-conscious, I did what she said, shortened the reins and pushed backward. I could feel the pressure on his bit. Nothing happened. Then he took a tiny step back, followed by another.
“Well-done, Peanut Butter,” Ariana cooed. “Tell him how well he did.”
I patted his shoulder. “Good job, buddy.”
Ariana directed me through mounting Peanut Butter and soon our horses fell into step with each other.
There was already a column of riders, wagons, and soldiers on foot funneling out of the meadow and back to the wide-set dirt road heading east. The lazy autumn sun peeked through the tree branches as if it was having trouble waking up.
“I brought you these,” Ariana said. She handed me a pair of thin leather gloves, and I thanked her, noticing she was wearing similar ones. My hands were chilly, but the gloves made the reins more comfortable too. I thanked her again more sincerely.
“You’re an excellent rider,” I told Ariana, eager to cement what seemed like a new friendship.
She gave a small smile back. “Soon you will be too.”
From atop Peanut Butter, I noticed Ariana looked tired despite it being morning.
I knew why I couldn’t sleep on my thin straw roll last night: someone was snoring in the next tent and when I finally fell asleep, an owl hooted on a branch right over my head and woke me up.
Ariana was probably attending to the queen’s needs late into the night or had to wake early to dress her.
It was clear she was a hard worker and the role of lady-in-waiting was a constant one.
Ariana shouldn’t be tired. She should be in love, even if I couldn’t be.
As a fan of Landsome Roads, Ariana was one of my main targets.
Currently, Ariana was an overshadowed side character.
Helpful, always at the queen’s elbow, but muted throughout the story.
When the ghostwriter took over, she was nearly swept away altogether.
I wanted readers to see who she really was outside of her court duties and come into her own.
Though Ironclaw was the main character of the series, most of the readers were women.
They were complex bibliophiles who wanted a variety of character types in a story and Ariana was perfect—she was deeply entrenched in the activities of the court, had the perfect position to hear all the incoming news, and her quiet, strong personality offered a steadiness to balance the unpredictability of Ironclaw or the more outgoing Issa.
You really couldn’t write a better side character—except the series hadn’t utilized her as such.
Additionally, there was one major draw that benefitted my own purposes.
As much as it was essential to help Ironclaw and the queen along in their relationship and bring them back together, that had to happen at the very end of the book if I was going to steer Ironclaw away from kidnapping Draw.
If it so happened that I ran out of time to fix their royal relationship—and I was more than willing to sacrifice their happy ending to save Draw—the series deserved another great romance.
Ariana could be my key to ensuring romance stayed a focal point.
Besides, she deserved a spectacular ending after spending five books at the beck and call of a demanding queen. I spent most of my time around Queen Elthra fearful of saying the wrong thing or breaking etiquette, I couldn’t imagine what it was like for Ariana.
While I lay listening to my snoring neighbor, I made a list of men Ariana could fall in love with. I’d put a star next to the Master of Horse.
The problem was, I didn’t know how to talk to this elegant, shy woman. Still, she sought me out. That must count for something.
“Do you see safe travels on the road ahead, Dottie?”
Her question took me by surprise. Of course, she would want to know what my “prophetic powers” saw. I’d made a whole list of questions for my own magical being, but the people of Landsome were stuck with only me.
I nodded. “For a good long while yet. The Dark Mage’s apprentice is north now.
His host is gathering, but I don’t expect any attacks until we have the valley lands on our side, and even then, we’ll have some time.
” I was confident. Even in the ghostwriter’s version, the journey northeast was more desolate than dangerous.
Sheer wilderness as the valleys became eerie foothills.
The dramatic natural backdrop served to build the tension for the final standoff.
“I wonder how Lady Issa is doing. Are you able to...sense her at all?”
I didn’t know how to answer that and realized I hadn’t done a good job clarifying my powers for the court. I only had two: interdimensional time travel (which was subject to my Fairy Bookmother’s whims) and knowledge of the future (subject to my memory as a rabid reader).
“Not sense her day to day,” I said slowly, as if that was too bad, but what I did have was even better, “but I do have insight into how she’s being treated. She’s well and she’ll be able to get a letter back to us soon.”
“That’s something at least,” Ariana said politely. I got the sense that she had been hoping for solid details. My stomach sank at her disappointment. We hadn’t ridden together yet and I hoped she would want to again.
We followed the stream of horses and people in front of us around a bend in the trail. Two trees touched branches overhead and the sun was now shining more aggressively through the canopy. Ariana seemed comfortable riding in silence, but it made me anxious.