“Right. And then she won’t eat me?”
“Oh, she’ll try. She’ll just know you won’t let her.”
I snort.
Colin gives a loud, impatient grumble from somewhere I can’t see.
“Oh, nip it!” I holler.
He laughs.
I try again to climb onto Haven, but this time the tightness of the animal’s mane wrapped around my wrist rips the memorial cut on my arm open, and the pain is so excruciating I don’t even get halfway. As I fall back, the horse’s nostrils flare wide and she jerks toward me, bucking and baring her teeth, and the only thing that keeps me from becoming her breakfast is Eogan’s ironclad hold.
“Whoa, girl.” he soothes. “What in hulls has gotten into you?” He tilts his head and assesses her, then drops his gaze and gives me an odd, confused sweep. And stops at my arm. I follow his frown and discover spots of brown on my sleeve.
“Colin.” Eogan’s tone goes tight. “Take a five-lap run, mate.”
With minimal complaint the boy is gone, and Eogan holds the horse at arm’s length while he grabs my sleeve with his free hand. His grip tenses as he visually inspects the bloody wrapping. The horse groans and whines. Then her moans turn to hissing, and suddenly Eogan is releasing my arm and jerking Haven away.
I look at the ground. At the trees. At anything but the piercing gaze of my trainer.
Waiting for it . . .
When his words erupt, they’re controlled fury, like muted thunder across a meadow. “What in bolcranes were you thinking? Carving into your skin—harming yourself like that? Do you have a death wish?”
“Me? You’re having us ride a man-eating animal!”
“These horses are controllable in the right environment. But you . . . you have fresh blood oozing from a wound that won’t seal over for another few hours. And you, what—thought it none of my business? Between disease and these horses . . .” He snaps the chain to bring the animal’s wandering mouth back in line. “You do realize Haven’s smelling your blood right now, yes?”
I clench my teeth and watch his gaze flash down my neck, my collarbone, my arm. He narrows his expression. “You think cutting marks in your body will make a difference? Like it’s some noble form of penance for the people you’ve hurt? Because it’s not. It’s foolish, and it’ll just get you killed quicker.”
I practically choke at his words. How does he know what the markings are for? And who does he think he is? He’s known me for two days and thinks he’s already figured me out? Curse him. “Who are you to pretend you understand me? You know nothing!”
“I understand you feel bad for those people and that you should show it in the way the rest of us do—with a totem or a nice shrine maybe. But instead you . . . you . . .”
“I what? Leave a mark? Like you did on my other arm? How dare you lecture me on what I do to my body!” I tug my sleeve up to reveal the stained bandage that still covers the owner circle.
He freezes.
My throat shakes; my arm trembles. I shut my eyes and pretend I can ignore him. Focus on the smell of rain in the air. I can practically feel its friction in the clouds above us. Waiting to descend.
“Look at me, Nym.”
He has to say it twice before I give in and glare ice picks at his face.
When I do, he steps closer and, still using one hand to control the horse, pushes his other hand through his hair. Licks his lips. “It was either me or Adora’s slave hands, and you don’t even want to know what those men were plan—” He stops so suddenly I blink. The look on his face says he should’ve stopped sooner.
Except it’s too late because I already caught it. The glint of something foreign in his tone. Of mercy. Of pity.
Of protection.
And judging from his expression, he’s just as shocked by it as I am. Abruptly, his reaction lodges in the raw, aching space inside of me that’s never known anyone who’d want to protect me, let alone why, and the impact is spinning me the same way his gaze does.
It shatters the air into a million jagged pieces that hurt to inhale but leave me begging for more. A growl erupts from the storm overhead, and suddenly the clouds burst and raindrops are sliding their fingers down my face and heart, and it’s like fire along my bones. Soothing. Stimulating. Swirling my insides with a confusion I didn’t even know I was capable of.
I look down at my boots as the horse gives an agitated snort at the storm. I will not cry, I will not cry, I refuse to cry.
Eogan shifts and clears his throat. “I was protecting your body,” he murmurs, just as Colin emerges from the tree line. “And not so you could carve it up.”
“What’s Nym yelling about? What’d I miss?”