I blink a hundred blinks, and Eogan gestures Colin to stay back and me to move toward Haven again. “Keep your arms as far from her face as possible,” is all he says.
It takes four times before I finally succeed in hoisting myself onto the animal, and by the time I do, I can feel the blood weeping freely through my bandage and a headache rising behind my eyes. I ignore both, as Eogan tries to control Haven with his cooing.
He waits for me to get settled while Haven shivers and shakes her mane.
“Good. Very good,” Eogan says to her. He hands me her reins but keeps the lead chain entwined around his fingers. He clicks his tongue and lets her out ten feet, and before I can focus my breath, Haven is trotting in circles around Eogan, tugging away, then lunging in, as if performing a complicated winter-solstice dance.
For the first five minutes I’m gripping her reins and water-soaked mane for dear life, praying I don’t die an awkward death in front of Colin and Eogan. But then the horse’s huge muscles sync with mine and trigger a sort of sixth sense between the two of us. With my hands in her hair and my wrists against her skin, I feel her pulse align with the thump, thump, thump of mine as the wind whips the rain against my face.
One second I’m inhaling her wet, musky scent and the next my chest explodes with a rush, and I’m laughing. Because it’s the most insane, exquisite thing I’ve ever done. And unlike the bird I carved into my arm this morning, I can actually experience the taste of flight.
CHAPTER 10
EOGAN LETS HAVEN PLAY AT THIS WEAVING BACK and forth for an hour before her personality suddenly shifts to more adventurous and irritable. Then he reins her in and has me slide off while keeping her face in front of his.
“Pat her side and tell her—” Eogan doesn’t need to finish because I’m already petting and thanking her for the ride of freedom mixed with terror. And for allowing me to leave with all my limbs still attached.
While I stand under the shelter of the pine trees, grinning like an idiot in my stench of blood and horse sweat, Eogan takes her to the barn and returns to repeat the exercise with Colin on the other beast.
By lunchtime, the rain has turned to a thick downpour, with the threat of lightning pricking the hair along my neck. Colin and I hurry to the house kitchen for cold quail and potato pasties. We’re just finishing when the door flaps open and Adora struts in, looking like a woman on fire in her orange ensemble. She crosses her arms as the kitchen staff cowers.
“Bron’s taken the rest of our ships,” she snips, “except for those holding the northwest waterway. We’ve a matter of weeks left, so I trust you’re training hard.”
Well, hello to you too.
“Absolutely.” Colin jumps up and offers her his seat.
She ignores it and stares at me.
I nod.
She narrows her eyes. “Work harder.” Turning, she glides from the room.
I don’t look at Colin as we head back to the field to meet Eogan, who’s standing looking up at the sky. The horses gone. The clouds no longer raining.
Colin snickers and jabs me with his elbow. “Watch this.” Quick as a snake, he leans low and shoves one hand out. Instantly a growl erupts beneath our feet and one of Colin’s fissures snaps across the meadow floor to where Eogan is. Our trainer glances over and raises an eyebrow at Colin just as the rushing dirt halts a few feet in front of him. He smirks.
Colin shakes his head. “I don’t know how he does it. Stops it like that.” He looks at me. “But I can’t wait ’til you try to put one over on ’im. When you’re . . . you know, safe and don’t kill ’im.”
Eogan’s now studying me as if trying to figure out which broken part to poke next. “I’m pretty sure I’ll always want to kill him,” I mutter as he strides over.
“Colin, go ahead and give me ten paces and wait.”
As the boy walks off, Eogan steps behind me to place his hands on my shoulders. I go rigid. He skims his fingers across my neck to move aside my long braid, and I try not to remember the protective look on his face from earlier or notice his earthy scent or the way my rib cage squirms as he leans in, like I’ve got a trapped butterfly in there.
“Today we’re going to try a different approach. See Colin there?”
I tilt my head at the bald boy currently walking in circles on his hands.
“Good. Now imagine that he’s in danger.”
Colin pauses to do a one-handed push-up, while I try to picture him being harmed. He lifts an eyebrow at me.
“Now save him.”
“What?” I turn to Eogan, but pain crushes my left hand as he presses into it, summoning the storm. When I start to resist, Eogan says, “It’s what we want. Allow it.”
But I can’t. Especially not with his breath on my neck.
The static diminishes.
“Again,” he says.
“I don’t know—”
He releases my one hand and grabs for the other, then pinches into my brand-new owner circle. “But this time, imagine he’s in danger from an owner.”