His family’s keep. His family’s stables. Yet he did not recognize her. “Borrowing means you asked permission.”
“Ah.” She held up a finger, like a tutor making a point. “It also means ‘to take with the pledge to return.’ Which I have just done. Therefore we are both in the right.”
“Who says?” Cas demanded.
She lifted a shoulder. “A book I read.”
Izaro made a disapproving sound in his throat. “Beware the clever ones,” he warned.
Cas ignored him. “Where’s your horse?”
“Stolen.” Ignoring the look he gave her, she tossed his saddlebag onto the ground, then fished a coin from the pouch at her belt and flipped it into the air. It landed on the bag. “For your troubles. There’ll be more when you reach the city.”
Cas looked at the coin, then at his sweat-stained clothing, brown and green, nothing to distinguish him from any other dirty, weary traveler. He was weary. Walking the rest of the way would add hours to his journey.
He could simply tell her who he was. She would believe him eventually. He imagined what would come next. He could not leave her here, which meant they would have to share the horse. No. He would rather walk. It had been a long time since he had felt at ease in the company of others. Solitude had come to fit him like a glove.
“Fine,” he conceded. “You may borrow her. I meant to check her hooves for bruising before we left. I’ll do it now.”
“Good try.” Her smile was genuine. “My apologies, truly, but I need this horse more than you do. I am so terribly late.”
For what? he wanted to ask, but she was already gone. Cas watched her race away, down the road to Palmerin. Outrage warred with admiration. A horse thief, yes, but she could ride. He turned to admit the same to Izaro, but the toll keeper was no longer by his side. He had trudged back toward his grave, without prayer, unmourned, leaving Cas by the trees and the riverbank, with nothing but his guilt for company.
2
Hours later, Cas found his horse. Or, rather, his horse found him.
He walked along an empty road, a path he had not seen in years. In the time since he had been robbed by the girl, he had bathed in the frigid river—thankfully no one had been around to hear his yelps and gasps—and changed his clothing. A black wool tunic and trousers beneath a hooded cloak. Tall black boots. All of fine quality. A doctor’s widow had offered them as payment for digging two graves. One for her husband and one for her son. Cas was grateful. He had not wanted to return home in old clothing and worn shoe leather. He had his pride. Even now, after all that had come to pass.
Palmerin’s great aqueduct rose high on his left, soaring double arches and ancient, weathered stone. The old builders had not used mortar between the granite blocks. They had been fitted together like the pieces of a giant puzzle. That the aqueduct remained standing a thousand years after construction was an engineering marvel. A small copse of trees stood to the right. Most of the leaves remained green, but some had turned, oranges and golds, and as he watched them drift to the ground, a white horse bolted from the copse. His mare. She veered onto the road toward Cas, who, startled, dropped his saddlebag. He kept his arms extended in front of him, palms out, calling, “Whoa! Whoa! It’s me. Whoa!” The horse galloped on. He was afraid she would not stop. But, seconds away from trampling him into the dust, she came to a halt. Breathing hard. Just as he was.
“Come now. You’re all right.” He kept his voice low and soothing, stroking her mane and eventually earning a nuzzled ear in response. He scooped up his bag and made quick work of tying it to the saddle. “What happened?” he asked the horse. “Where is she?” Cas scanned the area. A lone vulture circled overhead, bearded and ominous. A lammergeier. The wind had picked up and there was nothing to be heard but the rustling of leaves and the swaying of grass, tall as his knees.
Until there was.
“Wretched beast! Shoo! Go away!”
Cas spun. There. A voice from the copse. Female, panicked, quite definitely his horse thief. A howling followed her cries. Like a barn cat, but bigger and meaner. Recognizing it, he snatched up the reins and fast-stepped the horse to a tree where she would not be easily seen by passing travelers. And then he ran.
The closer he came to the howling, the more cautious he grew. He navigated around the oak and the pine, the elm and the juniper, stepping over branches and sliding past dry, crumbling leaves to mask his footsteps. A saddlebag lay abandoned in the dirt. So did a messenger’s cap. The copse gave way to a small clearing. Cas peered out from behind an elm.
Across the clearing was his horse thief. He could see her boots high up on the branch of a lone flame tree. Just the boots. Bright red tree cover shielded the rest of her. Directly beneath, a mountain lynx pawed at the trunk and hissed. The cat was the size of a large dog. Smaller than the ones that lived at Palmerin Keep. Still a terrible threat. Even from this distance, he could tell something was wrong with it. Lynx were prized among the nobility, their distinct fur—black spots on white—often sewn onto collars and cuffs and into the lining of expensive winter cloaks. This lynx would not be lining any cloaks. Its fur was sparse and mangy. Patches had fallen off, or been chewed off, leaving the skin beneath raw and exposed.
The thief continued to hurl down abuse. A steady stream of vivid curses and threats. Cas crept closer, careful to stay hidden. He was fifty feet away when the howling stopped. The lynx whipped around, hackles rising. It had caught his scent.
Cas retrieved the slingshot at his belt. He reached into his pouch and withdrew an iron ball the size of a plum and covered in spikes. He had learned to keep several on hand for when a simple rock would not do.
All the while, the lynx searched the tree line. It bared its teeth. Cas had been spotted.
“When I come down from this tree you’ll regret it . . . Where are you going now, you wretched—?”
Cas stepped out into the open. Hissing, the lynx abandoned the tree and raced toward him on paws that skimmed the grass. As it drew closer, Cas saw the foam that covered its mouth and drenched its beard. Its eyes were horrible. Blood-filled, dripping from the corners. Careful not to pierce himself, he placed the ball in the sling, raised the shot, and waited. His heart thundered in his chest. He dared not miss. He could not risk a bite from this animal, not one scratch. Not with its foaming mouth and bleeding eyes. Only when it launched itself in the air did Cas send the ball flying.
“I am sorry,” he said.
The ball lodged deep in one eye and the lynx fell down dead at his feet. A final hiss marked its passing. Cas shoved the slingshot in his belt and ran.
The thief stood on a thick branch of the flame tree, a very high place to have climbed without the help of notches and footholds. He did not see any. With her cap missing, a long dark braid had been freed. Her eyes widened in recognition when she saw him.
“You!”