Her soldiers step hastily out of her way as she storms across the deck and down the gangplank. Her horse stands ready and waiting near the shore. She unties its reins from the post, then puts a foot in the saddle and swings up onto its back.
“Maeve,” Lucent calls out behind her. “Your Majesty!” But Maeve has already guided the horse around and tapped its hindquarters with her heels. She doesn’t turn around at Lucent’s voice. Instead, she leans down to the horse’s ear and whispers something. She kicks its hindquarters again. The horse startles to life and takes off down the path.
Behind her, Lucent hurries to her horse and swings up. Then she hunches down over its back and takes off down the path in close pursuit. Her copper curls stream out behind her, whipping in the wind in unison with its mane. Maeve pushes her horse faster. She used to ride like this with Lucent when they were young, when Maeve was just a little princess and Lucent one of her guard’s daughters. Lucent always won. She would push her horse until the two of them became one, and her laughter would ring out across the Beldish plains, teasing Maeve to ride faster in order to catch her. Maeve wonders now whether Lucent remembers those moments. The wind whistles in her ears. Faster, she urges the horse.
Lucent calls the wind. A sudden gust seems to hit Maeve, and the gap between their horses narrows. They race up the path until it leads them to the top of the cliffs, then race along the edge of a plain, hugging the edge of the land where the canals open into the sea. Maeve shifts her attention from the path ahead to where it curves along the cliff side.
Suddenly, Lucent steers her horse off the course and races to cut off Maeve. Maeve looks over her shoulder. It’s a familiar move, and somehow, it brings a slight smile to Maeve’s lips. Faster, faster, she urges her horse. She bends so low over its neck that it seems like they blend together into one.
The world disappears into streaks. Lucent’s shouts pierce the tunnel, until it seems like they have gone back in time to the day when Tristan first drowned. Help him! Lucent had screamed that fateful night. She shook Maeve with a tearstained face. I didn’t mean it—the ice was too thin! Please—help me get him!
Maeve lets out a startled shout when Lucent suddenly cuts into the path beside her. The childhood version of her voice vanishes, replaced by the voice of the woman she has become.
“Stop!” Lucent shouts.
Maeve ignores her.
“Stop!”
When Maeve still doesn’t listen, Lucent pushes her horse one more time. She tries in vain to steer her horse away. Maeve glances over. “Your wrist—!” she starts to shout, but the warning comes too late. Lucent forgets her broken wrist, and flinches away with a yell. For a moment, her concentration breaks—right as her horse leaps. She loses her balance. Maeve has no time to reach out as she sees Lucent topple from her stallion and vanish from sight.
A rush of wind cushions her fall, but she still rolls once. Her stallion gallops on. Maeve looks over her shoulder to where Lucent lies in the dirt, then pulls her own horse to a halt. She dismounts and runs over to her side.
Lucent pushes her away when she tries to help her up.
“You shouldn’t have come after me,” Maeve snaps. “I just needed to think.”
Lucent looks up at Maeve with flashing eyes. Then she pushes herself up from the ground and starts to walk away. “Never in my life have I seen Raffaele raise his voice like that to anyone. We all knew that Tristan would never be wholly like how he was before … but it’s worse than that, isn’t it? He is dying, all over again.”
“He is not dying,” Maeve calls angrily to her. “He is exactly the way he’s supposed to be.” She runs a hand along her high braids. “Don’t tell me I should have done differently.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Lucent shakes her head. “Tell me?”
Maeve scowls at her. “I am your queen,” she says, lifting her head high. “Not your riding confidant.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Lucent blurts out. She extends her arms, as if she can no longer feel the pain in her injured wrist. “We haven’t been riding partners for a long time, Your Majesty.”
“Lucent,” Maeve says quietly, but the other girl goes on.
“Why didn’t you write more?” she says, stopping in her tracks. She shakes her head in despair. “Every time you wrote, it was business and politics. Tedious matters of the state that I never wanted to know.”
“You needed to know,” Maeve replies. “I wanted to keep you updated on the affairs of Beldain, and on when I thought you could return from your exile.”
“I wanted to hear about you.” Lucent takes a step closer to her. Her voice sounds anguished now. “But you just went along with your mother, didn’t you? You know what happened with Tristan was an accident. I dared him to walk out on the ice—he fell through. I never meant to hurt him! And you just stood by and let your mother decide my fate.”