A week ago, I tried to escape. I even had a wildcat attempt to end Basten’s life. Why would he now offer me to gallop freely ahead of him? Unless that’s the point—he wants to prove that I can’t ever escape, even at a gallop.
But there’s no cruelty in his eyes. “You and I both know there’s nowhere you can run that the Valveres can’t find you. So, yes, I trust you to return. I can’t hear anyone else in the woods for at least half a mile—it’s safe. Ride Myst as you like, as much as you like, across that distance and back.”
My lips part, still wondering if this is a trick, but Basten hasn’t shown any inclination toward twisted games like his master. He might be a brute, but he is as open as a book.
Myst. I nudge her with my ankles. He’s letting us run. For pleasure.
Her answer is an eager whinny. I tighten my legs around her and wind my fingers through her mane to hold on. Leaning forward, I say:
Go.
Her muscles bunch beneath my thighs as she surges forward. She’s a proud, spirited horse, and she’s craved this rush of movement as much as I have. She was as much a prisoner as me in the convent, and I can feel how her legs stretch out gratefully as she eats up the road.
I cling on, her speed startling but invigorating. The ache in my thighs vanishes as adrenaline floods me. Soon, the edge of panic ebbs, replaced by sheer joy. I feel laughter spilling out from my lips at the same time that tears sting my eyes. My hair whips behind me like a flag proclaiming that I am my own kingdom, and no man shall rule me. Myst’s hooves pound over the dirt road like she’s skipping on clouds. The trees blur on either side of us. We crest a small rise, and the forest opens up below. I can see for miles from here. The river valley stretches beyond with a vastness I’ve never experienced, and it steals my breath. Far in the distance, the mountains of the Blackened Forest rise, where the border wall between Volkany holds back the cursed kingdom. A sense of awe wraps around me like enchanted mist at this vast, beautiful world. So many little towns and hamlets dot the valleys. I imagine all the people down there, working and eating and falling in love, an entire world open for me.
Myst crests the hill and charges downward at an even greater speed into the valley.
I open my throat and let out a cry.
It’s magical, riding like this. No stone walls or gates cage us. Just me and Myst and the wind and the road. It’s a freedom I’ve never experienced, and it’s so awe-inspiring that it’s too much for me to take in, like a harvest bounty overflowing its basket. My heart doesn’t know what to do with this surge of power. I’ve been confined by walls almost my entire life. Even if the walls didn’t lock me in, societal expectations would have done the same job. A lord’s daughter in this world is only good for her ability to fetch a powerful husband. Until I met Adan, there was never any hope for a different fate. But now here I am, free as a hawk. I could steer Myst into the forest if I wanted. I could climb that big elm tree to see the view. I could plunge into a stream, and no Sisters would be there to scold me.
I’ve come so far from that frightened, damaged girl I was when I stood in a muddy courtyard in a silk robe. I’ve experienced more in the last seventeen days than in the last seventeen years—most of all, what I’ve learned is just how much left there is to experience.
I draw Myst to a stop at the next rise. We both pant to catch our breaths as we take in the sweeping view of the Darmarnach Mountains in the distance. My hair falls around me in windswept waves.
As I gaze at those distant peaks, I think to myself that I can never go back to how I was before. Now that I’ve had a taste of freedom, I will never settle for anything less. Basten might drag me kicking and screaming to Duren, and Lord Rian might lock me inside Sorsha Hall, but I will never marry him.
I’m done letting men decide my fate.
Come on, Myst.
It’s painful to turn back and trot down the road until we reach Basten again, who all the while has had me on an invisible tether, but the hot seed of determination has lodged in my heart, and it’s already sprouted.
Somehow, I will sever that tie and win true freedom.
Chapter 14
Wolf
Blackwater.
It’s a cesspool of a town; like most port cities where transient people intermingle to trade goods or change travel routes, it draws the dregs of society. Spies. Prostitutes. Thieves. And it’s in Duren’s jurisdiction, so the Valveres control nearly every gambling hall and brothel within the town. When I first started working for the Valveres, they had me doing more unsavory tasks than hunting boar—the kind of jobs that weren’t exactly sanctioned under their license to operate the legal vices. The nature of that work brought me to Blackwater more times than I care to remember.
As we cross the bridge into town, my stomach clenches. I threw a man off this bridge once. He hadn’t paid his debts.
Not the kind of place you want to take a beautiful, nubile, naked lord’s daughter, for fuck’s sake. And yet as we step off the bridge into the town proper, I’m cautiously optimistic. The number of glances we get on the street is shockingly sparse. Sure, there are leers, but nothing like we experienced in Charmont or Polybridge. And then it hits me: In a town like Blackwater, a naked woman simply isn’t that unusual. Whores probably cavort bare-chested in the alleys every night. The people here are used to such sensationalism, unlike the prudish villagers of Charmont.
Sabine doesn’t seem troubled by the riffraff, either: vagrants slumped in doorways, mangy dogs, fortune tellers who’ll steal your coin and spit in your eye. Her attention is riveted to everything we pass, like we’re wandering through a mystical cave filled with fascinating treasures, instead of the Sin Streets.
The sizzle of cooking meat reaches my nose and makes my stomach rumble. Mediocre fiddle music comes out of a second-story window. As we pass a brothel with a topless whore leaning out the upstairs window, Sabine leans down to whisper to me, “Is that a Valvere pleasure house?”
Pleasure house? Fuck me. The girl is so innocent she can’t even say brothel.
I grunt in the affirmative. “This is the legal vice district of Blackwater. They call it the Sin Streets. The Valveres own most of the businesses here, including that brothel.”
A drunkard reeking of herb stumbles out of the brothel, blinking into the daylight. His eyes fix on Sabine riding Myst like she’s Immortal Solene herself, awoken from her thousand-year slumber. And in a dirty town like this, she might be the closest thing to a god.
He gapes at her, and as she passes, tugs off his cap and presses it to his chest. I roll my eyes, but a part of me appreciates that finally, someone is giving Sabine the respect she deserves. Even if it is just a drunk.
She strokes her hair distractedly as she takes in a brawl outside of a gambling den called Popelin’s Hazard.
“Immortal Popelin? The pleasure house was named for him, too.”