Lord of the Wolfyn - By Jessica Andersen Page 0,63
then glanced back at the villagers, thought better of it and yelled, “Hang on!”
Dayn did his best, getting a good grip on the empty bedroll straps at the back of the age-cracked cavalry saddle as Reda rode the bolt, steering the white-eyed bay through the village gate and out onto the main road, where they thundered for nearly a mile before the animal began to tire, slowing to a bumpy canter, then to a tooth-jarring trot.
Still, though, the horse was restive and upset, refusing to settle, to the point that it was all Reda could do to spin the creature in a circle as Dayn slid down. The brute kicked out and scooted away, but she hauled it back around in a few snorting, prancing whirls, and then it finally started to calm down, blowing elephant-bugle snorts at Dayn.
Who just stood there in the road, staring.
She didn’t say anything, either, just met his eyes with a cool expression that didn’t tell him a thing. After a moment, she lifted her chin as if to say, Well?
“You can ride,” he said, which was dead stupid because that was far from the most important thing. But the sight of her astride the wall-eyed bay, carrying a weapon from her own realm and wearing clothes mixed from the other two, shifted his perceptions, jarring him and replacing his image of wide, scared blue eyes.
“I did Pony Club for a bit, played polo now and then in college.” She paused. “That and the archery were the closest I could get to living out the fairy tales. Until now.”
He had told himself he didn’t want her here in this wreck of a kingdom, that he didn’t have it in him to protect her and do his duty both. But now that she was here, really here, he wanted to fall to his knees and thank the gods and the magic, wanted to kiss her booted toe and work his way up from there, and wanted, somehow, to make things right between them. Because she was here.
The kingdom was a wasteland, Moragh had turned the villagers against him and put a bounty on his head, his siblings were nowhere to be seen and, given how much had been drained from the land, the Blood Sorcerer’s powers must be immense.
But sudden, illogical joy wrapped itself around his heart as he stood there staring up at a woman who looked like something from the stories of his own childhood—a goddess of the hunt, perhaps, or a patroness of the king’s elite cavalry. Yet at the same time she was the Reda he had known in the wolfyn realm, the one he had made love to, cared for, wanted beyond all reason.
His throat tightened, burning with emotion. “You used the Elden spell.”
But she shook her head. “I was sent here.”
His blood cooled a degree. “Then how…?”
“Your father. At least, I think that’s who it was. He pulled me into limbo, told me I had to help you get all the way to the castle, and that you need to remember your true self. And that if I do that, I can go home for real.”
“I know what I am and what I must be—a prince of Elden, with all that it entails.” He paused, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Why did he send you with the message? Why not just talk to me while I was in the vortex?”
She looked past him. “I have a theory on that. I got here a few hours ago, bought MacEvoy here—” she indicated the bay, who had leveled off to flat-footed, eye-rolling suspicion “—and clothes that didn’t scream ‘outsider’ quite so loudly. Then I just…I don’t know. Started riding. And that gave me time to think.”
He was still working to catch up with the sudden differences in her. The fear was gone—or if not gone, so deeply buried that he couldn’t see it anymore. More, she was calm and competent, automatically settling her mount with a touch here, a shift of weight there, and wearing the bow naturally across her back as if it had been made for her. The Queen’s Guard would have been proud to have a woman like her. And a kingdom in need of rebuilding could do worse.
Slow down, he told himself, all too aware that their entire relationship had taken place at a flat-out gallop, and that a single misstep at such speed could be fatal. “Your theory?” he prompted when she didn’t continue.