The Queen's Secret (The Queen's Secret #2) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,50

horse’s rider almost slips off at the next. I can’t hear their pounding hooves anymore; the roar of the watching crowd drowns them out. There’s nothing between one horse and the next. This race will come down to the final moments.

But on the sixth circuit Raven pulls ahead—not even by a length, but enough to win. Hansen is on his feet as well, bellowing and whooping. I wish I’d given my horse a name, so I’d have something to shout, but all I can do is watch and will the white horse to win. Win, win, win.

“Come on!” I call, though I know the horse can’t hear me. Raven pulls even farther ahead, and now there’s only one corner left. If my horse doesn’t overtake the black horse here, it’s all over.

The final moments of the race play out like a dream—a bad dream, a collective dream—that all of us gathered here are forced to witness. On the last corner, just before the final stretch, my horse rears up and throws the rider to the ground. He bounces on the hard stone and rolls into the crowd.

“Yes!” shouts Hansen, because this means the race is over. All Raven and his rider need to do is cross the finish line. The white horse is disqualified. I flop back down on my makeshift throne, trying to compose my face. I must appear to be a gracious loser.

My horse is still running, because it doesn’t know the race is lost. I squint at it, then blink, because I seem to be seeing things. The white horse is changing color. Its lilac ribbons and the binding for its racing saddle drop to the ground, as though someone’s untied them. The horse is gray; now it’s the color of a bruise, the color of a rain cloud. It has four legs; now it has eight legs. Now it’s lifting off the ground, swirling through the air toward the black horse and its rider.

We can hear the black horse’s hooves now, because everyone in the courtyard has fallen silent; there’s a jumble of voices from people stationed in the streets, but they sound distant, unformed. My white horse is a horse no longer. It has transformed into a whirling tornado of iron-like claws, dark and furious, spiraling toward its opponent.

I stand up again, and Hansen clutches at my arm, mouth hanging open. The clawed tornado thumps into the black horse, and the rider is hurled high into the air. With a sickening crack, he lands on the stones. The black horse is no longer running—no longer standing. Strips of black flesh and bloody innards fly through the air, and people begin to scream. The black horse is decapitated and its head lands at the feet of Lady Cecilia. She shrieks, a bloodcurdling sound, and falls away in a faint. The Chief Scribe has collapsed as well, and Lord Burley is on his feet, moaning and swaying, propped up by attendants.

What we’re all witnessing is sickening, extreme. It’s impossible to make sense of it. The black whirl of the tornado slices through every piece of the horse. Strands of its tail and mane float through the air like spring pollen, and people duck to avoid it or scream as a piece falls onto their clothes. Moments ago two horses were racing. Now there are no horses. One has transformed and enacted terrible violence on the other. Raven is in pieces now, his huge heart lying on the cobbles, still throbbing: It is purple and grotesque.

Hansen is looking at me, his eyes wide with horror. Neither of us can speak. Some people are running away, scattering; some are screaming or crying. Around me the people of the court are on their feet, except for the prone Lady Cecilia.

They’re all looking at me. The foreigner, the interloper, with a horse that’s turned into a terrible demon. And I know, without anyone saying a word, that they think I’m behind this attack, and that the dark magic of this afternoon is my monstrous creation.

Chapter Twenty-One

Lilac

Nobody wants to go near the shredded and broken body of the dead black horse. What remains of its corpse lies in pieces, strewn around the square, as though the body were attacked by a thousand knives. The dark tornado that was once my white horse has disappeared. No one saw where it went. Maybe it dissipated in the chilly air, an apparition. An obsidian cloud.

I’m shaking, struggling to pick a strand of horse hair from