me. He reached over and grabbed my reins in one hand and pulled back. Mira immediately slowed to a walk and then stopped, flinging me forward. I dropped the reins completely to grab onto her mane, desperately clinging to her neck so I wouldn’t fall off. I was barely able to breathe past the wild thudding of my heart.
“So, you’ve never ridden a horse before,” Eljin commented with his eyebrows lifted.
“Why would you assume that?” I groused as I pushed myself back into the saddle, keeping my grip on Mira’s mane. That seemed a better place to hold on to than the reins if she was going to take off again.
Eljin just laughed. “She was only trotting. We’re going to have to go a lot faster than that if we want to catch up to Rafe in time.”
“She can go faster than that?” I could have sworn we were practically flying, the ground had been moving so quickly beneath Mira’s feet. Horses hadn’t seemed quite so terrifying when I’d watched other people ride them. In fact, it had almost looked fun. I knew better now.
“All right, let’s start with the basics. Sit deeper in to the saddle, and drop your heels down in the stirrups, so you can sit tall. Like this.”
I tried to imitate the way Eljin sat, with his heels lower than the stirrups, his back tall and his thighs and calves gripping his horse’s flanks.
“Now the reins. You need to hold them shorter, like this, so you can feel her mouth. That way you can guide her and slow her down if needed.” He talked me through the basics of riding, from pulling on the bit with one hand or the other to tell her to go right or left, to squeezing my legs for more speed, or sitting deeper and pulling back on the reins to slow her down.
“We don’t really have time to practice or take this slow. You’re going to have to just do the best you can. If all else fails, just don’t let go.”
He clucked to his horse, squeezed his legs, and took off, leaving me to follow.
“Remember our little talk?” I said as I shortened my reins the way Eljin had instructed me to and pressed my heels down in the stirrups. “Be nice to me. I’m kind of important to the king, and I think he’d get pretty upset if I got killed by a horse after everything else we’ve been through.”
Mira huffed, tossing her head. Eljin was already quite a way down the rutted road, and she was obviously eager to follow.
“All right.” I took a deep breath. “I can do this.”
I squeezed my legs and imitated the noise Eljin had made at Mira. She leaped forward again, but this time I was more prepared and was able to keep my seat. She was trotting again, as Eljin had called it, jarring my bones with each impact. Whatever Eljin’s horse was doing, it looked much nicer — and faster — so I squeezed again, and Mira’s gait changed into a rocking motion that finally started closing the distance between us and Eljin. The jarring stopped, and I found I was able to hold on much easier at this speed, even though it was faster than trotting.
When Mira pulled up alongside Eljin, he glanced over and gave me an approving nod. Ahead, I could see the main road, a wide, rutted path through the jungle. There was a group of men paid to travel the road and keep it free from weeds, but the jungle was tenacious, and it was impossible to keep it completely clear. As I followed Eljin’s lead, pulling on the left rein to direct Mira north onto the hard-packed dirt that was quickly turning to mud from the morning’s rain, I remembered Felton, Lady Vera’s man, telling Damian that the roads were in tolerable condition — especially for a jungle kingdom. He’d been so condescending, but he wasn’t completely inaccurate. Thick green bushes and weeds choked the edges of the jungle on either side of us and inched forward into the dirt beneath our horses’ pounding hooves. We’d only been riding for a few minutes when Farid’s prediction came true. The clouds opened above us. Sheets of water obscured our vision and turned the road to slop. But we pressed on, rushing toward Dansii and Rylan.
For days, we rode from sunrise until well after dark, only stopping to water our horses and allow them to graze