Page 30 of Crowning of the Sword

She hadn’t thought about Bob in years, and the memory wasn’t solid and concrete, just a vague jumble of images of warm summer sun, and the feel of Bob’s broad back, the gentle brush of horse lips as he snaffled an apple, and then … they were gone, as though it were a dream she’d had once a long time ago.

“I’m not sure if it’s such a good idea.” Falling from a normal horse was painful enough. If she fell from Farla’s back, she’d likely die.

“There’s nothing like it,” Cole promised her, as a servant quickly strapped a new type of harness to Farla’s saddle. “And I know you like being tied up,” he added wickedly.

Ember gasped in delighted shock and tapped his wrist reprovingly. “Stop!”

He threw back his head and laughed and she laughed with him, noting that the surrounding fae were now all observing her high in Cole’s favour. Politically, it would be unwise to be rude to the prince’s mistress even if she were a human, and more than one caught her eye and gave her a quick, ingratiating smile. Her spirits rose, and then sank again as Farla gave a loud whinny, shaking her mane as if impatient to be off. But Cole was in a good mood and the last thing Ember wanted was to spoil it, even if she was terrified. He helped her into the saddle and the servant buckled a belt across her lap, effectively binding her in.

“Be gentle, Farla,” said Cole and gave her a slap across her rump.

The horse broke into a trot, the great wings flexed as she leaped, and Ember screamed as the ground fell away beneath her.

Chapter 25

At first, she was too nervous to look anywhere but Farla’s mane blowing back in the breeze. She kept the reins loose and gripped tight to the pommel, trusting that the belt around her waist would keep her from falling. Farla flew so gently and sweetly along the gully, with none of the daring dives and swoops that the other horses were doing, that Ember’s confidence soon rose, and she loosened her grip, sitting up straight and gazing around her.

A horse approached, pulling up alongside, sending Farla into a sidestep and making Ember clutch at the pommel again.

“Welcome to my home!” Broude shouted, waving an expansive hand. “Do you love it?”

“It’s wonderful,” she called back, and he wheeled and dived.

The tent seemed a long way away, and there was another at the far end of the gully that she hadn’t noticed while on the ground. Unlike Cole’s pavilion in cream and pale yellows, like shifting sand dunes in the desert, this one was squat and solid, in charcoal grey and midnight blue. Ember guessed immediately who it belonged to, and her lips pressed together in annoyance. Yes, if she had returned directly to Cole after the waterfall affair, he might not have been so upset, and he might not have hurt Lissa. But, if Ashe had told Cole where she was, that she was safe, perhaps none of it would have happened either.

Ember wasn’t sure how to direct the horse; it somehow seemed impertinent to tug on Farla’s reins or kick her in the sides, but Farla seemed to guess at the direction of her thoughts and cantered in a gentle curve away from the dark pavilion—only to be brought up short as another horse shouldered in front of her.

Farla came to an abrupt halt, and the belt tightened around Ember’s waist as she jerked against it. She clutched at the pommel, but Farla’s wings kept her steady, and she glared at the figure in black before her. “Watch it!”

Ashe gave her a mock salute, turning his horse next to hers, as companionably as if they were two friends out on a day’s ride together. He rode as if his horse was an extension of himself, the black shimmer of its hide and wings, and silver bridle a match to Ashe’s habitual uniform of black leather and burnished silver hardware.

“Don’t be like that. You’re the one who was coming to visit me.”

“I was not! I was heading back, if you must know.”

“Why?”

“Because you got me and Lissa into terrible trouble. Why didn’t you tell Cole that I was safe?”

He shrugged. “Why should I?”

She let out an aggravated sigh. “He was furious.”

“I heard.” He smiled, as if the thought bothered him not a jot. “Fancy having his own teammate beaten.”

His tone was careless, and in that instant, she hated him. The memory of the welts rising on Lissa’s pale skin, and worse, the memory of the arousal Cole had kindled in her while it was happening, sickened her. And the way he said it, teammate, as if that were the problem, as if it would have been okay for the beating to be delivered to a servant. She couldn’t think of anything to say, and his gaze flicked to her face, his expression taken aback, as though he had expected a careless answer in return.

“I forget you’re not one of us. You must find us terribly… savage.” His tone was cutting, and it was clear he didn’t expect a response. “Don’t fret. You’ll be home before you know it. The opening ceremony begins soon, and then —”

“Home?” The word had evoked a strange feeling within her, a memory of a dream, like a horse she’d once had—or, no. It was gone. She frowned, puzzled.

Ashe’s face darkened. “Ember? You’ve been with Cole again?”

She seized on that, the image of her time with Cole as sharp and clear as a shard of glass. “Oh, yes.”

She smiled a slow, seductive smile of reminiscence that included Ashe, but had nothing to do with him at all, and he drew in a sharp breath. “Ember, you mustn’t. He can be addictive, all the fae can, but he will take from you, and take, and take, and you’ll be left with nothing. He’ll suck you dry and leave a husk. It’s what he does.”

She looked at him with scorn. “You’re just saying that to upset me, and to upset Cole. Your tactics won’t work on me.”

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