Page 62 of Kingdom of Shadows and Wings

My stomach plunges to my toes, and only pure stubbornness keeps me from diving off the alicorn’s back. As much as Thorne’s tactless feedback rubs me the wrong way, I don’t want to let him down.

He takes note of my white-knuckled death grip on the reins. “So how is it that a noble-born woman doesn’t have much experience riding a horse? Are you scared of horses too?”

Cued by a signal from the flight instructor, Zephyr lands. I barely get a chance to catch my breath before Thorne prompts the alicorn to go airborne once more. Sweat drips from my forehead. “No, not scared of horses. But my mother was overprotective. She didn’t like the idea of me riding away from the castle. I think the attack messed with her head, and I was a sickly child. She worried something would happen to me if I ventured out into the big wide world, so she kept me close.”

“Even once you got older?”

I sigh. “Even then. I still struggle with dizzy and weak spells.” I don’t mention the part about my fire magic, and how even with the magic suppressant, she fretted that I might lose control again in a crowded public place and hurt people.

Though I look straight ahead, my cheek burns from the weight of his stare. “That sounds lonely.”

I fidget in the saddle, uncomfortable with the shift in conversation. “Sometimes, but I really don’t have anything to complain about. I had my mother and my sister, up until Leesa left for Flighthaven. I had the staff. My mother did the best she could.”

Did she, though? When I say the words out loud, I’m not sure.

Zephyr repeats two more cycles of hovering before Thorne replies, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “It’s okay, you know. To love someone and still hate their choices and how they treat you. Family is complicated.”

I hesitate. “Do…is there someone in your family like that?”

“My brother.”

His shuttered expression tells me the discussion has ended, but my mind whirls as Zephyr flaps his wings and repeats the exercise. I ponder what choices his brother made that he hates, and why the other man treated Thorne badly. And I wonder if complicated family dynamics could explain why my moody instructor left home for so long.

Then Zephyr surges into the air, and my focus returns to the alicorn. At the end of our session, exhilarated laughter escapes me. I reach down and stroke Zephyr’s neck. “That was both terrifying and amazing.”

Thorne’s gaze grows distant. “Wait until you fly.”

Nervous energy zips down my spine, but I force myself to keep breathing.One step at a time.

When the lesson is over, I dismount without my teacher’s assistance.

Despite the fact that he’s a royal pain in the ass, I can’t deny how Thorne’s helped me come a long way in overcoming my fear of alicorns.

“Instructor?” I tug on my braid, annoyed with myself for being anxious about thanking him. “Thank you for all your help. With training, I mean.”

He studies me with an unreadable expression, and after a bit, I don’t think he’s going to answer me. “That’s my job, Duchess. Don’t make more of it than that.”

That’s what I get for trying to be polite.

A knot forms in my throat. “A simple ‘you’re welcome’ would have worked.”

I’d hoped to ask Thorne if he’d show me the dragons, but now might not be the most opportune moment. I bite my cheek. Screw it. “Do you think you could give me a tour of the dragon aerie sometime soon?”

He stiffens, emotions flitting across his face too quickly for me to comprehend them. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

Disappointment seeps into my bones. I don’t know why I bothered. “Whatever. I’ll ask Vice Commander Torno.” My conversation with her that first day leads me to believe she might be accommodating. “Have a nice day,sir.”

I turn on my heel and trip over my feet. Before I hit the ground, he pulls me up. There’s an unspoken apology in his eyes, and a flicker of something else. Longing? Desire? Or am I imagining things that aren’t there?

The air stills, and my stupid heart beats double-time.

He swallows. His gaze dips to my mouth before his jaw hardens. “Lark?—”

The sound of my given name on his tongue does funny things to my heart. Things I definitely should not be feeling. Embracing my inner coward, I turn and bolt.

It’s not until midway through breakfast that the weird ending to our training session fades enough for me to celebrate the positive aspects. I rode an alicorn whose hooves left the ground! That counts as a success regardless of how high I got—or didn’t get—into the air.

No one harasses Olive in the mess hall, and my hopes remain high as we leave breakfast. They plummet once we reach Kinneck’s class. Today’s torture session comes courtesy of an exercise he calls “walk the plank,” which I renamed the “pit of doom.”

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