Page 10 of Queen Takes Rook
Enough was enough.:Will you allow me to show off?:I asked her through the bond, keeping my focus narrow, though I made sure Rik knew what I was up to.
She laughed in my mind, her magic sparkling like starlight through our bond.:Without question.:
:Tighten your thighs and stay deep in the saddle. I’ll take care of you.:
I pivoted on my rear left hoof, shoving both twins out of my way, and more importantly, away from our queen. I did it quickly, but so smoothly that she didn’t have a problem keeping her seat.
Clear of the twins, I started an old dressage drill I’d used as a young stud to warm up. Back before Desideria had gotten her claws into me. When I’d been young and idealistic. When I hadn’t known how heavy my honor would weigh upon me.
I trotted slowly in a large circle, neck arched, picking up each hoof like the ground was hot lava, but so smoothly that she never once lost contact with the saddle. She had no need to post or rise up in the stirrups. Then to really show off, I changed leads, back and forth, giving her a good rocking motion in the saddle, before I leaped, all four hooves leaving the ground. I landed so softly she didn’t even jar her teeth.
Rik, Daire, and Ezra rode after us while the twins scrambled to get on their mounts and follow. Mehen and Nevarre circled in the air above us. Xin was his ghostly wolf, and though my eyes couldn’t see him, my hell horse was fully aware of a predator quietly scouting ahead. I could smell him, even if I couldn’t see him without our queen’s bond to point the way.
I settled into a gentle canter, though I couldn’t resist putting just enough bounce in my gait to make sure her pelvis rocked up against the saddle. I circled around the waiting riders, Xochitl and her father on their mounts. The child laughed and clapped her hands. “You were teasing me. You don’t need help learning how to ride.”
Shara laughed ruefully as I settled into a walk beside them. “If this was any other horse, I would have fallen off in the first five minutes. Where are we going, Xochitl?”
“Papa said I could show you where the Fire Ceremony will be tonight.”
I drew to a halt and snorted. I could feel the outer boundary of the nest shimmering a pace ahead.
Our queen felt it too, and though she said nothing, I felt her immediate anxiety. She’d been hunted all her life and had only recently learned of the safety to be found in a nest. Rik rode closer on our left, his knee brushing my shoulder, while Daire and Ezra rode ahead to be sure it was safe. In broad daylight, there shouldn’t be any thralls about, and if Keisha Skye was half as smart as everyone thought she was, she’d wait to attack Shara on her own turf in New York City, not in another queen’s territory. Keisha couldn’t know how strong our queen was, let alone after taking her first sib.
I stepped across the invisible barrier and she shivered, though she kept her voice light. “What’s a Fire Ceremony?”
“We turn out all the lights at home and pile up big bonfires, but we don’t light them right away. There’s drums and dancing and singing, and I get to stay up all night.” She scowled. “If I can make it. I will this year.”
“I’m sure you will, butterfly.” Tepeyollotl’s voice rolled with thunder, even though he spoke to his daughter with a smile. He rode a black stallion almost as large as me, without a single rein or stirrup to control the animal. Evidently ancient Aztec gods had no need for something as trivial as tack. I had a feeling that he’d stride into war the same way: no weapon, no shield, just his formidable presence. The air around him was thick and heavy with danger, like any moment, a hurricane would explode out of him and devastate everything in his path.
“Tell her about the ceremony, Papa. What it means.”
“In the old days, we held the ceremony at the end of the fifty-two-year cycle with the hope that life would continue. All the fires were put out throughout the villages, and the priests waited for the signs to confirm the sun would rise again and life would continue. Zaniyah started the tradition of having the ceremony on the modern calendar’s New Year’s Eve. The intent is the same. Starting a new year, a new appreciation for life, our gifts of fire and sunlight and the promise of spring.”
“And death,” the little girl added. “Sacrifice.”
“We don’t sacrifice any longer, butterfly.”
“But you used to.”
He nodded and looked over at my queen, a wry smile softening the harsh planes of his face. “Our queens make the necessary sacrifice for us now.”
Shara’s thought echoed in all our bonds.:It always comes back to blood.:
Her bond tightened, not with fear, exactly, but preparation and grim acceptance. She would do whatever was needed to protect us all, without hesitation, though she didn’t look forward to whatever trial she would face. None of us did. In fact, a giant ball of dread settled in my stomach at the memory of what she’d gone through the last time the goddesses desired a sacrifice of her.
She didn’t want to suffer agony again, like when she’d grown the grove in her own nest.
When she’d died.
* * *
SHARA
The burn of thorns in my flesh flashed through my memory. I didn’t want to die on a heart tree again. Though if the goddesses wanted to grow a grove for House Zaniyah…
I would do whatever they required of me.
Xin’s silent, still bond suddenly sharpened in my mind.:There’s something watching from the clump of trees by the grotto. I’ll investigate.:
