Page 131 of My Dark Horse Prince

“Your soul bond,” she says. “If I hadn’t left you on that train, you’d never have been in trouble, and he’d never have saved you, and neither of you would ever have changed so gloriously.” She doesn’t cackle this time. She just smiles, revealing very shiny dentures that look too big for her thin-lipped mouth. “But I did leave you, and you were almost killed, and he did rescue you. It wasn’t pleasant, but real change, soul-deep change, it never is comfortable. It can’t be.” She reaches for his nose with one wrinkled hand, and he actually lets her touch him. “I wonder.” She snatches her hand back and turns to face me again. “If I gave you the choice, would you do it all again, just the same?”

I open my mouth, but they call the first jumper.

“Never mind, then, girl. It’s time for you to go. You’ll have to discover those answers for yourself. And maybe you can help the other. She’s going to need it. Her road will be even bumpier than yours.” And then she’s cackling again. A sound that now sends chills up my spine.

“But wait,” I say. “I have questions.”

“Isn’t it hilarious how young people always think that just because they have questions, they’re entitled to the answers?” She smirks. “You have to earn the answers, girl. If you don’t, they’re meaningless anyway.”

“Mirdza,” Kristiana calls.

“I have to—actually, you should meet my friend.” I turn to wave Kristiana over, but when I turn back around, the old woman is gone. “Whoa,” I say. “Where did she go?”

The strangest thing is that I’m not even surprised. It feels right, somehow, that she’d just disappear into thin air. An ominous feeling steals over me. I hope her departure this time isn’t as unlucky as it was the last.

I watch as the first rider knocks two poles, essentially eliminating them from the finals. The second rider knocks three, but it’s really her own fault. When her horse picked up too much speed, instead of slowing him down with her seat, she yanked on him. That only made him go faster, and then he overcorrected, plummeting after each jump.

It was painful to watch.

But the next two run clear, and I start to worry.

How many of us are going to make it to the jump off?

Brigita goes next, and she and Blanka are the third team to have a clean round. And they were fast, finishing with a second and a half to spare.

I plan out the route in my head again, modifying for the successes and failures I’ve seen. We can cut tighter corners than that second pair, and we always hit the base of the jump before we launch, now. Finally, it’s almost our turn. Five pairs have run clean, so far. Brigita was right, though. The twelfth jump has been the most knocked of all. It’s the highest on the course, at 1.6 meters, and although it’s a vertical, it follows quickly behind a difficult triple combination. I think a lot of the horses underestimate the height because of the angle of the turn right before it.

I run Charlemagne through a few arcs and turns in the warm-up ring, and then Kris is calling us over. “You’re on in two runs,” she says. “Do you feel ready?”

I glance over at the crowd. Adriana’s looking my way and she waves, but the seat next to her is empty. “Where’s my mom?”

Kris swallows. “She, uh, she had something come up.”

A ball forms in the pit of my stomach. “Not Martinš, right?”

My best friend drops a hand on my arm. “Nothing like that, no. It’s just that she’s scared. She wanted to come, but in the end, she was too afraid.”

Nervous that I would fail and it would hurt her? Nervous that I’d be sad and she’d say the wrong thing? Worried she’d be embarrassed if I did poorly? Either way, it’s yet another disappointment.

It’s probably my fault for continuing to hope.

“You’re brave, Mirdza,” Kristiana says. “You have a leg that’s not quite right and pains you all the time. Your mother hasn’t always been there, cheering you on, and your sister is. . .erratic. And still, in spite of your miserable lack of support, you’re here, doing amazing things. Even if you knock down every single pole, I’ll still be ridiculously proud.”

“Wait, do you really think I might knock down every pole?”

“No.” She sighs in exasperation. “Mirdza, focus. You’re amazing. That’s the point.”

“But do you think—”

“Oh, stop.” She swats Charlemagne on the butt. “Get her out there, and don’t give her time to overthink this. She only has forty-five seconds from the buzzer to that first jump.”

And I only have seventy-three seconds to complete the entire course.

Brigita already jumped clear on my horse, but I still have the edge tonight. Charlemagne’s been groomed within an inch of his life. His hooves have been polished. His mane’s plaited in careful braids. His coat shines like a diamond. And when I ask for him to move, he practically floats. He moves off my slightest ask, curling around the opening at the one-third break and cantering easily toward the first vertical.

“Here we go,” I whisper. “Stay with me, now. Don’t take off.”

And he does. We sail over the first jump, and in my head, the little timer that always starts rolling on the television begins to count upward. I ask for a bit more speed as we circle to our second vertical, the one with the crazy Egyptian dog heads on the standards.

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