Page 134 of My Dark Horse Prince

That gives me the energy and confidence I need to really squeeze Charlemagne’s sides as we approach the first vertical. My hands are shaking, and my stomach’s unsteady, but it’s my dream—one I’d given up on.

And I’m here, doing it.

I tighten my reins just a hair and lean forward, ready to begin. Before I’m truly ready, it happens. Charlemagne launches and we’re flying through the air. We’re clear of the first jump, and into the seven-stride run to the next.

Only, my beast of a horse does it in six, and he clears the obstacle beautifully.

Now the biggest combination on the course is coming up fast, ready to throttle us. It’s an ascending oxer, followed by a two-meter spread square, and my heart’s in my throat, because Charlemagne has pulled out all the stops and he’s practically sprinting toward it. I signal a half-halt, which he ignores, and I brace myself.

There’s no way we clear this without a knockdown.

Except, somehow, we do.

His ears forward, his powerful muscles pumping, he takes two strides and sails over the massive two-meter spread of the triple oxer and doesn’t even sink into a nose dive on the back end.

Instead, he pivots like a kangaroo or something, and I hear the dirt spraying behind us as he gallops toward the next vertical, clearing it so fast that I have to remind myself to breathe. Unfortunately, I’m not quite ready when we land, and I tip forward, my foot twisting in the stirrups. When he lands on the ground for his next stride, it wrenches, and the sound it makes is bad.

Like that noise when you pop the top on a jar of pickles.

And the pain, oh, the pain. I try to tell myself that the nail didn’t go into my jaw. I grit my teeth and pretend that it went between my toes. But my leg’s not getting the message. Something’s wrong. Very, very wrong. I can’t even pull my foot back out of the stirrups to reposition my weight.

I can’t seem to move my leg at all.

But there’s no time for pansies, not when that clock is rolling.

Charlemagne, clearly without any idea that my leg is jacked, rounds the bend, prepared to cut a stride yet again. We’re barreling toward the next combination, and I’m genuinely worried we’re going to crash into it, but when I ease back right before, he listens and we hit the base perfectly, springing over the first vertical, hitting two clean strides, and clearing the wide oxer.

But now it’s time for another tight turn, and my leg’s livid. It’s messed up, and I’m worried that impact might have dislodged something important, like a screw. It feels like a hot poker’s digging into my thigh, and someone whacked it with a hammer, all at once.

I can’t grip Charlemagne on that side properly, so I try to compensate, but it leaves me canted in the saddle.

My horse has finally noticed. He glances back quickly, looking for reassurance I can’t give him.

We’re approaching the water jump, and I need to get my head back in the game. It’s probably only fifteen more seconds. I can do anything for fifteen seconds. I force my leg to squeeze, even though it feels like I’m pressing it against a cheese grater and holding it there.

If my life has prepared me for anything, it’s the ability to endure pain. So when we reach the jump, I grit my teeth and slide into jump position, my hands trembling as they hold steady over Charlemagne’s plaited mane.

The force of the landing resembles being smashed by a wooden mallet, a feeling I can sadly relate to quite well. And then we’re headed for our very last jump.

Just don’t fall off or screw this up. Don’t screw this up, Mirdza. You may never ride again, and you want this last one to be worth it.

If I did wreck a screw. . . If that doctor’s right, there’s not enough bone left to reattach anything. But that’s a struggle for another day. For now, it’s just this one last obstacle, and I can stop squeezing. Stop breathing through the wall of pain rising around me.

My entire life narrows to this single point in time.

And I pitch forward, grabbing Charlemagne’s braid nubs inelegantly, and holding on for dear life as he vaults over the last vertical. I don’t mean to, but I wind up leaning heavily on my left side on the landing, trying to keep the weight off my bad leg.

I slide sideways as we race to the end and nearly topple off.

The crowd notices, and so does Charlemagne, but it doesn’t matter. We’re done, clear, and our time is fixed. I look up at the clock with trepidation. . .but it’s a full three and a half seconds below what I hoped to get.

“Yeah,” Kris shouts. “Just try and touch that, you prissy little snobs!” She’s a little more suited to the mood of a race track than a show jumping ring, but the crowd mirrors her enthusiasm, at least.

I wheel us around to the edge of the ring, prepared to try and watch the others in the jump-off, but Charlemagne isn’t having it. He keeps turning around to look at me, eyeing my leg, and whuffling.

I pat his neck. “It’s fine, boy. Everything’s fine.”

But he can sense the lie. Probably because my leg’s still essentially a lump of dead weight.

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