Page 5 of White Horse Black Nights

So I hold up my hands and take a step backward.

“There’s no mounting block,” I explain in painstaking slowness that strains my patience. “A little thing like you can’t climb on a horse that tall.”

“I don’t need your help.”

Pinning me with a distrusting look, she turns back around to the horse. Her soft hand goes to its neck, stroking the flawless white hair. Her lips move silently. She says nothing aloud, and yet I sense some form of understanding pass between girl and horse.

The mare lowers itself to one knee, then the other. It folds its hind legs in until it crouches on the flagstones.

Swinging a graceful leg over its back, Sabine easily mounts. She whispers, “Up, Myst,” and the horse lumbers back to its hooves.

I’m riveted, as is the stable boy and the gaggle of maids peeking through the manor’s windows. I’ve seen horses trained to bow at a whip’s crack, but this is something different. This is no trick.

Sabine smooths her hand gratefully over the horse’s flank like it’s a friend, not a beast of burden, and gives me a triumphant look.

“Didn’t your master tell you I’m godkissed?” Sabine asks with her chin high, like she enjoys looking down at me.

For a second, something ugly twists in my gut. I don’t know why, but it spikes me with a jealous vein to see such tender harmony between girl and beast. I’m not used to seeing any kindness at all. Certainly not in the Valveres’ household.

I regain my composure. “He said you could talk to animals. Not control them.”

“Ican’tcontrol them. With kind words, no one needs to.”

Can this girl be serious?

The breeze shifts, and her scent wafts to my nose again, snaring my attention for the second time.

Violets. That’s what she smells like.Goddamn violets.

The wind keeps shifting, splashing her scent around the courtyard—and it’s distracting. I need to stay sharp, aware of the scents that matter. Scents that could portend danger: smoke, steel, sickness.

But now that her aroma is in my nose, I can’t stop thinking about violets. On the list of things that interest me, flowers have to be at the bottom, right down there with royal gossip and the latest favored eyeliner shade. But there was one time that wasn’t the case. I killed a prized wild boar for Sorsha Hall’s midwinter feast that no other hunters had managed to bag. As a reward, Lord Rian gave me a seat at the high lord’s table. I, a bastard son from the streets, dined among lords and ladies. The feast was decadent. Cheeses from the Clarana hills. Spiced mead by the barrel. The boar itself, roasted and served with braised root vegetables and buttery sage sauce. But the finest of all was dessert: delicate honey cakes dripping with iced sugar and dotted with violets. Those little candied buds were the most sinful thing I ever put in my mouth.

Earthy, sweet, delicate.

I’d do anything to get the taste of violets in my mouth again.

“Wolf Bowborn. Wait.” Lord Charlin waves me over, his beady, bloodshot eyes blinking fast.

I adjust my bow slung over my shoulder and make my way to join him.

He props his hands on his hips like he’s about to give me a lecture.What a fucking oaf.

“This marriage means I’m to be Lord Rian’s father-in-law. You tell the high lord and his family that I have certain expectations. When I next come to Duren, I want gratis coins to spend at the gambling houses. As well as choice seating at the arena.”

This buffoon has reeked of whiskey since he first stepped out of his house. Not the expensive kind the Valveres drink, either—something cheap, probably cut with turpentine. Fuck, it’s not even mid-morning.

“Let me make one thing clear,” I say slowly, so that his pickled brain can process my words. “Lord Rian bought himself a wife, not a father-in-law. If you set foot in Sorsha Hall without an invitation, I will personally see to dragging you back to Bremcote myself.”

Lord Charlin’s eyes bug out in indignation. He takes a few rageful breaths before sputtering, “She’smydaughter.”

“Not anymore, she isn’t. You sold her to save your own skin. The only man with a claim on her now is my master.”

I can see that this painful truth eats him alive, but there’s nothing he can do about it. He might have the finest manor house in Bremcote, but that makes him a king among ants. The Valveres are interested in him only as far as his humiliation is entertaining to them.

Still, a slow, sly smile crosses Lord Charlin’s face. He stuffs a hand into his breast pocket and comes back with a letter, sealed with wax and stamped with his crest.

“Give this to your high lord,” he sneers, smashing the letter into my palm. “Tell him that if he wants what I’ve written about in there, he’ll have to be more welcoming to his father-in-law.”

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