Page 59 of White Horse Black Nights

Her black eyes roll, but she doesn’t bite my outstretched hand, which is a good sign. Slowly, I place a hand on her mane, and another on her back.

“Don’t worry, crazy mare,” I murmur, a trace of affection in my voice. “There aren’t any two souls in this world who want to find her more than us. We’ll get her back.”

I heft myself onto her bare back, wrapping my legs around her sides, and grip a fistful of mane. Riding bareback isn’t my strength, but Myst and I are a team now, and she readily heeds my direction.

I scoop up the rucksack on our way out of the stable, and then let all other stimuli fall away except for Sabine’s scent. I hone in on it on the street, ignoring the distant crowds still putting out the fire, the reek of smoke, and the townpeople’s shouts on the wind.

“This way.” I nudge Myst, and we follow Sabine’s scent for a few blocks, eventually ending up at the docks, where her scent abruptly ends.

Well, fuck. That means she boarded a ship, and scent is nearly impossible to track over such a large waterway. But I’m a hunter. This is what I do. Sabine said Adan’s original plan was to rendezvous at an old mill, and a mill needs a river to turn its water wheel.

So, I click for Myst to head upstream, and the two of us set off at a gallop—Sabine’s best friend and the man who will move heaven and earth to get her back.

Chapter19

Sabine

When I wake up, my mouth is parched. I feel jolted out of sleep, with lingering nightmares flashing in my mind. I don’t know how much time has passed. Hours, maybe? My muscles are cramped from sleeping on a knotty pile of fishing nets, my limbs balled up in the sloop’s narrow cabin. The crofter’s dress Adan gave me is itchy.

I comb my fingers through my hair instinctually, freezing when it doesn’t have its usual heft. For years, in the Convent of Immortal Iyre, I fantasized about being free and light, with shoulder-length hair blowing in the wind as I rode Myst at breakneck speed through open fields. Now, I’m outside the walls, but I don’t recognize this version of myself from any fantasy. Not this frightened girl in a hole that reeks of fish.

The sloop jolts again, and I realize we’re docking somewhere. The repetitive rocking of floating on the river has been replaced with clomping footsteps on the deck overhead. Someone calls out, then throws a thunking rope.

My breath goes rickety. I grip the cabin’s narrow walls to steady myself against the boat’s jostling. I barely have time to chase away the remnants of nightmares and get my head on straight before the cabin’s trapdoor is thrown open.

Bright sunlight stings my eyes. I turn away from it, holding up a shielding hand. Adan’s silhouette eclipses the opening.

“We’re here.” His voice is laced with excitement like a kid on a summer morning. He extends his hand down to me. Outside, seagulls’ lazy caws, mixed with a warm breeze, unwind the worst of the knots that formed in my muscles overnight. In the light of day, my fears look overblown. Adan saved me. He might be a stranger, but that doesn’t make him a villain. He could truly be the kind-hearted boy from a big, boisterous family who wants to take me to Salensa and marry me.

Even though my rational mind tells me all this, however, my gut doesn’t believe it. I saw something in Adan and his brothers last night that scared me.

Still, I’m here, now. And gods, I want off this stinking boat.

So, I let Adan help me up. It’s mid-morning, judging by the sun’s position. On deck, I get a clear view of an open river valley. An overgrown apple orchard hugs one side of the river, and the other is bare fields, plowed into tidy rows in preparation for planting. The dock belongs to a mill with a rusted-out waterwheel; it doesn’t look like it’s been operational in years.

On the riverbank, a blonde man in a cloak sits atop a horse with four more saddled horses at the ready.

I glance at Adan’s two brothers, who are unloading duffle bags of supplies and affixing them to the saddles. Last night, they didn’t bother to introduce themselves. They still don’t.

“Where are we going?” I ask Adan, nodding toward the horses, trying to keep my voice from breaking and betraying my nerves.

“A cottage—it’s a few hours’ ride. It belongs to a friend. We’ll be safe there until we can travel to Salensa.”

We mount the horses and ride inland through the overgrown orchard, which gradually blends into woods. I can’t be certain of where we are, but the Blackened Forest sits somewhere on the north side of the Innis River. From everything I’ve heard, the trees there tower like monoliths, and the leaf cover is so dense it gives the forest its name. Surely Adan wouldn’t be taking methere—it’s the opposite direction from the coast.

The further we ride, the shorter his answers get. His brothers say nothing, unless it has to do with the route. I try to memorize any landmark tree or noteworthy stream we pass, in case I need to return this way. Not that I expect things to go bad, but I’d be lying if the possibility of needing a sudden escape wasn’t fixed in the back of my mind.

Finally, we descend into a hollar, where a cottage crouches in an overgrown clearing. Though sawdust on the ground indicates it’s had some recent repair work, it looks largely abandoned. Tall grass grows higher than the front porch. The windows are boarded up.

My heart sinks all the way down to my tailbone. This cottage doesn’t feel like freedom, either.

Inside, the cottage is in only slightly better condition than it looked from the outside. There are two rooms: a tiny bedroom with bunks, and a main room with a table and chairs, an ancient iron stove, and two rocking chairs by the fireplace. Even though it’s spacious, it feels crowded with the five of us—but it doesn’t matter, because Adan’s brothers soon go outside to chop firewood.

Adan starts to leave, too, and I grab his hand in a rush of nerves, my gut telling me that I shouldn’t be here. “Wait. Don’t leave me.”

“I need to talk to my brothers.”

“About—about the route to Salensa?” I hate that the rise in my voice sounds so damn naive, but I have nothing left to cling to but this thread of hope.

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