She nodded. “Don’t slow your pace for me.”
My lips kicked up. “I would never.”
We left the inn to a colorful early winter sky, the sun unobstructed. The barracks’ yard was still mostly empty, and the few guard who were up were too groggy to pay us any attention.
When we arrived at the stables, several horses hung their heads over their half-doors in greeting. It was better to get to know horses, their temperaments, to form a bond—but today I had to choose by instinct for both of us.
I pointed at the smallest one, a chestnut. “That’s yours.”
Eury struck toward the tack room without question. Meanwhile, I took a big black gelding that nickered at me as I approached. Friendly enough.
The rest of the scouts would be here any moment now. We had to be quick.
Eury came out with a saddle and girth and bridle all bundled together, and she made quick work of getting the horse ready. I did the same with the black horse, the two of us moving in silent communion.
Except when Eury opened the stall door, the chestnut had a limp. It came clattering out into the aisle on only three legs, one of its forelegs held up.
“Fuck,” she said. “No shoe.”
Voices sounded in the yard. No time.
I climbed onto the black horse. “Get on.”
She backed the chestnut into its stall and closed the latch. “They won’t let us through the gates this way.”
I reached out for her. “Yes, they will.”
Her eyes narrowed. Then, with two steps, she grabbed my hand and set her foot into the empty stirrup. I pulled her onto the horse’s back, and her hands went around my waist.
“I hope you know something I don’t,” she murmured against my spine.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Eurydice
Dorian trottedthe black horse down the cobblestone street, and gazes found us. Here, people didn’t wear patchwork clothes or scrappy leather shoes. Men held fine-sanded canes; they doffed top hats as we passed. Women wore fat-bottomed dresses like the pastries we’d been served in Highmark, pastel and frilly. They’d tied bonnets at their chins with matching ribbons.
The highborn. Exactly as I’d imagined them.
We in the outer districts survived so they could thrive. We supplied the grimy labor so they didn’t have to callus their hands.
What I hadn’t imagined was their respect for the scouts—the reverence in their gazes as we rode by.
In the southern district, we guard weren’t anything special. Here, atop this horse, I felt halfway royal. And that meant something more to me than it did in Sylvanwild. No one there knew me. But I was,now and always, a daughter of scorn. And to have these highborn stare at me with wide eyes—to have their well-dressed children watch as we approached and as we left—filled me with something inexplicable.
Resentment, pride. Both.
We arrived at the tall trellis gate to the outer districts just as the sun had begun to heat up my exposed hands around Dorian’s waist. Soon, the scouts would notice their big black gelding was gone.
Dorian had better have a good trick.
He rode us up to the guard, who came to stand directly in the center of the trellis gate with hands clasped behind his back and an unimpressed gaze. A lieutenant, most like, probably twenty-five years old.
Dorian nodded, and the guard nodded back. “Open the gate.”
The guard didn’t move. His gaze flicked to me and back to Dorian. “Where’s the rest of the expedition?”
“On the way. I’m ranging ahead.”