I grip one of the stall bars to quell the panic clawing up my throat. Get it together, Wolf. You’re a hunter. So fucking hunt.
There are several sets of footprints on the stable’s stone floor. Sabine was barefoot and had the ball of her foot bandaged. I quickly hone in on a drip of her blood near Myst’s stall. That better fucking be from her foot wound and not anything else.
The other prints belong to a set of men’s boots. It’s just one man, and large, given the print size, but lighter weight than me.
I close my eyes and draw in a deep inhale, scanning for other scents besides Sabine’s. There. I didn’t catch the other scent at first because of the overpowering reek of smoke, and because a stable naturally smells like livestock.
But this smell isn’t horses.
“Fucking goats!”
My eyes snap open. It’s that motherfucking goatherd lover of hers. Adan. She said the animals called him the Boy of Sunlight, or something, which means he’s likely blonde. Just like the Volkish spy who started the fire.
Gods help me.
I slump against a stall door, feeling the blood drain out of my face. The dots begin to connect at dizzying speed, forming a picture I’m not ready to see. It looks like this: Sabine’s lover has been planning this for months. Not alone, but with a team of Volkish raiders targeting godkissed people. Judging by the note I uncovered in the spy’s pocket, they’ve been tasked with finding girls like Sabine. For what purpose? Holy gods, I don’t want to know. There aren’t many reasons a cursed kingdom, cut off because of its lawlessness, would want pretty, young, magical women.
Somehow, Adan found out that a girl fitting the desired description was at the convent. He wormed his way in and seduced her. The announcement of Rian’s betrothal to Sabine must have thrown a kink in his plans, so his team staged the inn fire as a distraction to steal her away. It wasn’t about Folke or the Red Church at all.
It was all to get Sabine.
“Fuck!” I yell again. My muscles twitch, making me pace to burn off the edge of adrenaline. My breath heaves like billows. It isn’t good to breathe this fast and hard—if I pass out, what use will I be to Sabine?
This is my fault. I was supposed to guard her. She was mine to protect. An hour ago, I had her perfect body under mine, the moans on her lips for me, her hips writhing in need. She might hate me, but she can’t deny that she also wants me. In some twisted way, she’s come to trust me, at least enough to let me worship her body with my hot touch.
And I failed her.
Myst whinnies, kicking her stall door again, and it feels like she’s kicking straight against my bruised heart. Rage claws down my back, leaving my skin feeling raw. I’m supposed to be better than this. I’m the best goddamn hunter in Astagnon. I know a trap when I see it—so how could I have missed this?
Growling, I plant a punch into a stall door, hard enough to splinter the wood. Blood weeps down my knuckles, releasing a metallic odor. But the pain isn’t enough. I pull my arm back for another punch, but Myst whinnies sharply again.
“I know,” I spit in the horse’s direction with a clenched jaw. “I fucking know! It’s my fault!”
Myst stamps her hooves angrily, turns in a tight circle, then rears up in the stall. Steam shoots out of her nostrils. Her black eyes stab me like twin blades, sinking deep into my already rotted soul. She slams back down to the ground.
This crazy mare is trying to tell me something.
I grip her stall’s bars, licking moisture into my crackled, dry lips. “Myst? Do you know where she went?”
Myst whinnies and kicks the door urgently.
“You saw them, didn’t you? You saw the man who took her?”
You’re talking to a horse, Wolf, a voice reminds me. I don’t have Sabine’s godkissed ability to talk to animals, and I can only imagine that Myst has no clue what the sounds coming out of my mouth mean. But Myst and I are perfectly clear on one thing: We both care about Sabine.
The three of us have been together on the road for weeks, silently adapting to each other’s quirks and habits. She’s a stubborn horse, I’m a stubborn man; but Sabine is the sun between us, keeping the both of us firmly in her orbit, circling her so steadily that we haven’t knocked heads with each other too hard before now. And maybe we can call a truce.
I roll open Myst’s stall door, holding out a staying hand. “Okay. Look, you haven’t always liked me, and I haven’t always liked you. But we have to put our differences aside for Sabine. Agreed?”
She snorts again, but it’s mollified. Her hoof scrapes against the straw-covered floor. I ease into her stall another step, keeping my hand extended like I’m taming a wild animal.
“Easy, Myst. I’m a friend.”
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.
Chapter 19
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.