Rielle made the mistake of looking at Audric over her shoulder, and his dark gaze locked onto hers for a brief moment before they both looked away.
“We should go,” she said. She grabbed her jacket from his hands, twisted her hair up into her riding cap, and went outside to mount her horse. She wrapped her cap’s veil about her neck and face, tucked the end of it into her collar. When Audric joined her, wearing his own protective coverings, they did not speak, and she was glad.
This race would not be kind to her if she remained distracted.
? ? ?
Together, they followed the other riders to the starting line.
Audric rode one of Odo’s horses, a chestnut Celdarian mare from the southern riverlands. Rielle’s own mount, another from Odo’s stables, was smaller—a gray Kirvayan mare named Maliya who held her banner tail high.
Rielle took her place at the starting line, five slots to the left and two behind Audric. The herald, high overhead, announced each racer through a small round amplifier engineered at the Forge.
When Rielle heard her own false name announced, she waved to the crowd, to generous applause. Though her and Audric’s assumed identities meant nothing to these people, the name of their sponsor—the wealthy merchant Odo Laroche, who owned half the city’s businesses—carried tremendous weight.
High overhead, King Bastien took his place before the amplifier to begin the opening remarks.
“To celebrate another year of peace in our kingdom,” the king’s voice boomed, “and in hopes for a bountiful harvest—and a joyous festival—and to give thanks to God who has blessed Celdaria with such gifts, I welcome all of you to this year’s Boon Chase!”
King Bastien returned to his seat, and the drummers began. The lines of racers shifted; the air crackled against Rielle’s skin.
The race heralds blew on their horns once. Twice.
Rielle curled her gloved fingers around Maliya’s reins, every inch of her body thrumming.
The final racers took their place—twelve masked arbiters in the royal colors of plum, emerald, and gold. They would run the course and watch for foul play.
The drumbeats accelerated, matching Rielle’s pounding heart.
The heralds blew their horns a third time.
With a deafening roar from the crowd, the racers plunged forward onto the Flats, the wide stretch of grasslands outside the city gates.
The Chase had begun.
? ? ?
The first few minutes were a blinding frenzy of sound and color. The hooves of five dozen horses kicked up clouds of dust.
To Rielle’s right, a man with a metal guard over his teeth yanked on a spiked glove and knocked another racer off his mount with the thrust of one meaty arm. The other racers trampled him, cutting off his screams, and his horse left the course with its reins trailing.
Rielle drove Maliya forward, looking around wildly. An arbiter should have disqualified the man for that. But in the storm of dust, she couldn’t pick out the arbiters’ colors. It was as though they had vanished.
She crossed the Flats, guiding Maliya through a throng of shoving elbows and flying whips, racers shouting at their mounts to move and yelling threats in a dozen languages. When she reached the foothills of Mount Taléa, she slowed her pace and directed Maliya up the steeper forested climb. She saw a flash of familiar color through the trees ahead. Black and gold. Odo’s colors.
Audric.
She lowered herself against Maliya’s neck, urged her mare up the foothills, and emerged out of the trees into the first mountain pass. A broad stretch of grass shivered in the wind before her. Walls of rock towered on either side.
Rielle’s heart lifted. She murmured the Kirvayan words Odo had told her the mare would respond to: “Ride the wind, falcon of my blood, wings of my heart!”
Maliya shot forward.
The wind whipped past them, ripping tears from Rielle’s eyes. She caught up to Audric and crowed with triumph.
He glanced her way, his scarf falling loose. He grinned at her, and her heart leapt. Despite the danger of the race, she couldn’t help but wish they could stay out here—away from court, away from everyone else—forever.
Seconds later, Audric veered away, taking the shortest path around the mountain. His Celdarian mare was bred for such steep, rocky trails.
But Maliya was built for speed. Rielle pushed her on across the pass, and Maliya obeyed. The wind howled in Rielle’s ears. She could hardly hear herself breathe. The shapes of the other riders, fanning out across the pass, were blurs of color. They were catching up to her.
She turned Maliya right, onto a narrow cliffside trail. Not her first choice, but it would give her better time. She told herself not to look and yet couldn’t help it, peering over the edge into the chasm below. She broke out in sick chills; her vision tilted. One wrong shift of her weight, one misstep from her horse, and she’d fly to her death.