The Knave of Souls - Fantasy - Sequel to The Jack of Souls

Chapter 55 - Heart Sacrifice

HEART SACRIFICE

*

Caris raised her eyes to the red-orange crags across the river. The day had passed with no more danger than scrapes and bruises and horses stumbling in swirling water. The sun nearly kissed the western ridge, now, throwing long shadows down the crags, skeletal fingers stretching for her from the heights.

Seemed like shadows had always grasped for her, and none greater than Molly. She watched as the enormous muscles in the mare's haunches rippled and flexed with each step on the trail. The dark strength of the monster called to her, probed her...

Gods leave me, is this what Willard feels? Is this addiction?

Rag tossed her head and looked back with one wide eye, and Caris tore her attention from Molly. Cursing herself, Caris renewed contact with Rag, but Rag snorted as if she'd sensed where Caris's mind had gone.

Ahead, the ledge dropped below the surface of the water and narrowed to a strip barely wide enough for the Phyros to pass. Willard dismounted. As he led Molly onto the flooded ledge, water piled against his boots and over Molly's ankles.

"Slippery," he called back. "Take care."

Caris dismounted and checked Idgit's lead, Harric dismounted Snapper and she caught him giving her a quick look, and the touch of his gaze sent another pulse of longing through her.

She dropped her eyes and let out a groan. Leave me alone, she wanted to scream at the ring. I don't want to feel any of this. The ache had returned that morning, and with it the infatuation with a wedding, like a sugary ballad she couldn't shake from her head.

A wave of nausea rolled up from her stomach, but somehow kept it down.

Gods leave it, she had felt so free. She had felt so happy.

Biting her lip, she buried her senses in Rag's, and led the mare through the gap. With one hand on Rag's bridle and one hand against the wall of the canyon, she braced herself against the thrust of the water on her boots. She had traversed some ten paces and appeared to be halfway through the anrrows, when she heard a peculiar whinny from Molly. It was a sort of whinny she'd heard only once before—a whinny of frustrated urges—and the sound drained the warmth from her middle.

Gygon. She scanned the canyon in vain for any sign of the Phyros stallion.

The wind had been in their faces since they entered the canyon, so if Molly scented him it meant he was upwind, and up-canyon, ahead of them.

"Sir Willard!" she called, but the roar of the river swallowed her voice. They had to turn back, but the ledge was too narrow to turn, and she couldn't back three horses at once. She'd have to lead all three of them through the gap until she came to a place wide enough to turn them around.

Rag whinnied and balked, sensing Caris's distress, and Caris felt one of her boots slip out from under her, plunging one leg into freezing water up to her hip. The water sucked at her leg, dragging her sideways and threatening to tug off her boot. But Rag stood firm. Holding tight to her bridle, Caris braced one hand against the rock wall and somehow she managed to draw her leg back without losing her boot, and reset it on the slippery rock. Feet numb with cold, she pushed forward, and when the ledge finally rose again above the water, she stepped on the dry stone with boots like full buckets.

As Caris drew the horses through the gap, she saw Molly standing calmly in the midst of a wide flat ledge the size of a small riding coral. Willard sat in his saddle, staring up at a waterfall as tall as a barn, which seemed to mark the end of their riverside trail. As she mounted Rag, she kept her eye on Molly, but saw no signs of agitation. The Phyros was definitely not acting like a mare in heat. False alarm. The roar of the river must have warped the sound of Molly's whinny.