Page 32 of This Dark Descent
“—now and our dad was all washed up.”
Mikira dropped into a chair with a groan. “Ailene, Era Keene’s father is a berator. He could file charges for assault with the Anthir. We can’t afford that fine.”
Ailene’s head snapped forward with a look of grim determination. The purple bruising around her nose and eye only made her look fiercer. “He called you a loser, Kira. Said you were going to die in the first race.”
It was only then that she noticed Nelda, who’d washed and wrung the rag in her hands past the point of cleanliness and into compulsion. She was staring at a spot on the table without blinking, something she only did when she was trying not to cry. Ailene’s hands were balled into fists in her lap, both of them waiting for her to say that it was a lie, that she’d be fine.
She’d been spending so much time with the others preparing for the Illinir that she hadn’t realized the effect it was having on her sisters. They’d lost their mother, their brother, now their father—they couldn’t lose her too, yet here she was risking her life in the kingdom’s most dangerous race. There was a very large possibility that she wouldn’t make it through the first leg, even with Ari’s undetectable enchant, which the girls couldn’t even know about.
They were terrified, and she didn’t know how to fix it.
“Era Keene is an ass,” she said at last. “I’m not going to die in any of the races. I’m going to win, and I’m going to be the most famous racer in all of Enderlain, and you can shove it in his face every time you see him.”
A wobbly smile broke across Ailene’s face, and Mikira stood to gather her and Nelda in her arms. “I promise you both. I’ll be okay.”
IRI WAS HALFasleep when she roused him from the barn, but he greeted her with a huff of warm breath and a low nicker. She’d been a fool today, pressing Damien the way she had. He was her only chanceof running in this race, her only chance of winning, of making sure Era Keene’s predictions didn’t come true. She would not abandon her sisters, and if that meant abandoning her scruples instead, it was a worthwhile sacrifice.
The rain had abated, allowing them an easy ride back to Adair Manor, where the enchanted gates granted her access. She went straight down to the track, where the light of the full moon breaking through the clouds was all she and Iri had to see by. They’d just finished a warm-up lap when the enchanted lights around the track turned on. A moment later, Reid appeared at the fence with Eilora in tow. He swung up into the saddle and joined her.
“What are you doing awake?” she asked, expecting him to yell at her for disturbing him.
“I’m always awake.” He maneuvered Eilora alongside Iri and pulled something from inside his jacket, flinging it into her lap.
She scrabbled to grab it before it could fall. It was the front page of a newspaper, the date printed for tomorrow.
The headline read “Adair Jockey Overheard Spouting Rebel Rhetoric at Royal Reception.”
Below it was a picture of her and Ari facing off against the newsboy, Mikira’s hands on her knives.
“Damien had the story killed,” Reid said. “The editor of the paper owed him a favor. But for the record, that is not what lying low looks like.”
Mikira crumpled the paper into a ball. “We didn’t do anything wrong. Those boys—”
“It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head. “If you were suspected of being a rebel, you could be detained and barred from the race. You have to know that Rezek will use anything he can against you. Even something as personal as your brother’s death.”
Mikira inhaled sharply. It shouldn’t surprise her that Reid knew aboutLochlyn; she was starting to realize just how far Damien’s connections extended. It still felt like an invasion, though, having the choice to tell them taken away from her.
“My personal life is none of your concern,” she ground out.
Something pressed into her ribs, and she glanced down to see Reid holding a pocketknife just above her kidney. She had one brief, harrowing moment in which she was sure that Damien had decided that she was more trouble than she was worth, before Reid pulled the knife away and snapped it shut.
“Your emotions are a distraction,” he warned. “You can’t let people use them against you, or come the race, the knife won’t stop short.”
Her hands tightened on the reins. “I can’t just shut them off, either. I’m not Damien.”
Reid slid the knife back into his pocket. “Then keep them close. Everything that they can use against you. You make them a shield so they can’t make them a weapon.”
There was something about the way he said it, something that made her wonder if he was talking about her, or himself.
“I can’t.” Her throat tightened. “It hurts too much.” She didn’t want to think about Lochlyn. About the horses they’d lost and the look on her father’s face when Rezek took him away. About what might happen if she failed.
“You have to learn to live with the pain, or it will destroy you.” He angled Eilora alongside Iri. “Because the moment you let them use it to make you feel small, you’ve lost.”
He eyed her sidelong, his smirk turning wolfish in the moonlight. “And I have a feeling you don’t take losing well.”
She choked out a laugh, surprising herself. Never in a thousand years would she have expected Reid to be the one to make her feel better, even if he’d still insulted her to do it.
Reid leaned low over Eilora’s neck. “You shut them up by winning, Mikira, and this is how you win.”
