Page 42 of This Dark Descent
“Watch out!”
Mikira didn’t get a chance to locate the voice before the world turned white. She shut her eyes against the flood of light and slowed Atara reflexively. The horse tossed her head, pulling at the bit, and Mikira felt her speed up again. Even through her closed eyelids she could tell the lights still blared, yet Atara surged forward confidently. Could she see somehow?
The light faded, and she blinked until her vision cleared. She marveled at Atara, whose stride only grew quicker, steadier, as if falling into a rhythm she’d been born to. The forest edge parted ahead, a handful of racers pushing their horses into an all-out gallop for the finish line.
Atara let out a high whinny and veered to the side a second before another horse nearly crashed into them. Mikira swung out wildly with her knife but cut only air. A man laughed as Atara regained herself, forced to a stop by the sudden strike.
Gren Talyer’s white stallion blocked their path.
His lips parted in a jagged smile. “You’re lucky to have made it this far on an unenchanted horse, but it’s as far as you’ll go.” He lashed out with a blade and Mikira deflected it, urging Atara away with her knees.
But the horse didn’t listen. She lunged forward, teeth skimming along the stallion’s shoulder. The white horse reared back, screaming, and Atara reared with him, front hooves striking at the stallion’s chest.
When the horses came down, Gren jerked his away with a curse, driving his heels into his stallion’s sides and forcing the startled creature into a canter.
Atara huffed heavily, tossing her head. Mikira tried to soothe her, but she was frenzied, like a beast drunk on its prey’s blood. She sidestepped, then reared again, neighing.
Mikira laid a hand on her neck as they came down. “It’s okay!”
Atara turned sharply as if to snap for her hand. The moment stretched, Mikira frozen by the look of utter ferocity in the mare’s eyes.
Then flames blazed to life at their backs.
Atara bolted and Mikira lost her stirrups. The enchanted fire raced alongside them, funneling them aside into a small clearing. Mikira clung fast with her knees, her hands fisted in Atara’s mane as the fire encircled the clearing, cutting off their escape. Atara ground to a halt, and Mikira tumbled over her shoulder, barely managing to throw herself clear.
She hit the ground hard and rolled, stopping just before the line of flames. Atara stamped and tossed her head, and Mikira fought her way back to her feet, body aching. The mare cut toward her, and Mikira leapt away, holding up her hands.
“Easy girl,” she called, the heat of the flames pressing at her back. Atara lowered her head, panting nearly as heavily as Mikira.
“We’re okay,” Mikira breathed. “We’re okay.”
Enchanted fires lasted only as long as their verillion source; this had to burn out soon. But that look in the mare’s eye, the frenzy—the only horses she’d ever seen act like that had been enchanted for aggression or protection. Her family sold them as warhorses. Atara didn’t have either of those charms, though that didn’t mean she hadn’t been trained for battle. Had Damien gotten her a warhorse instead of a racehorse and not told her?
With a whoosh, the flames went out around them, leaving the ground blackened and the air scorched with smoke. Mikira didn’t move, holding Atara’s gaze. The horse stared back at her with a look she couldn’t decipher, an intensity bordering on zealousness.
They needed to go. They had to be near the end of the pack by now, and only Atara’s unnatural speed would have any chance of regaining their position. But some part of Mikira didn’t want to get back on her.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been afraid of a horse.
Atara pawed at the ground, turning aside as if to let Mikira mount. Forcing her burgeoning fear aside, she approached cautiously and swung up into the saddle. When Atara didn’t snap at her, she gave her an experimental nudge, and the horse trotted on. Mikira’s fingers quivered on the reins, and she closed them tighter. She couldn’t afford to be afraid right now. She had a race to win.
They tore through the trees, Atara’s strides eating up ground. The tree line thinned, then broke, emptying them into a wide stretch of rolling hills. A stream of horses stretched out before them, the finish line a dot on the horizon.
“Go!” Mikira called, giving Atara her head.
The horse flew.
They passed the stragglers in a blur, then reached the end of the pack. They galloped past horse after horse, until the finish line was only an open stretch of green away. Mikira forgot the pain in her arm and the fear crouching in her bones and lost herself to the race as they soared across the finish line.
It was only as Atara slowed to a walk that she noticed the massive group of horses and riders at the end of the clearing. Only then did she hear the announcer call, “And Mikira Rusel in the fifty-first position.”
She was too late.
They’d lost.
MIKIRA COULDN’T BREATHE.
Every once in a while, her lungs would burn so viciously that she’d choke down another sob of air, but then her throat would close, and herbody would seize and the realization that she’d lost everything would threaten to crush her.
