Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
When the first clouds shield him from view, he stops his horse and looks out over the rocky edge into the mist.
“What are you doing?” he mutters to himself. “He didn’t watch. So what?” He grips his reins until his knuckles are white. “You’re the crown prince! Act like it.”
A distant voice calls from below the clouds.
Quin shifts abruptly and watches as a violet-cloaked figure emerges through the cloud, on horseback.
I hold his trembling body tighter around the waist.
Chaos lifts his sleeve with the hole in it, then pulls the incriminating arrow from his boot. “Why?”
Quin strangles his reins but doesn’t speak.
“Because it doesn’t matter if you hit me, a par-linea?”
“If I’d wanted to hit you, I would have.”
“So you just wanted to ruin my sleeve?”
“You were unchivalrous.”
Chaos waves the arrow. “And what was this?”
“That,” Quin says, starting tightly but pausing to look away with a sigh, “was an overreaction.”
Chaos seems to freeze when he registers what Quin has admitted. He sinks the arrow back into his boot and dangles his ruined sleeve. “I’ll get in trouble for this.”
“I’ll replace it.”
“It’ll never be the one my brother got married in.”
I feel his shock. “Why did you wear that?”
“Getting into these games isn’t exactly easy. I don’t own any fancy clothes. I suppose I could get married, get a wedding robe of my own . . .”
“I’ll give you some of my clothes.”
“And boots. So I can run far away while you stand there barefoot.”
“Why would you run from me?”
Chaos and his horse shift and this time Chaos looks away, his cheeks flushed. He scowls towards the glistening mist. “You’re . . . unnerving.”
“Unnerving!”
“Exactly that!” Chaos retorts.
Growing tension coils in Quin’s muscles, but he clears his throat and speaks more softly. “Around me, I’d say, you’re rather shameless.”
Out comes the arrow again. Chaos steps his horse right beside Quin’s, until he has the sharp end pointed at Quin’s chest. “When have I ever done anything shameless?”
Quin laughs—a repressed laugh that Chaos doesn’t hear or see, but I feel it, rumbling through him. And into Quin’s hair, I laugh too. I laugh so hard I have to use his braids to dab away my tears.
“No, you’re right,” he finally drawls, lightly plucking the arrow from Chaos. “Not shameless at all.”
Chaos stares at his hand where it’s still tingling from the arrow sliding over his palm, then he quickly grabs his reins and clears his throat as he turns his horse to face the same direction as Quin’s. He’s jumpy and restless, though not too visibly. I held it in better than I thought.
He flashes a sideways glance at Quin and points upwards. “First to the third sharp bend.”
“I play drakopagon. You have no chance—”
Quin stares after Chaos as he launches forward, and blows a laugh out skyward before spurring his horse into the chase.
“You turn your corners too hard and it startles your horse.”
Chaos pats said horse under the mane and Quin slows his, watching Chaos move ahead. His borrowed violet robe flaps in the wind. He’s quite the sight, on his horse on this narrow misty path, a huge shelf of rocky cliff rising on one side while a deep drop disappears into the clouds on the other.
“She’s used to pulling carts, not racing. You had the advantage—”
The earth moves. A sudden sharp jolt, and tremors growing stronger. I tense around Quin. I know roughly what happens next, but I’ve no memories of my own, not of this part.
“Cael, move!” Quin is throwing out his hand like he expects a shield to appear—his body freezes; I can feel the thunderous beat of his heart. He’s still blocked. No shield will come.
Sound echoes around us as rocks tumble onto the mist-shrouded path, striking like a volley of arrows. Quin’s horse staggers under another jolt; my grip on him tightens as he struggles to stay steady while Chaos’s mare throws its head and rolls its eyes in panic.
A sharp crack slices the air and a rock strikes Chaos directly on the temple. His eyes flutter closed, and his body slumps forward.
“Cael!” Quin kicks his horse into action, but another rock hits the flank of the mare and she bolts up the treacherous path with her unconscious rider as rocks continue to fall.
When the shaking stops, the mare doesn’t.
Quin urgently closes the distance between their steeds, his feet coming out of the stirrups. He anticipates what’ll happen next: the mare hurtling around a tight corner—
Quin and I watch in horror as Chaos’s violet robe flares and he slides from the saddle, inch by inch.
The moment stretches, his fall slowly moving violet. We’re too far away.
Quin’s agonised roar and his sudden leap has me tumbling off the horse too. I hit the ground hard, but I don’t care. I scramble onto scratched knees to watch as Quin thrusts himself towards the cliff edge, towards a lethal drop through sparkling clouds, towards that violet robe.