Flamecaster (Shattered Realms #1)(49)

“No. It’s your legacy, and I’ll not sell it. I should have given it to you long before now. I know how you love beautiful things, and you’ve had little enough beauty in your life. Keep it with you, and maybe it will somehow keep you safe if they . . .” He shook his head, blotting at his eyes with the back of his hand. “I don’t know what else to do.”

Jenna allowed herself to be persuaded. She hung the dagger on a hook on the wall, next to her clothes. When she reached up to adjust her collar, her fingers lingered on the magemark. She traced it, a hot spiderweb of metal centered by cool stone. As much as she tried to dismiss it, there was a weight and importance to it. She had to resist the urge to touch it whenever her mind wandered.

With some effort, Jenna pulled her hand away. “I don’t care what my grandmother said. There couldn’t be anything powerful about me—nothing someone would hunt me down for, anyway.”

“How do you know?”

“Because if there were, the king of Arden would be dead.”





17


THE KING GOES A-HUNTING


Ash pivoted in the center of the arena, cueing the king’s roan to shift from a walk to a trot. His paces were smooth, unbroken, with no sign that he was favoring his front leg. Ash had him on a lunge line and a halter, not the best means of control for a high-spirited horse, but Crusher was fast becoming the best-mannered horse in the barn—at least when Ash was handling him. When he called “Whoa!” the gelding trotted over and lowered his head for a scratch, snuffling into his hand.

“Good job,” Ash murmured. “Don’t get too comfortable. I’ll be back after lunch for another go.” That had become their routine, an hour-long workout on a lunge line in the mornings and afternoons.

“I can’t believe what you’ve done with that horse. It’s like you put a spell on him.”

Ash turned, startled. It was Bellamy.

“Nothing to do with spellcraft,” Ash said. “He’s not in pain anymore, and that makes all the difference.”

“Maybe so, but he’s still unpredictable around anyone else.”

“He’s got a lot of bad habits to unlearn,” Ash said. “I’ll work on that. Nobody should be riding him now, anyway, and he needs to stay on soft ground. Another couple of weeks, we can begin putting him under saddle. Rolley can take over lunging him, once I’ve given him some pointers.” Rolley was one of the grooms, the best of the lot in Ash’s opinion.

“And here I thought I was the one in charge,” Bellamy said wryly. He held up his hand when Ash opened his mouth to apologize. “Never mind. Skill and talent give a man a certain authority. Now there’s a mare in the army livery I’d like you to take a look at.”

After just a few weeks with Bellamy, Ash’s role had changed from that of farrier to that of consulting healer to the royal stables, the army paddocks, and the kennels. He might prefer to be working in the healing halls instead of the stables, but there was plenty of work to do here.

Still, he hadn’t really come here to find a job. He was no nearer to his goal of killing the king of Arden than when he’d arrived, and he saw no likelihood that would change. He was getting to know grooms, stable hands, and servants of all kinds, but he’d not laid eyes on any member of the royal family since his arrival. Apparently, His Majesty didn’t spend much time in the barn. Somehow, Ash needed to work his way into the palace itself.

Patience, he told himself. You knew that it was going to take time. He just wasn’t sure how much time he had. For all he knew, an attack on his mother and sister was already in the works.

When Ash returned to work Crusher in late afternoon, his stall was empty. Perplexed, Ash looked down the row, wondering who had moved him, and why. The other box stalls were empty, too. That’s when he heard a commotion out in the courtyard, shouts and curses, the snap of a whip, and a horse’s scream.

Rolley burst into the barn, a whip in one hand, his face ghostly pale. “Adam! Come quick! It’s the roan—I tried to tell him he wasn’t fit to be rid, but he wouldn’t listen.”

Ash bolted from the stable, nearly colliding with a group of bluebloods in hunting attire who huddled to one side, gripping the reins of their horses while a groom struggled to control a pack of leashed mastiffs. And beyond them was Crusher, ears flat, eyes rolling, bucking and crow-hopping, doing his best to fling his rider off his back. Meanwhile, Marshall Bellamy was trying to move in close enough to grab hold of the gelding’s reins without being trampled in the process.

The rider was skilled, to have kept his seat for that long, but just as Ash arrived, the gelding slammed against a stone wall and finally succeeded in dislodging him. The man fell, rolling, trying to evade the horse’s flying hooves.

Ash’s first instinct was to let Crusher trample the fool, but Bellamy was moving in again, stepping between the horse and the fallen rider, desperately trying to drive the gelding back far enough so that the rider could scramble away. Fearing the horse marshall would be trampled instead, Ash came in from the side, managed to snag one of the reins, and pulled the gelding’s head around so he circled away from the other two. He managed to get a hand on Crusher’s withers and pushed soothing magic into him. He kept on turning the horse in a tight circle, repeating “whoa!” until the plunging stopped and the ears came forward and Crusher stood still, shaking and blowing hard. On three legs.