Page 16 of The Queen's Line
6
Bryony
Iwoke with a groan, stretching in my seat of the carriage at dawn, my feet tangling with the others on the floor. I felt gritty and sweaty from being cooped up in the carriage for so long, and as I sat up I realized at least one of the men had escaped.
Wendell was still pressed to one corner, Owen at his side, but it was only Cosmo on the other bench with me, rustling and turning away as I shifted in my seat.
"Look," whispered Wendell, and he pointed out the window to my right.
There, on the rocky terrain just next to us, an orange striped tiger moved fluidly along our path.
"Thao," I said, my eyes widening, and Wendell hummed the affirmative.
He was enormous, easily twice the size of his human form or even giant Owen, and I watched with rapt fascination as he moved over boulders and down to the road and then back up, body fluid and muscular. His head turned and he glanced at us, amber eyes blinking at me, before going back to staring ahead. He yawned, and I gasped as I realized that in his tiger form, Thao could easily bite my head off in one snap.
"He doesn't spook the horses?" I whispered, turning and finding Wendell's stare on his lover, something pained and wistful in his blue eyes.
"No, single natured animals seem to be able to tell the difference." Wendell's blue eyes tracked every movement of Thao as a tiger, but I didn't think it was simply admiration in his gaze.
"Do you worry for him? He looks…indestructible to me."
"Worry?" Wendell asked, straightening. He blinked and then shook his head, a gentle smile growing. "No, Your Highness. I think I'm only a little jealous."
Ah! Well, that made sense. It would be nice to be able to shift into an enormous, free beast, rather than kept cooped up and held to expectations I couldn't meet.
It would be nice until they forced you into an army or some kind of strenuous labor, I reminded myself, thinking of what I'd learned the night before.
Just the thought made my heart pinch uncomfortably in my chest, the confines of the carriage suddenly unbearable.
"Are there extra horses behind us?" I asked.
Wendell frowned and shrugged. "I believe so."
I nodded and reached for the door handle. "I'm going to ride for a few hours."
"Oh, I'll tell them to stop the—"
"Don't bother," I answered Wendell, opening the door and jumping down with a great gasp of relief, my feet jogging lightly to keep myself from tripping.
Thao leapt down from the rocks, and I found myself fighting the impulse to scoot away from the massive, lanky form of him padding closer, his paws twice the size of my own feet. But he brushed up against my side and followed me as I moved back to the horses that kept pace with the carriage from behind. Thao paused, sitting on his haunches like a house cat as the horse handler passed me the reins of a powdery white and grey gelding.
"We don't have a saddle for you," he said, but I was already pulling myself up onto the horse's back.
Here was the amount of my education. Taking my Chosen once I was of age—which I'd failed at—horseback riding, and fencing. Or so it felt when at every turn I learned something new and horrid about my own kingdom. If I'd had any doubts about the wealth and health of my own people, yesterday had squashed those. I believed the men and what they'd told me, or at least, more than I believed my own family.
"It's not necessary," I called to the handler over my shoulder.
I arranged my plentiful skirts around my legs and squeezed gently, coaxing the gelding into a trot. Thao joined us, loping along before rising back up into the mountainside. Wendell's smile was tilted up as I passed the carriage and driver, taking in deep lungfuls of fresh air. I'd seen paintings of the northern terrain of Kimmery around the castle, including depictions of the Winter Palace, but my mother had never wanted to leave the south. I wondered now if that neglect on visiting the north was intentional.
The rocky hills rising up around us were lush with greenery, still ripe with Kimmery's long summers. I'd known rich, manicured gardens my entire life, and a little of forests when Mother wanted a royal hunt or picnic, but I'd never been anywhere so wild or with such a sense of the unknown. In the south, I could see for miles out my window, into the sea on one side over the castle, or over the villages and into the woods from the other. Here the hills hid what was over the next bend, like tempting secrets to tease me.
"I never realized what a long journey it was," I said, urging my horse up to ride alongside Aric.
He startled in his seat, and I smothered my laugh as I realized I'd caught him sleeping in his saddle.
"How long did you think three hundred miles would take?" Aric grunted.
My teeth clenched, and I fixed my eyes to the curling road ahead of us, two royal guards at the lead.