My horse is not where I left him.

  I whistle long and low again, anxiety replacing the ease I felt from seeing Farnell return safely to his bunkhouse. Skies Above, where is my horse? Sebastian never travels far and always comes when I call.

  I pace up and down the familiar trail we use for traveling from Venon land to mine, looking for signs of his departure, and whistle again. A little louder and longer this time.

  Still, nothing.

  My stomach churns, and fatigue gnaws at me. He never goes deep into the forest. Here by the forest’s edge, the thick underbrush and tightly packed trees keep us safe. But further in there are pockets of clearings where a flying wyvern can dive into far faster than I’ll ever see coming. I’ve learned that lesson well enough already and I’ve always thought Sebastian too smart—and his prey drive too strong—to venture out of cover.

  But what if he has?

  I squeeze my eyes shut and draw in a steadying breath. Stupid, stupid. All of this has to stop. I’ve already risked Farnell’s life today—for what? A thrill? Maybe Lilianna’s sliver of happiness might’ve been worth it, but I didn’t even manage to snag any of her books. And now Sebastian.

  I’ll do better. No more running around. No more risks. I have to do better, for Farnell, for Sebastian, for Lilianna. For Father.

  I purse my lips to whistle again when I catch sight of a broken branch snagged with a tuft of black fur. I snatch it and sniff. Horse, for sure, and it looks exactly like his winter shed. The broken branch marks a narrow game trail leading deeper into the forest.

  The whoosh of air and the steady beat of wyvern wings echo in my memory, and the scars across my back and shoulders prickle with phantom heat.

  Composure. Commitment. Conviction.

  I clench my fists to fight their tremor, and trudge onto the trail and into the forest’s depths. Branches claw at my sleeves, my hat, and snag the strands of my hair that’ve fallen free of my cap.

  Farnell would tell me to go back, that I’m nuts and Sebastian will probably return on his own. That my stepmother might not even notice right away, or might assume he’s just escaped like the ornery beast he is. But I will not abandon him. Not out here. Not alone.

  The distant trickle of water reaches my ears. Maybe he’s gone for water now that the afternoons are getting warmer?

  The underbrush abruptly gives way and I nearly stumble directly into a creek. I catch myself just in time with an overhanging branch. A steep embankment rises from the opposite side of the creek up to the Northern High Road—the main road that connects my family’s estate and the Venons’ to the Palace city.

  I duck back into the shadows and crane my ears for hoofbeats or wagon wheels.

  Nothing.

  No, not nothing. The hum of buzzing flies.

  I glance downstream, then up, and my breath catches.

  An overturned caravan lies across the creek-bed a few dozen yards upstream. By the state of its cracked body panels and broken wheels, it’s clearly rolled down the road’s embankment.

  Clinging to branches and sapling trunks, I clamber along the bank, glancing obsessively over my shoulder at the High Road, wary of patrols—or, worse, Clara returning early in the Gallant family carriage.

  The buzz of flies grows as I approach. The carriage door hangs open from only one twisted hinge. A body, stripped to his underclothes, lies partially across the upturned side, while one arm and one leg dangle lifelessly into the caravan. Flies hover around him and the blood pooled beneath him. The caravan’s Venon crest shimmers in the sunlight under the dead man’s outstretched arm.

  I press the back of my hand against my mouth as bile climbs up my throat. Skies Above, what happened? What had they been transporting? Something important, clearly, or have the rumors of rebels robbing important shipments now grown to random ransacking? Will Clara and Lilianna be next?

  On the opposite side of the caravan, four more bodies lay scattered along the ditch and half in the creek, also relieved of their armor, boots, and weapons.

  A high-pitched whinny sounds somewhere behind me, back in the thick of the forest. I startle and stumble away from the scene and back into the relative safety of the underbrush, my heart still pounding in my chest.

  I thrust the brush aside, no game trail to ease my path, but I don’t care. I need to get to Sebastian and away from here. I whistle as I push my way through the brambles.

  The high neigh sounds again, but it’s not accompanied by hoofbeats. He’s never just called to me. He always storms through the woods until he reaches me. I move faster, branches and twigs clawing at my face.

  The forest gives way to a small glade and I draw up short.

  Sebastian stands at the far side of another branch of the creek, a rope tied into a makeshift halter and fastened to a tree. And just in front of him, a man in a black mask kneels at the water’s edge, a bow drawn and pointed right at me.

  Every muscle in my body seizes.

  “I have to say…” The man adjusts the mask covering the lower half of his face with a rub of his jaw against his hitched shoulder, as if he’d hastily pulled it up just before I’d burst from the forest. Water drips from the long, tangled black hair framing his face like the unkempt mane of a wild animal and down onto his bare, chiseled chest. Maybe he’d just been splashing water on his face before I appeared. Or washing blood from his hands. “You’re a far cry from what I expected to come blundering through the bushes.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  The man rises slowly to his feet, water droplets trickling in rivulets over defined abs to a narrow trail of hair descending into the low set of his belted trousers.

  Heat burns up my neck and I jerk my gaze back up to the arrow pointed straight at me. Shit, shit, shit.

  A rebel. He has to be. Is this man responsible for the caravan and the murdered men back by the road? The flies suggested it’d happened awhile ago, but… here he is, yards away from the scene of a crime, cleaning himself up. I don’t see blood marking the bank, but maybe he’s a tidy murderer.

  My legs burn to run, but I can’t abandon Sebastian. “Unhand my horse at once,” I say with every ounce of courage and dignity I can muster.

  He lowers the bow, and the rigid muscles of his bare shoulders abruptly relax. His head cocks. “You know, if you want to pull off looking like a boy, you’ll have to practice sounding more like one.”

  Skies! I hadn’t even attempted to alter my voice.

  “How intriguing.” His eyebrows rise as his dark gaze slides down my body in a slow perusal that ignites goosebumps up my arms and leaves me feeling more stripped-bare than him. “Who are you?”

  “No one of importance. Now give me back my horse.” Giving my name feels extra idiotic, but what in Skies am I doing? When his eyebrows raise even higher, I tack on a, “Please.”

  Those dangerous eyes narrow and he turns to the animal beside him, as if regarding it for the very first time. “This? This is your horse? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure and I demand you release him.” I step forward, heart pounding against the blatant emptiness of my threat.

  His mask stretches and his eyes crinkle into a devilish dance. “Yes, do come take him from me. I’d like to see you up close.”

  I withdraw that step. The gravity of the danger I’m in stabs into my bones like the icy chill of a deep winter’s night. My hand itches to check the collar of my shirt or the gold at my temple, but I don’t dare risk drawing his eye.

  “My, where are my manners?” He spreads his arms wide, his bow still clenched in one fist, and dips into a deep, distinctly mocking bow. “I’m Abel, leader of the so-very-dreaded Apostate’s Disciples. And you are…?”

  The Apostate’s Disciples. Skies. Clara has mentioned rumors of them floating around town and at Court. Brutal, cruel, shockingly skillful. If he discovers who I am—what I am—will he kidnap me? Ransom me? How many times has Clara warned me that desperate men might slit my wrists for the gold in my veins? My skin, too, will surely fetch a high price in the illegal trade markets. “Just a peasant. I work in the stables and exercise the horses. That’s why I dress like this.”

  He nods like this is reasonable and unties Sebastian’s lead from the tree. Lead rope gripped in his fist, he turns back to me with knitted brows. “So… You want me to believe you’re just a peasant woman, dressed in men’s clothes, riding a noble’s horse? Probably a Founder Lord’s warhorse, by the look of him. Just out for an exercising ride? And you… misplaced him?”

  I curl the hems of my oversized sleeves into my hidden fists. I should run. I know I should, but I simply cannot. Won’t. So, for lack of any better ideas, I bow my head and switch tactics. “I stopped for a drink in the creek and he ran off. My mistress will be furious with me if I don’t return him. I’m good with horses and they’re tight in the purse. I’m allowed to exercise him, but not take him out this far. Please. She’ll kill me.”

  His narrowed eyes consider me just long enough for my hope to rise. Then he shrugs. “Well, if that’s all, I really must be off.”

  “Off?” I step forward again. “You’re not going anywhere with Seb—my mistress’s horse.”

  He gives the bow in his other hand a little shake. “Weapon.” He jerks his thumb towards his chest. “Handsome, but ruthless thug.” Then points the tip of the bow at me. “‘Horse-exercising servant’ with zero ability to stop me. I feel as though we’ve gone over this.”

  “I’ll tell the guards about you,” I say and my treacherous voice cracks.

  The corners of his eyes crinkle again. “Honey, I promise you, they already know all about me. Until we meet again, m’lady.” He bows again.

  I can’t think. I can hardly breathe. This man is going to walk away with Sebastian. I cannot allow it. I scramble for anything, any idea, or… Fight smarter.

  I whistle.

  Sebastian lets out a high-pitched whinny with a toss of his head and takes a few eager steps towards me. The rope snaps taut.

  “Whoa, boy.” The man holds fast, his arm absorbing Sebastian’s movements with flexibility rather than rigidity. A horseman, clearly, but can he handle a stallion’s tantrum?

  I whistle again, hope rising.

  Sebastian balks on the lead, setting back on his haunches and flaring his nostrils wide.

  “Easy now. You weren’t kidding about your fondness for each other, were you?” Abel fishes a treat out of his pocket and offers it on his palm.

  Sebastian’s posture eases and he gobbles it up with a soul-crushing crunch I can hear all the way over on the other side of the creek. Treats. The man brought treats.

  My chest wrenches as if a tether has pulled taut between my heart and Sebastian and this man’s every move plucks that thread, a vibrating threat tugging at my heart. Father’s gift to me. One of the few pieces of my father I had left. My closest companion, a living thing which knows me inside and out. The silky coat I’ve buried my tear-streaked face into more times than I can count. My horse.

  “The problem is... It’s awful hard to come by decent warhorses these days. Especially when you happen to be a wanted man. And this one is... well, he’s really something, isn’t he?” He shrugs and, glancing at me again, he—

  He winks.

  I break. Blazing hot fury consumes me. I snatch a rock from the ground and hurl it at him with every fiber of strength I possess.

  He yelps and bats it away faster than I’ve ever seen anyone move. “Hey! You nearly took my eye out.”

  I scoop a handful and let loose another. And another. “Give. Me. Back. My. Horse.” I punctuate each word with a rock.

  “Hey now!” He ducked one, dodged, batted away another. “Enough!” In a lightning-fast blur, he raises the bow.

  The string twangs and, before I can even think or flinch, a whoosh cuts through the air overhead, ripping off my cap, and the arrow thunks into a tree behind me.

  I freeze, arm cocked back with another rock I don’t dare throw.

  He already has a fresh arrow nocked and aimed at me. “Now, maybe we can discuss this like civilized…” His voice trails away and his arms slacken. The bow drifts downwards as he stares.

  I follow his gaze to my raised hand, gripped on the rock. My oversized sleeve has fallen down to my elbow, exposing the irregular spread of gold up my forearm, around my wrist, and across the back of my hand.

  “I’ll be damned,” he breathes.

  I whistle as loud as I can.

  Sebastian lunges forward and bites down on the man’s shoulder. Abel yelps and tears away.

  I take the opportunity to dive back into the brush and plaster myself against a tree.

  Sebastian rears with a piercing neigh and, as Abel dodges back away from the flailing hooves, the rope yanks free of his grip. Newly freed, my valiant steed gallops across the meadow for me.

  As soon as he nears my tree, I hurl myself out of cover and onto his back, grasping his mane to steady myself.

  I expect to feel the bite of an arrow before I’ve even righted myself. I don’t, not for a second, expect the man to throw his head back and laugh. A big, hearty laugh—unlike anything I’ve heard before. So far from the tight, controlled laughs at High Court. I can’t help but twist around for one last look at him.

  He stands on the bank, both hands raised in surrender, bowstring hooked over one thumb. His eyes crinkle in a smile hidden beneath his wrap. “Have your beast, Goldie. I’ll be seeing you.”

  He tips his head and dips into one last bow.

  I bump Sebastian into a gallop, and we dive into the woods. My entire body shakes in fantastic pulsing waves of intensity that leave me torn between whooping and sobbing and screaming and laughing.

  A rebel. One of the rebels traumatizing the nobility. One who now knows I’m a gold-marked. Nor will it be hard for him to figure out which one I am. Clara says there aren’t many with gold like mine, especially around here.

  Skies, we’ll be traveling that same High Road he preys upon tomorrow.

  Tomorrow, for High Court.