I haven’t even been riding for very long yet—thirty minutes, tops. The night is thick and misted, like the air is holding up frozen patches of fog, forcing it to cling to our bodies as we travel over the frozen landscape.
I slept like the dead all day, so I should be well-rested and ready to go, but instead, I feel tired and sodden, like a towel wrung out.
I grit my teeth when my thighs begin to shake. My legs feel like one giant bruise from the inside out, though I have plenty of bruises on the outside too. Every time Crisp takes a step, I wince from the strain, my entire body sore.
The past seven days have been grueling. Even though the weather has held for the most part, it’s still not easy to journey all night every night in the dead, stark cold of Sixth Kingdom.
Each night, I’ve slogged my way through re-learning how to ride a horse, and my muscles hate me for it. I’m only able to ride for a few hours until I practically fall off Crisp and have to stumble back into my carriage.
But I don’t like to be cooped up in there, so I try to press on. I force myself to sit, to ride, to handle the strain, because the trade-off is that I get to be out in the open and enjoy the fresh air. I get to talk to Sail, who’s always ready to ride at my side with an easy smile and a story.
It’s nice, nicer than I can even express, to have a friend, to be without the constraints of a cage. Even if I do freeze my ass off.
Tonight though, my thighs and back are screaming at me earlier than usual, threatening to revolt. Unfortunately, my stomach isn’t satisfied either. The dried meat I ate as soon as I woke up didn’t do the trick, and I’m already hungry again. Tonight is going to be long.
“Alright there?” Sail asks, shooting me a smirk. His pale facial hair is longer now that we’ve been on the road for over a week, but it’s still growing in uneven patches. Though somehow, he manages to make it look charming.
“Fine,” I lie through gritted teeth as I try once again to shift on the saddle and relieve the ache in my back and legs. It does nothing other than irritate Crisp. I reach down and let my gloved fingers stroke over his white fur. “Sorry, boy.”
“Took me months to stay seated on a saddle,” Sail tells me as he rides beside me. His own horse is a beautiful, calm mare, her white hair dappled with brown streaks.
“Yeah? I’m sure your sergeants loved that,” I say, shooting him a smirk.
Sail gives me a crooked grin. “Every time I fell off the damn things, they’d make me muck the stalls. And shoveling horse shit out of a frozen stable is just about as bad as it sounds.”
“Lucky you.”
“Well, we didn’t have horses in the shanties,” he replies, and there’s no bitterness there, just an open, honest fact.
“I imagine not.”
“But once I stopped being so afraid of the damn things, I stopped panicking and getting thrown off.” He runs a stroke down his horse’s neck, a friendly touch that makes her chuff. “I sit a horse right proper-like, don’t I, beauty?” he croons to her.
I snort out a laugh. “If only your sergeant could see you now.”
Sail shoots me a grin and sits up straight again. “What about you?” he asks, tipping his head at me. “Ever been tossed off or muck a stall?”
“Thankfully, no. But never say never, right?”
“I don’t think the king’s favored will be having to hold a shovel any time soon,” he says, shooting me a grin.
He’d be surprised about the things I’ve done in my life, the things I’ve had to do. But I don’t say that, for the same reasons I don’t say how I actually learned to ride when I was younger. Or who taught me.
As we ride, I steal looks at Sail when he isn’t looking.
It’s strange to have a friend.
More than the desire to go outside, more than the craving for change, I realize how much I’ve wished for this, this connection with another person. Not an alliance for similar goals, not anything driven by politics or society or even lust. But a simple friendship. Just two people who enjoy talking to each other, who can share stories and meet in laughter, conspiring only for one another’s amusement.
I wonder what it would be like if I loved someone like Sail. I imagine it would be easy, to fall into his air, to be caught up in something as kind and straightforward as he is. Another life, perhaps. Another body.
“Colder tonight,” Sail muses, his observation pulling me from my thoughts as I take in the landscape.
“It is,” I agree, feeling the chill just as he says it.
Traveling at night has taken some getting used to. At first, every shadow in the distance seemed eerie and haunting, but I’ve learned to just focus on the trail of the guards in front of me, the carriage lanterns bobbing left and right as we go.
The scenery hasn’t changed too much since leaving Highbell. As far as the eye can see, there are snowy hills and jutting rocks. We left behind the last of the outlying villagers days ago, and for the most part, the weather really has held for us, only sputtering out a light snow or occasional sleet.