Page 155 of Winter's Echo
His lips twitched. He saw my eyes narrow and coughed into his hand. I was pretty sure the bastard was laughing at me.
“Okay. Well, we’ll teach you, but not here and not now. Let’s get you up on this horse, and we’ll practice later.”
“What’s its name?”
He looked at me, then at the horse. “It doesn’t need a name.”
He saw my puzzled look and rolled his eyes. “For fuck’s sake, bunny, call it whatever the fuck you want, just come over here and get on the fucking horse.”
I didn’t move. “How much was it?”
“Why?”
“So I can pay for it. It’s apparentlymyhorse.”
I watched his jaw clench and unclench. “You don’t need to pay. I got it cheap.”
“How cheap is cheap?” I looked the horse over. “Why was it cheap? Is it going to die? Did you buy me a dead horse?”
The flat look he gave me rivaled the coldness of the tundra. “Does it look dead?”
I lifted my chin. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about horses.”
Baxley decided to step in before punches were swung. “Amarya, let’s get you and the mare acquainted with each other. I’ll lift you like always, and then you swing your leg, and you’ll be on. Okay? You just don’t have Nicco to grab you when you get up there this time, but everything is the same.”
I held Nicco’s stare for a moment longer before I turned to Baxley. “Of course, thank you, Baxley.”
I pretended I couldn’t hear that the other one muttered something under his breath.
Baxley's instructions were clear and simple, and my body refused to cooperate with a single one of them.
“She won't bite,” Baxley said.
“You don't know that.”
“She hasn't bitten anyone yet.”
“Yet,” I said.
The mare snorted. I took a step back.
“She's just breathing,” Baxley said patiently.
“She's expressing an opinion.”
From somewhere behind me, I heard a sound that was definitely not a laugh because Nicco did not laugh at things like this. It was probably a cough. It was absolutely not a laugh.
“Put your hand out,” Baxley said. “Let her smell you.”
“She can smell me from here.”
“Amarya. You were so good with the horses on the journey north, what is wrong? Tell me.”
I put my hand out. The mare lowered her head and breathed on it — warm, damp, smelling of straw — and I held very still and tried not to think about how large her teeth were.
“Iwalkedalongside that one, I didn’t try to force it to carry me.”
“That’s…”
