"That is your squire," he tells me and points to the boy.

The kid waves.

"Ah. Got it," I reply.

The Shadow Knight faces me. "He stays with you at all times when I am not present."

I don't ask why. The kid is too small to defend me, unless I'm supposed to defend him. It makes more sense that this is the case, seeing as how I'm allegedly a magical being.

"I will take care of him," I say in the awkward silence that's fallen between the Shadow Knight and me.

The squire frowns.

The Shadow Knight shakes his head. Without another word, he grabs me at the waist and lifts me off the ground and onto the horse. I catch a whiff of brownies, or maybe it's simple awe at his strength. Whatever it is, I forget to react or think and instead revel in the experience of him holding me.

He sets me on the saddle, his large hands nearly circling my waist. I'm not a little girl by any means and haven't been a virgin in three years. In that moment, I feel like this is the first time I've ever been touched by a man, like I'm delicate, tiny, and about to melt at his feet in a pitiful puddle.

"You have something to say, witch?"

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Realizing I'm gawking at him, I shift back and grip the saddle. "No."

He releases me and walks around the back of the horse, adjusting the loop around my belt to the side nearest his horse. Mounting, he accepts his reins from his squire.

I watch how he sits on the horse and what he does. With some effort, I swing one leg over the horse's neck and straddle the saddle. It's not comfortable. The saddle is thin, and my dress is bunched up beneath me.

I take the reins from my squire, who smiles reassuringly, and try to figure out how to get my horse to go.

The beautiful gray ends up following the Shadow Knight. My challenge then becomes steering, for fear of the horse going one way and the Shadow Knight dragging me the other.

He starts trotting and so does my horse. I drop the reins and grab its mane to keep from falling off at the jarring pace. Within a couple of minutes, my ass is hurting. Thank god my horse is content to follow the black one. I'm not sure how I could hang on and steer at the same time.

There's no way I can spend nine days on horseback.

We reach a second field where thousands of men are lined up on horses in neat rows. We slow, and my attention shifts with no small amount of amazement. The men all wear the heads of different animals and ride horses as large as the one I'm on. They're also as well armed as their leader.




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