It’s Dove, matching us stride for stride, feathers fluttering on her saddle pad. I glance, once and then again, at Puck and then Dove. Dove’s been bitten, but not deep. Puck’s bleeding, too. But unlike Dove’s untidy bite wound, Puck’s is clean and long, the material of her breeches sliced. It was a knife that did that, not a horse. Someone angry that she was on the beach with us. To think too long on that is to be furious and to be furious is to lose focus, which I can’t afford.
Because in front of us is chaos. The worst of it is the noise — the panting of winded capaill, the groaning as they fight, the continuous thunder of the hooves, the hissing of the sea. The squeals and the shouts and behind it all, the screams of the crowd. The noise would drive a horse mad even if the November ocean didn’t.
A capall in front of us twists and wheels inward, its rider avoiding the ocean at all costs. Another two shove and squabble, slowing enough that we move past them. It’s a wall of hocks and knees and hooves, blood coating bone, teeth against teeth. They make an attempt to bring us into it, but Corr blocks them, a trembling wall between them and Dove, who is a wall between him and the sea.
We are over halfway there. Halfway means we’ve made it a little over a mile. The first half weeds out those who weren’t ready, those who weren’t tame. It’s a rite of passage. I look at Puck and she looks back me, expression fierce.
The sand blurs below us and the ocean becomes silent in comparison to the sounds of our lungs gasping for breath. We are the only two on the sand.
Blackwell’s and Privett’s mounts quarrel up at the front. They worry back and forth, teeth flashing, necks and shoulders rubbing. Just behind them, Mutt Malvern relentlessly beats Skata, the piebald. And still Puck moves up behind them, steady and even. I match Corr to Dove, stride for stride, and with each stride, we gain ground.
Corr has nothing but power left. There’s a path ahead; I could cut ahead of Blackwell and then Privett. Mutt is nothing at all as he drops back from the lead and closer to us. I could be in the lead and taking this win as easily as I snatched it last year. In three minutes Corr could be mine.
Everything I’ve ever wanted. A roof over my head and reins in my hands and a horse beneath me. Corr.
I feel the mare goddess’s breath in my face.
I told Puck I would stay until she made her move. Maybe she doesn’t have the speed to overtake the leaders. Maybe I give everything away by waiting. I tell myself I have time, still. I have time for Corr to push forward.
Dove begins to make her move.
I realize then that Mutt Malvern has pulled Skata back intentionally.
He never meant to win.
PUCK
The piebald’s attack takes me by surprise.
Between me and the sea, she rears back as if she means to plunge forward, but then she drops onto Dove. Her teeth close down over Dove’s poll, right behind her ears.
Dove staggers.
I turn my head and look right into Mutt Malvern’s ghastly grin.
I hear Sean shout, his voice unstrung, “This is between you and me, Mutt!”
Trying to keep my stirrups, I lean far forward up Dove’s sweaty neck to grab at the piebald’s ear. Her skin feels slippery and unlike any horse I’ve ever touched. Dove’s spine presses hard into my guts and my blistered hand aches, but I ignore all of that and twist the piebald’s ear sharply. She squeals and drops off Dove.
I barely understand Sean’s shout. “Get out of the way, Puck!”
Dove understands even if I don’t; as Corr presses closer, she shoots from between him and the piebald. I barely have time to drop back down into the saddle, the leather slick with blood or water beneath me.
Skata twists and leaps beneath Mutt, but we are free of her. I glance behind me and only have time to see Corr’s shoulder smashing up against the piebald mare’s. Sean’s gaze flicks toward me for a second. He’s watching to make sure that I’m moving.
I want to wait for him. I know he’s won this four times without me here, but I don’t want to leave him.
I hear Sean Kendrick’s voice: “Go!”
I let Dove’s reins go.
SEAN
We can’t get clear.
Corr could outstrip Skata if we could pull ahead, but Mutt Malvern has seized my rein. He drags Corr’s face toward him, within reach of the piebald’s teeth. It’s Corr’s blind side and he is wild with the fear of not knowing what he’s up against. His eyes roll; his nose jerks into the air again and again. Skata snaps at him, her teeth grating against his cheek. As I fight Mutt for Corr’s rein, my knee crashes into Mutt’s, bone to bone, searing hot.
Skata and Corr gallop, shoulder to shoulder, every step taking us farther into the surf. I taste salt water; my saddle is slimy with it. Every muscle in Corr’s body shivers and shimmers. Glancing to Mutt, I see that he’s having a hard time keeping his seat.
Too late I see his knife.
I lift my arm. I cannot protect myself or Corr.
But it’s not me he stabs. He slides it along the piebald’s neck, slicing a scarlet line. She is furious with pain.
“Manage this, Kendrick,” Mutt says.
He lets go of the reins.
Skata slams into us.
PUCK
We catch up to Blackwell and Margot first. She’s a big, lean bay, long as a train car, and she fights him hard. I see that her mouth is cracked open and grinning like the black capall uisce that found us in the lean-to. She was breathlessly fast before, but now he holds her tightly in check. When Blackwell tries to allow her some more rein, she darts toward the ocean.
But Dove cares nothing about the sea. I lean low over her mane — her neck is sweaty and my hands are sweaty and it’s hard to keep my grip — and I ask her for more. She slides past Blackwell.
There is only Privett and Penda ahead of us now. He’s keeping a good distance between him and the surf, and I could move up between them. But if I could push Penda closer to that November water, maybe I could distract him long enough to hold the lead. It would mean getting very close to a capall uisce without any escape plan, and Dove is already frightened to the breaking point.
It’s not much farther. Only three furlongs, maybe. I don’t want to hope, but I can feel it pumping through me.
Only — Corr should be here now. I shouldn’t be up here with Penda by myself.
When I glance behind me, I can’t see him. I can see Margot gaining on us, fast. And the feathers of Dove’s makeshift saddle colors flapping crazily in the wind.
I hear Sean’s voice saying that this is possible. And Peg Gratton telling me to show them who we are. I know that it is not about Dove being brave, in the end. It’s about me being brave for her. I lean over Dove’s neck — Dove, my best friend — and I ask her for one last burst of speed.
SEAN
I am holding Corr, but I am holding nothing. Somewhere, there is a high, clear scream, and then I’m falling.
In the moment between Corr’s back and the surf, I think first of the dozens of horses behind us and then of my father’s death.
My only chance is if I can get clear. To hope that when I hit that ground, I hit it so that I can roll free of most of the hooves to come. If I stay conscious, I might survive.
For one moment, I see everything with perfect clarity: Corr, his face a mask of red, one of his nostrils torn; the horizon stretching away, far out of reach; the blue, blue November sky above us.
The piebald’s knee lurches up to strike my head.
When I hit the sand, my vision breaks like a wave. I have the surf in my mouth and the sand beneath me rumbles with hoofbeats, and there is red, red, red above me.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
PUCK
The moment we pass Ian Privett and Penda, Ian meets my eyes, and I see that he doesn’t believe it.
But then the race is over.
Even when I see that we have crossed the line first, even when it’s another half second before Margot flashes by, and another second before Ake Palsson and Dr. Halsal crash by nose to nose, I can’t believe it.
I slow Dove, patting her neck, laughing and rubbing away tears with the back of my bloody hand. All of my pain’s melted away; all that remains are ceaseless shivers. I stand shakily in my stirrups, steering her away from the other capaill uisce as they cross the finish. Grays and blacks and chestnuts and bays.
I don’t see Sean.
My ears won’t stop hissing. It takes me a long moment to realize that it’s the audience roaring from up above.
They’re shouting my name and Dove’s. I think I hear Finn among them, but maybe I imagine it. And still there are the water horses at the end of the race, milling and rearing and twisting.
But I don’t see Sean.
A race official comes toward me, his arm out toward Dove’s bridle. My hands won’t stop shaking; I have a terrible feeling inside me.
“Congratulations!” the official says.
I look at him, waiting for what he just said to make sense, and then I ask, “Where’s Sean Kendrick?” When he doesn’t answer me, I turn Dove back the way we came. The beach at this end is a mess of sweaty capaill uisce and tired riders. The beach looks nothing like what it looked like to me galloping the other direction. It is nothing but a stretch of sand when I’m trotting. The ocean is only wave after wave, not a hungry, dark thing. I direct Dove back the way we came, scanning the wet sand. There are smears of blood where fights went down and a dead chestnut capall lying very close to the water. They’re putting a sheet over someone farther inland, which makes my stomach squeeze, but it’s too big to be Sean.
And then I see Corr, standing at the edge of the surf, reflected red in the wet sand beneath him. One of his hind legs is crooked under him, resting on the toe of the hoof. His head is curled low and as I get closer, I see that he’s trembling. His saddle has been pulled around so that it hangs nearly upside down.
There’s a dark, slender form beneath him, the reins all tangled around it. Even filthy, I recognize the blue-black jacket. And the red I mistook for reflection is merely blood, slowly being washed away with each wave.
I think, suddenly, of how Gabe said that he could not bear it and I didn’t believe him, because of course you could bear anything if you decided to.
But just then I understand him perfectly because I cannot bear it if Sean Kendrick is dead. Not after all this. Not after everyone else. It is bad enough to see Corr standing there with a leg I think is broken. But Sean cannot be dead.
I slide off Dove. There’s another race official, and I press my reins into his hands. I scramble across the sand toward Corr. I slow for a moment as a gull swoops close to my face. They’re already gathering around the carnage on the beach — why doesn’t someone chase them away?
“Sean.”
As I get close, I startle backward at a sudden movement. It’s Sean — he reaches up an arm, fumbling. Finding the stirrup, he uses it to heave himself up. He’s unsteady as a new colt.
I throw my arms around him. I can’t tell which of us is shaking.
Sean’s voice is hoarse. “Did you do it?”
I don’t want to tell him, because it was only half of what was supposed to happen.
He pulls back and looks at my face. I’m not sure what he sees there, but he says, “Yes.”
“Penda was second. Where were you? What happened?”
“Mutt,” Sean says. He looks out to the ocean, his eyes narrowed. “Did you see him? No, I didn’t think so. She took him. The piebald took him.”
My wounds are starting to hurt, and my stomach feels tight. “He never meant to win. He just wanted you —”
“Corr stood here,” Sean says wonderingly. “I would’ve died. He didn’t have to stay.” For a moment, I see that it doesn’t matter that he didn’t win. The fact of Corr’s loyalty is a bigger thing than the ownership of him.
Then, I watch his eyes sweep over Corr, taking in his lowered head, the blood on his nostrils, the twist of the hind leg. From here, it looks terrible enough that my guts lurch. Sean steps forward and carefully touches Corr’s hind leg, running his hand along it. I see the precise moment when Sean’s hand stops and his shoulders slope and I know it is broken.
I remember what Sean wished for: to get what he needed.
And at that moment, I don’t see how I can believe in any god or goddess or island at all, and if I do, how I could believe them to be anything but cruel.
Sean moves away and jerks up the girth so that the twisted saddle falls to the ground, leaving Corr bare and dark red, his hair curly and damp where the saddle had been. Sean runs his hand over the sweat-curled hair.
Then he twists a handful of Corr’s mane into his hand and presses his forehead against Corr’s shoulder. I don’t need him to tell me that Corr will never run again.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
PUCK
The rest of the day passes in a rush. There are prize ceremonies and money, journalists and tourists. There are congratulations and handshaking and so many voices that I can’t hear any of them. There’s tending for my cut — My, that’s nasty, Puck Connolly, and how did a horse give you that? You’re lucky it’s not deep — and pampering of Dove. It goes on for hours and hours and I can’t get away from any of it to anything important.
After the sun has disappeared, I learn that Corr has been given a makeshift shelter in one of the coves on the beach because he cannot walk back to the Malvern Yard. I manage to escape from the mob and make it partway down the cliff path. There in the twilight I see Sean Kendrick sitting against the cliff, eyes closed, and I would have gone to him, but fair-haired George Holly is already shaking him awake and coaxing him away. Even from here, I see that Sean’s expression is wrecked by everything that he’s lost. Holly gives me a far-off nod to send me on, but it’s not until Sean meets my eyes that I lead Dove back toward home.