Bound to the Hybrid King

Chapter 10: Hels Part 1

The stables at Iskeld sat at the far edge of the palace grounds, beyond the ornamental gardens where the paths turned to gravel and then to bare packed earth, as if the palace itself had decided that whatever happened out here was no longer its concern. Theia had always liked that about the stable grounds. There was no one to watch her walk the last stretch of path, no lords idling near windows, no spying servants to note where the quiet princess was going and why. Only the smell of hay, horse and leather, and beneath it, that unique smell that belonged only to Hels. It was something like storm air, sharp and clean.

She had told herself, the whole walk down to the stables, that it was to say goodbye. Nothing more. She had not let herself hope for anything else, because hope, in her experience, was a costly thing indeed. She had learned long ago to leave it at the door before she asked for anything at all.

She had come to say goodbye to her precious, beautiful horse. That was nothing more to it. She would not let herself want more than that, because wanting more than that would mean feeling the loss of it twice. And she was already sure her heart couldn’t take it. It was too heavy with the goodbye to Isme and Mikka.

She found her mare exactly where she always found her, in the last stall on the left, the one set slightly apart from the others because no groom would risk placing a gentler horse within biting distance. Hels was enormous, black from muzzle to hoof without a single break of white, her eyes so dark they seemed to swallow the light rather than reflect it. The stable hands called her cursed. One old groom, years ago, had crossed himself the first time he saw her and refused to ever to enter her stall again, and Theia had heard her described, more than once, in a hushed and half serious tone, as a demon wearing a horse's shape.

Theia had never once been afraid of her.

'There you are,' she murmured, and Hels' ears swivelled toward her voice before her head did. A familiar small ritual. Then Hels was pressing her nose into Theia's collarbone with a soft, insistent nudge that nearly undid her before she had even begun.

Theia pressed her forehead against the warmth of the mare's neck, breathing her in, and for one unguarded moment she allowed herself to simply stand there. Her arms wrapped as far as they would go around that familiar soft, black neck as she felt the slow, steady thud of Hels’s heart beneath her cheek. Hels had never once thrown her off. Had never once, in eight years, offered her anything but a strange, fierce gentleness. One that was reserved for Theia alone. Every other rider who had ever tried to tame or ride Hel’s had come away bitten, bruised, or once, rather memorably, deposited into a water trough. She was not tame. She had simply chosen, and having chosen, had never once wavered in her decision.

Theia thought of the first time, as a girl of twelve standing at the same stall door while her father's courtiers argued that the animal ought to be put down before she cost the crown any more money or dignity. She also recalled that despite the anticipation of her father’s anger, she had walked into Hels stall anyway. Theia had been small and frightened and utterly certain of everything, except that she could not bear to watch one more thing be taken away simply because it was inconvenient. Hels had gone still the moment Theia stepped close, that great head lowering, a sign of respect that Theia had returned instantly. In that moment, something in Theia, some old wound she had not yet learned to name, had recognised part of herself in Hels wariness.

Though to this day, Theia remained utterly perplexed that her father had in fact let her keep the horse. Of course, it hadn’t been without its own sort of cost, as all things in Theia’s life were. Her father’s rage had been taken out on her a few times when Hels had bitten a important visiting ambassador. Though Theia had reasoned she would not have allowed anyone else to attempt to ride Hels, as all the court staff and servants were more than aware of her temperament. It had been the wrong thing to say, and Theia had realised it the moment the words had left her lips. Her father had hit her so fast and so hard her eye had gone black by the morning, and her cheek stayed bruised for weeks afterward. No one mentioned it. Callan had told her she should have known better. He had probably been right.

Theis took a deep breath and forced her mind back to the present. Those memories served no one now.

And it didn’t really matter to Theia anyway, as she had understood that her and Hels were partners, she had realised it the very first time she looked her black beauty straight in the eyes. It was, she thought now, the only unbroken thing in her whole life.

Theia's breath caught as she refused to let the sob escape her.

'I have to leave you,' she whispered, and her voice came out smaller than she meant it to. 'I don't know how to tell you that. I don't know if you'll understand it. But I must go, and I don't think they'll let me take you with me.'

Hels blew out a long breath through her nose, warm against Theia's collar, and stamped one hoof against the straw. Theia laughed despite herself, a wet, unsteady sound that turned, before she could stop it, into something closer to weeping. This time she let it out, because there was no one there to see it, no one to use it against her later, and she thought that if she were ever permitted to grieve anything freely in her whole life, it ought to be this. The one creature who had never once asked anything of her except for her presence.

'I'm sorry,' she said again, uselessly, into the dark of the mare's mane. 'I'm so sorry. I wish I could make them understand why this matters. I wish I could make anyone understand anything.'

She did not know how long she stood there before she heard the footsteps behind her, heavy and unhurried, and turned to find Commander Koda leaning against the stall's outer post with his arms crossed and an expression of open curiosity on his face. As though he had come across something unexpected and rather delightful. She straightened at once, wiping quickly at her face, some old instinct insisting that whatever she felt ought never to be witnessed, that a girl who wept was a girl inviting trouble.

'Now that,' he whistled, nodding toward Hels, and if he had noticed the state of her face but was kind enough not to say so directly, 'is the horse I've heard all about.'

Theia stepped back from Hels, smoothing her shirt and pulling her jacket closer, feeling suddenly watched. 'You've heard about her?' Theia tried not to frown at that.

'Half the palace has been telling stories since we arrived. Demon horse. Cursed animal. One of the stewards swore to me she once bit a man's finger clean off.' Koda's mouth curved, warm and amused, entirely unbothered by whatever horror the tale was meant to inspire in him. 'I confess I came to see for myself.'

'She didn't bite his finger off,' Theia said defensively, because it had always been easier to defend someone other than herself. 'She bruised it rather badly. Maybe broke the skin. He deserved it. He was cruel to her.'

Theia stroke Theia mane as it to reassure herself her horse was still there. Still ok.

'Ah.' Koda's grin widened, and he pushed off the post to approach the stall, slow and easy, the way she supposed a man accustomed to wary animals might approach any creature he did not wish to spook. Hels watched him come closer, ears flat, but she did not retreat. 'That tracks. She looks like she has opinions,' Koda added, looking truly amused.

'She does,' Theia said, and she felt pride at that. Hels was an excellent judge of character. She was sure that is why she always snapped at the General.

He studied the mare for a long moment, and something in his expression shifted, sharpened, became more careful. 'She's beautiful,' he said, and it did not sound like flattery, it sounded like simple fact. 'Big for a mare. What is she, part destrier stock?'

'I don't know her breeding. I never much cared about it either. My father won her in some wager years ago and had no use for her once she proved unrideable by anyone but me. He was going to have her destroyed.' Theia said it plainly, the way she said most things regarding her father now, with the flat, unsurprised tone of someone talking about the weather. 'I asked if I might try her instead. He apparently didn't much care either way.'

Koda's grin had entirely vanished. 'He was going to have her destroyed?’

'She'd hurt two men and thrown a visiting lord into the mud in front of half the court. It was considered a reasonable solution.' Theia reached up and stroked Hels' nose, and the mare leaned into the touch, eyes half closing. As she raised her arm, her sleeve slipped a fraction, and for the briefest moment, the pale skin of her wrist showed a faint yellowing shadow of old bruising, there and gone again as she righted the fabric, and if Koda saw it he said nothing, though something in the set of his jaw seemed to have changed very slightly. 'She only ever wanted someone who didn't try to force her into anything. I don't think that's such an unreasonable thing to want.'

'No,' Koda said, slower now, watching her rather than the horse. 'It isn't.'