Excerpt: The Consort

He kicked his heels again. The horse flew over the rocky terrain, hooves kicking up dirt and mud and clouds of clay as Rheged Keep faded to a gray speck in the distance. Accolon’s heart pounded in time with the stallion’s pulsing gate, racing through his body like living flame. Wisps of wet fog whipped at his face and bare hands. His eyes stung from the cold and wind.

On he rode.

Accolon clenched his thighs around the horse’s flank, keeping balance. He threw his head back. Drops of frozen rain struck his cheeks and forehead. He bared his naked neck to the sky. That tight coil in his belly wound tighter, sending tendrils of warmth through his veins and blood. His body awakened as the stallion ran.

Accolon did not understand the sudden rush, but welcomed the distraction nonetheless.

He half-crouched, half-sat in the saddle, spurring Boddur on with sheer force of will. Ever faster. The world passed by in a colorless blur. He snapped the reins, urging more speed.

Maybe if he rode fast enough, everything would fade—slain brothers, dying fathers, forced promises, the empty wound inside him that never seemed to heal.

Boddur whinnied and slid to a halt. Momentum flung Accolon forward, over the stallion’s head, the reins ripping out of his gloved hands. He crashed to the ground, sharp stones cutting into his calves and forearms. His head spun in dizzying circles and his stomach lurched. He closed his eyes, willing his lungs to draw breath.

Slowly, his body calmed. Muscles burning with a dull steady ache, Accolon opened his eyes and turned his head to the side, then jerked and scrabbled in the dirt. He pushed himself away from the edge of a cliff, hundreds of feet above the Môr Iwerddon Sea. Waves crashed against the white bluffs, their thunder rumbling in Accolon’s chest. Seabirds cried on the air currents, diving and dancing wherever the wind took them., soaring into the heavens, closer to the Divine.

*I would give anything to have that kind of freedom.*