“Do you resent her for it?” I asked.
She shook her head. “The times I made him particularly furious, he took it out on her too, but she never once told me to stop fighting him. She encouraged my fortitude.”
I didn’t exactly know what to say now, but I understood why it was so important for Ava to get to Ronan, to put a stop to Hazlitt and to rescue her mother from him. It didn’t seem like she wanted me to say anything either, so we rode along in silence for a minute. After that, I began to notice a changing in the tundra half a mile ahead of us. It had been getting darker, and now I realized why. The mountain was split, and there was a massive gap that we’d have to cross to get to the other side.
“Whoa,” I muttered, kicking my heels back and not bothering to stay on the road in order to get to it faster, because I’d never seen something like this and was fascinated. I wanted to see how deep it went.
Brande picked up to a trot, carrying me forward to the massive chasm, and when we reached it, I dismounted to poke my head over the sharp edge of the cliff. And it was deep. It cut through all the way to the bottom of the mountain, and was so wide that I could actually see down to the ground below. Surely travelers traversed crossways through the mountain using the road at the base of the canyon.
“Kiena,” Ava called, finally catching up and stopping a good thirty feet from me at the edge. “Please be careful.”
I took a few steps back from the cliff, and turned to face her as she got off her horse. “Did you know about this?”
She strode over slowly, and I noticed that she appeared cautious. “Yes.” When she reached me, she grabbed my arm with one hand, inching just close enough to the edge to see how far down it went. “Though it didn’t sound quite so deep when I read about it.”
I glanced in the direction the main road twisted off. “There’s a bridge.”
Ava paced away from the edge and all the way back to her horse before answering. “You know, it wouldn’t be the worst thing if we found a way around.”
My eyebrows rose with disbelief. We’d opted for going up and over the mountain because the entire range of it went on for over fifty miles. That was days of extra travel that would be doubled by now if we decided to go around. Not knowing how many soldiers were trying to find us or how far behind they were, that was a risk I didn’t want to take if we didn’t have to.
“Let’s have a look at the bridge at least,” I suggested.
It was with obvious reluctance that Ava got back on her horse and followed me the distance to the main road. When we reached it, I dismounted again to examine the bridge that spanned the canyon. It was wide enough for a carriage to cross, and multiple ropes that were thicker than my arm supported the wide wood planks of it. Sturdy seemed like an understatement, but just to be sure, I strode out onto it and jumped up and down.
“Kiena!” Ava protested. Once more, she’d stopped her horse a good distance from the chasm.
“It’s perfectly safe,” I told her, and to prove it I mounted Brande again, rode him out onto the bridge, and turned him in a circle. “See?” All she did was shake her head, refusing to so much as look at me like she was terrified I’d plummet to an early death. So I rode over to her, asking, “You’re afraid of heights?”
“I thought I could do it,” she said, “that’s why I didn’t say anything. But I can’t.”
“You can,” I encouraged. “Close your eyes if you’d like,” and I motioned to her horse, “she’ll get you across.”
“Are you completely mad?” Ava asked, and though she was entirely serious, it was so melodramatic that it took an effort for me not to laugh. “Trust the horse to get across on her own?”
“I promise she wants to die no more than you do.” Despite my effort, I chuckled a bit, and Ava’s brow furrowed pleadingly, because she truly couldn’t do it and my amusement wasn’t helping. It wasn’t until I actually studied her, noticed how stiff she was while her hands’ grip on the reins trembled, that I realized she was literally terrified. “Would you trust me?”
I got off Brande again, and Ava hadn’t answered because she was so uncertain, and she hadn’t tried to move. So I walked over to her, took Maddox off the rear of her saddle, and shifted the bird onto Brande’s back. Then I slid Ava’s foot out of the stirrup, put my own in and lifted myself up onto her horse, sitting directly behind her.
“We’ll be too heavy,” she argued, her voice shaky.
“Ava, see those tracks?” I pointed to the dirt below us, to a set of straight grooves in the ground that disappeared at the bridge. “Those are from a carriage, and the bridge is still standing. If they can make it, we can make it.” I reached around her, taking the reins from her hands with one of my own. The other arm I wrapped around her chest to hold her against me. “Close your eyes.”
I couldn’t see her face from behind her, but I was certain she’d closed her eyes because she grabbed the arm wrapped around her chest with both hands, and leaned her head back on my shoulder. But she was still tense, especially when I kicked my heels and the horse started forward. Her grip tightened as she went rigid.
To distract her from it, I said, “Tell me something more about you.” The horse took its first steps onto the bridge, and at the shallow clomp of its hooves against the wood, Ava’s grip clenched again. “Tell me about your first kiss.”
“My first kiss?” she repeated.
“Aye,” I agreed, briefly glancing back to make sure Albus and Brande were following behind us. “I’m curious. How old were you?”
“Fifteen,” Ava answered, and I hummed so that she’d continue. “It was a stable boy.”
“How very predictable,” I teased.
“Quiet, you,” she giggled, and I was glad that I could feel her relaxing already. “I’d caught him looking at me many times, and I was determined to know what it was like.” Ava’s hold on my arm loosened, but she didn’t remove her hands completely.
“Did you enjoy it?” I asked.
“Not at all,” she answered, so at ease now that I actually peeked around her to see if her eyes were still closed. They were. “I didn’t like his lips or his hands or the shape of his body.”
I murmured my understanding, and to keep the conversation going so she’d remain calm, asked, “And the first time you kissed a woman?”
“A week later,” Ava said, and we both laughed at that. “Hazlitt was entertaining the Duke of Geladria and his family. They stayed with us for almost a month… His daughter didn’t seem to mind that I flirted when no one was around, so I kissed her.”
“And you liked it better,” I mused.
“So much better,” she confirmed. We reached the end of the bridge, but Ava continued talking so she didn’t notice, and I didn’t want to stop her and, frankly, I didn’t want to get back on my own horse. “Women smell different, and sound different, and feel different. They even taste different. It’s better. More comfortable.” She took in a deep breath, releasing it in a relaxed sigh. “I didn’t love her by any means, but I figured out what I wanted, and what I liked. It was more valuable to me than anything I studied.”
“How so?”
Ava opened her eyes, and glanced behind us to see that we were a safe distance off the bridge by now. While I pulled back on the reins to finally bring the horse to a stop, she turned just enough to look at me, and by the smirk on her face, I could tell she was entertained I hadn’t told her we’d made it to safety.
“It had given me resolve,” she finally answered, watching as I got off the horse, “to refuse suitors I knew could never make me happy.” Once I stood beside her horse, she glanced back toward the bridge again, and then down at me. “Thank you, Kiena.”