Kyra Blackrein's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Kyra left her parents with the seating chart and walked toward the stables, an apple tucked into her coat pocket. Outside, the first guests were arriving for the hunt. Carriages rolled through the manor gates, their wheels rattling over the cobblestones. Grooms hurried forward to receive horses while servants directed the visitors toward the gathering hunting party. Kyra caught sight of a midnight-blue carriage trimmed in gold approaching the courtyard. The Voltagios, no doubt. She continued toward the stables before anyone thought to call her over for introductions. The long stone stable row glowed with lantern light. Sable waited in her stall, ears forward, already watching the door. Kyra had always preferred preparing Sable herself. There was comfort in the familiar routine, in the smell of leather and hay, in the quiet understanding between horse and rider. Here, she didn’t have to explain herself to anyone. She pulled the apple from her pocket. Sable stretched her neck over the stall door, reaching for it before Kyra had even raised her hand. “Impatient,” Kyra murmured. She offered the apple on her open palm. Sable took it eagerly, crunching as Kyra stroked her forehead. “Father’s found a man he thinks I ought to marry.” Sable chewed her apple and said nothing, which was the only honest answer in the house. “Dorian Voltagio. Father’s friend’s son. Good land. Good connections.” Kyra rubbed the mare’s neck. “Mother’s even put him beside me at dinner. Apparently we’re meant to get acquainted.” She opened the weathered trunk and lifted out the grooming brushes. Sable stood quietly as Kyra worked the brush along her dark neck and shoulder. “Mother says I get to choose. She means it. But Father wants me to consider him, and the house would benefit, and everyone will watch me tonight to see if I behave.” She worked down the foreleg. It was easier to speak freely to Sable. The mare listened without judgment and never offered advice Kyra hadn’t asked for. “He’s a capable horseman. That’s what Father keeps saying. As if knowing which end of a horse bites settles anything.” Sable flicked an ear. “And the land. His father is giving him the adjoining estate. More pasture for our horses if we marry, closer ties between the families, and a husband with property of his own.” Kyra paused to clean the brush. “It’s a good arrangement. I can see that much.” She returned to Sable’s shoulder, working loose the last bits of dust. “But if I marry him, I’d be living on his land. In his household. Under his eyes.” Her hand slowed. “And anything I decide to study beyond what Calliope teaches me becomes someone else’s business.” That was the part she had not said at breakfast. Her parents accepted her lessons in the occult. They trusted Calliope, and Calliope had never given them reason not to. But the deeper craft was another matter. The forbidden text, the binding of spirits, the door her tutor had refused to open. Kyra had only glimpsed what might lie beyond it, and Calliope had made it clear she would teach her no further in that direction. Whether Kyra would ever pursue such knowledge on her own remained uncertain. What troubled her was the thought of someone else deciding she could not. A husband meant another household. Servants, schedules, expectations. Someone who might ask where she went, what she read, why she stayed awake long after the lamps should have been extinguished. Sable turned her head and nudged Kyra’s sleeve. Kyra rested her forehead against the mare’s cheek. “You I understand,” she said softly. “The rest I have to manage.” She fetched the saddle from its rack. The dark leather was worn smooth in familiar places, its old brass fittings polished by years of use. Beneath it lay the quilted blue saddle pad, a small Blackrein skull worked into the stitching. Her grandfather had ordered the family’s tack years before she was born. Kyra smoothed the pad over Sable’s back, settled the saddle into place, and drew the girth snug. She checked the fit, then reached for the bridle hanging beside the rack. “I’ll meet him properly today. I’ll listen to what he has to say.” She lifted the reins over Sable’s neck. “Perhaps he’s perfectly pleasant when he isn’t being discussed like a parcel of land.” She slipped the bit gently into Sable’s mouth and fastened the bridle. “But I won’t agree to anything just because it looks sensible on paper.” That much she could promise herself. She would be courteous. She would give Dorian Voltagio the chance her parents wanted her to give him. And if she found nothing to change her mind, she would tell him so. She checked the last buckle and stepped back. Sable stood ready for the hunt, her black coat clean and gleaming beneath the lanterns. Kyra gathered the reins and gave the mare’s neck one final stroke. “Come on, then. Let’s see what sort of man Father thinks is so suitable.”