The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater [109]
We’re giants, on his back.
Sean says into my ear, “Ask him for more.”
And when I squeeze my legs around him, Corr bounds forward again, as if we’d been merely straggling before. I can’t believe that any of the horses on the beach are faster than this. I can’t believe there’s a horse in the world faster than this. And this is with two people on him. With only Sean during the race, how can he lose?
We are flying.
Corr’s skin is hot against my legs — clingy, somehow, like when the current pushes your toes deeper into the sand. I feel his pulse in my pulse, his energy in mine, and I know this is the mysterious, terrifying power of the capaill uisce. We all know it, how it seizes you and confuses you and then you are in the water before you know it. But Sean leans forward, hard, against me, in order to reach Corr’s mane, and ties knots in it. Three. Then seven. Then three again. I try to focus on what he’s doing instead of his body pressed against mine, his cheek against my hair.
I lay the rein against Corr’s neck and he gallops to the left, away from the line of the cliffs. Sean is still tightly against me, the fingers of one hand pressing into one of Corr’s veins while the other grips his mane. The magic becomes a dull hum through me. My body warns me of the danger of this capall uisce beneath me, but at the same time it screams that it’s alive, alive, alive.
We wheel back the way we came. I keep waiting for Corr to flag, to show some signs of tiring, but there’s nothing but the pounding of his hooves across the turf, the snort of his breath around the bit, the wind blowing across my ears.
The island spools out beneath the moonlight. We gallop parallel to the cliff edge, and beyond it I see a flock of white birds keeping pace with us. Gulls, perhaps, soaring and gliding on air currents that send them violently upward as they get close to the rocks. This is Thisby, I think. This is the island I love. I suddenly feel I know everything about the island and everything about me all at the same time, only I know that it will go away as soon as we stop.
We are back to where we began, and reluctantly I slow Corr. My heart is crashing in my ears, galloping even though Corr has stopped.
I slide off and step a few feet away, turning to watch Sean dismount as well. He reaches into his pocket and gets a handful of salt or sand from it, then drops it in a circle around Corr and spits in it while I watch. Once this is done, he walks over to me, dark and silent. He’s looking at me like he looked at me at the festival, and I know I’m looking back. Something wild and old spins inside me, but I don’t have any words.
Sean reaches out between us and takes my wrist. He presses his thumb on my pulse. My heartbeat trips and surges against his skin. I’m pinned by his touch, a sort of fearful magic.
We stand and stand, and I wait for my pulse against his finger to slow, but it doesn’t.
Finally, he releases my wrist and says, “I’ll see you on the cliffs tomorrow.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
PUCK
When I get home, the house is neat as a pin. It hasn’t looked like this since our parents died. I stand in the doorway for a moment, lost in wonder and bemusement, and then Finn bursts out of the hallway. He looks like a man who has been on fire and put himself out; he is frazzled, even more than usual. I swim out of my thoughts to try to puzzle what has happened.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
Finn tries several times to say something, but only his hands are successful at it. Eventually, he manages, “I thought something — how would I know if something had happened to you?”
“Why would something have happened to me?”
“Puck, it’s night. Where have you been? I thought — !”
Slowly it dawns on me. He’d seen me before I left for confession and must’ve expected me not long after.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
Finn storms mightily around the room, and I realize that he’s done all this cleaning because he was fretting over me.
“The house