The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater [137]
He lets go of the reins.
Skata slams into us.
PUCK
We catch up to Blackwell and Margot first. She’s a big, lean bay, long as a train car, and she fights him hard. I see that her mouth is cracked open and grinning like the black capall uisce that found us in the lean-to. She was breathlessly fast before, but now he holds her tightly in check. When Blackwell tries to allow her some more rein, she darts toward the ocean.
But Dove cares nothing about the sea. I lean low over her mane — her neck is sweaty and my hands are sweaty and it’s hard to keep my grip — and I ask her for more. She slides past Blackwell.
There is only Privett and Penda ahead of us now. He’s keeping a good distance between him and the surf, and I could move up between them. But if I could push Penda closer to that November water, maybe I could distract him long enough to hold the lead. It would mean getting very close to a capall uisce without any escape plan, and Dove is already frightened to the breaking point.
It’s not much farther. Only three furlongs, maybe. I don’t want to hope, but I can feel it pumping through me.
Only — Corr should be here now. I shouldn’t be up here with Penda by myself.
When I glance behind me, I can’t see him. I can see Margot gaining on us, fast. And the feathers of Dove’s makeshift saddle colors flapping crazily in the wind.
I hear Sean’s voice saying that this is possible. And Peg Gratton telling me to show them who we are. I know that it is not about Dove being brave, in the end. It’s about me being brave for her. I lean over Dove’s neck — Dove, my best friend — and I ask her for one last burst of speed.
SEAN
I am holding Corr, but I am holding nothing. Somewhere, there is a high, clear scream, and then I’m falling.
In the moment between Corr’s back and the surf, I think first of the dozens of horses behind us and then of my father’s death.
My only chance is if I can get clear. To hope that when I hit that ground, I hit it so that I can roll free of most of the hooves to come. If I stay conscious, I might survive.
For one moment, I see everything with perfect clarity: Corr, his face a mask of red, one of his nostrils torn; the horizon stretching away, far out of reach; the blue, blue November sky above us.
The piebald’s knee lurches up to strike my head.
When I hit the sand, my vision breaks like a wave. I have the surf in my mouth and the sand beneath me rumbles with hoofbeats, and there is red, red, red above me.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
PUCK
The moment we pass Ian Privett and Penda, Ian meets my eyes, and I see that he doesn’t believe it.
But then the race is over.
Even when I see that we have crossed the line first, even when it’s another half second before Margot flashes by, and another second before Ake Palsson and Dr. Halsal crash by nose to nose, I can’t believe it.
I slow Dove, patting her neck, laughing and rubbing away tears with the back of my bloody hand. All of my pain’s melted away; all that remains are ceaseless shivers. I stand shakily in my stirrups, steering her away from the other capaill uisce as they cross the finish. Grays and blacks and chestnuts and bays.
I don’t see Sean.
My ears won’t stop hissing. It takes me a long moment to realize that it’s the audience roaring from up above.
They’re shouting my name and Dove’s. I think I hear Finn among them, but maybe I imagine it. And still there are the water horses at the end of the race, milling and rearing and twisting.
But I don’t see Sean.
A race official comes toward me, his arm out toward Dove’s bridle. My hands won’t stop shaking; I have a terrible feeling inside me.
“Congratulations!” the official says.
I look at him, waiting for what he just said to make sense, and then I ask, “Where’s Sean Kendrick?” When he doesn’t answer me, I turn Dove back the way we came. The beach at this end is a mess of sweaty capaill uisce and tired riders. The beach looks nothing like what it looked like to me galloping the other direction. It is nothing but a stretch of sand when I’m trotting. The ocean is only wave after