The Finest Choice (Finest Trilogy, Band 2) - Hardcover

1 · Alone Together

The horse was the color of wet clay, with a slightly lighter blaze running from between his ears to just short of his black muzzle. He had a coarse mane and tail as dark as the mud puddles he was tromping through, and he had none of the attractive feathering around his legs that most of the horses from the north displayed. Called a suffolk-punch, or simply a punch, he was considered an “old breed,” who traced his line back more than a thousand years and had been used primarily for farming and hauling timber.

His sturdy legs looked overly short for his massive body and powerful quarters. He had a large head with kind, expressive eyes; a thick, muscular neck; and a deep, broad chest that was crisscrossed with cuts from a flock of birds he’d fought off.

He was not a pretty horse, not compared to the magnificent mares and stallions that were warm and dry in the royal stables on the palace grounds in Nadir—where he’d been staying until yesterday. But he was a strong creature, and despite being terribly weary, he continued to plod through the marshy land many miles south of where Meven Montoll was about to be crowned King of Galmier.

Meven’s sister sat astride the punch’s wide back, leaning against his neck. Kalantha had fought sleep all of last night and this morning. It had only recently claimed her. She slept soundly now, despite the rain that fell gently, and so the punch chose what appeared to be the most level course, keeping his gait slow and regular now so she wouldn’t be disturbed.

Though cold, the rain felt good against the punch’s hide and gave him something to listen to. It rat-a-tat-tatted softly against the branches and oak leaves and downed logs he navigated around. It echoed faintly when it thrummed against puddles that dotted the ground as far as he could see. There were few paths to follow where the water didn’t come up above his hooves. The horse gathered it had been raining on and off here for many days, the ground too saturated to soak up any more water.

The punch had been traveling with the girl since late the previous evening. At first he galloped, trying to get her far away from the palace as quickly as possible. He didn’t slow until after well more than an hour, when his sides ached from the effort and when the woods thickened and knobby, exposed roots threatened to trip him and spill her.

A normal horse would have needed rest before now. But the punch wasn’t truly a horse—though no person native to this land would see him as anything but. He was called a Finest creation, sculpted by the good powers of Paard-Peran. His kind was charged with secretly guiding and guarding the Fallen Favorites—the select few people who possessed some inner spark that would lead them, and thereby perhaps some of their fellows, to salvation.

“Rue?” The girl on his back stirred. “Where are we, Rue?” She was the Fallen Favorite he was destined to protect. That this slight girl of twelve years could have any impact on the world seemed doubtful … but the Finest was not one to question his mission.

“The sky’s awfully dark, Rue, for this time of the day. I think it’s going to keep raining forever.” She yawned and stuffed her hand against her mouth, shook her head and tipped her face up into the rain. The canopy was denser here, with tall pines, and with plenty of oaks that kept their leaves this late into the fall. And so the rain that made it to the forest floor seemed to bleed slowly from the sky. It grayed the air in front of her and the punch, making it look like they were passing through a veil of smoke.

As she glanced around, she saw a small hawk drop from a branch high overhead and dive on something hiding in a patch of stunted evergreens. Claws outstretched, beak open, its black eyes were as shiny as fresh ink and were fixed on whatever was making the needles of the spreading ground cover quiver. The hawk’s movement and sudden cry startled a flock of bluebirds that flew from the cover of a nearby willow, scattering and throwing bits of color into Kalantha’s view. She focused on one small bird in particular. It was puffed up and angry-looking, and had settled on a low branch directly ahead, scolding the hawk and Kalantha and the punch for disturbing it. A moment later it flew off, still scolding. The hawk climbed and disappeared in the canopy, a large ground squirrel skewered on its talons.

Kalantha shuddered. “Birds worry me, Rue.”

Since she was awake, the punch picked up his pace, managing to find his way around submerged roots when the water deepened to his knees.

“Aren’t you tired, Rue? You must be tired. We should stop so you can rest.”

He came to a stretch of ground that felt comfortably spongy beneath his hooves, but for the most part was devoid of standing water. He galloped across it, mud and grass flying up behind him. Then he slowed when he reached thin clumps of birch trees at the edge of a large stand of black walnuts.

“Do you know where we are, Rue?” She twined her fingers in his mane and clamped her legs tighter when he vaulted over a fallen river birch and edged deeper into the thickening woods.

Safe, the punch told her finally. We are safe, Kalantha. And we are thankfully away from the assassin-birds and your brother, Meven. He cannot reach you here. We are to the south in the forest, where the trees cut the cold and the rain. And we are near the river. I can smell it.

“I can, too,” she said, yawning again. “It smells good.”

“Maybe we should go to the river, Rue. I don’t think we’d get lost if we followed the river.”

The punch’s Finest name was Gallant-Stallion. Like other Finest creations that traveled Paard-Peran, he was also given a human name. Meven named him Rue some time ago, referring to him as an ugly, rueful-looking horse. Gallant-Stallion hadn’t liked the connotation then, but he didn’t mind the name when Kalantha used it. “Rooooo,” she pronounced it, the word sounding like a beautiful purr that reminded him of a songbird’s sweet call.

Gallant-Stallion angled toward the river. The Sprawling River’s tendrils spread like the outstretched fingers of a hand through Galmier and the country to the south. Gallant-Stallion considered the river the best feature of the country, shiny and musical, and following it south was as good as anything to do right now. The river might keep him from becoming completely lost in these woods.

The sky was turning from gray to green with the onset of afternoon. It was the shade willow leaves take on toward the end of their lives before yellowing and dropping. And its hue hinted that the rains would worsen. A storm was definitely coming, the Finest knew, and the rain that had been falling on and off throughout the day had simply been a prelude.

Gallant-Stallion could smell the water thick in the swollen clouds, the scents of the river and wet tree bark, and sodden fallen leaves and mud and creatures that had drowned and were...