Impatience welled up inside Lady, pushing her into movement—an uneasy shift of her weight, an unnecessary flicking of her ears; she raised her head from her scrutiny of Ramble's care and inspected the meltdown around them, switching her attention from one spot to another with jerky exaggeration. The smell faded, but the remaining strength of it still triggered all her instincts to run. Strong smells meant large predators, no matter what she knew to the contrary; the smell of Ramble's blood and Wheeler's death did nothing to dissuade her instinctive urges. Not when she had the protection of her yet unapparent offspring to consider.
But neither instinct nor fear created her impatience. The people around her did that, slowly recovering from the attack and the meltdown, checking each other over, speaking in tones that meant relief and accomplishment.
Except they hadn't accomplished anything yet. All they'd done so far was survive.
Carey still waited for healing, healing that couldn't happen until Camolen's magic stabilized. Jaime may have started the stabilization process with Anfeald's couriers, but even Anfeald was only one precinct among many; only the peacekeepers had the authority to go to the source of the problem.
Peacekeepers!
She thought it loudly on the inside and snorted her emphasis on the outside, gaining the startled attention of everyone within the bubble. She pawed the ground, making it as clear as she could that the snort was no random thing. That her agitation was of significance.
"She's right," Arlen said. "We need to get moving—the sooner the peacekeepers have this information, the sooner Camolen can begin recovery. The sooner Carey can begin recovery, eh Lady?"
Jaime gave him a blank look as Lady stopped her pawing to snort more gently at Arlen, a rolling snort. "How did you—"
He grinned at her. "I can't suddenly read her mind, Jay. It's a continuation of a conversation we had not so long ago." He started to replace his hat on his head, gave it a second look, and sent it winging into the mangled forest, where it caught on a jagged protrusion and swung. "No more of that," he said. "And this shirt—it goes, at the first opportunity."
"You cannot imagine our relief," Dayna told him, checking the cinch on Wheeler's horse. Arlen smiled—but sobered quickly enough as he helped Suliya to her feet on his way past Wheeler, not pausing with the effort; his gaze stayed on Lady and when he stopped before her, she gave his shirt an affectionate nudge.
"You've got a choice," he told her. "You can go back to Anfeald and take the chance to see Carey, or you can help us get to the peacekeepers. If you wait to see Carey . . . you might miss him."
His meaning was clear enough to a horse with Jess in her mind. In an instant, she pricked her ears toward Anfeald. Carey. Her life had always been about Carey, one way or the other. She could not abandon him now.
And that meant that despite her yearning, despite her fears, despite her intense need to resolve that which had come between them, she had to go to the peacekeepers. With the rest of the horses shaky and upset, Lady was the one who could lead them swiftly to the peacekeeper hold, finding the shortest detours around meltdowns once they reached the trail again, taking the lead with the confidence to keep the others from faltering.
She knew one thing for certain—it would be Jaime she carried. She loved Arlen dearly, but if he never found his way to her back again it would be too soon for her; the next time, she'd dump him sooner and with much more purpose. She moved the short distance across the crowded bubble to Jaime, carefully stepping over Ramble's tail and hind legs. Jaime watched her uncertainly, a roundly athletic woman with flyaway hair and a few more lines by the edges of her mouth than not so long ago, and when Lady dipped her head, the gesture of a horse politely reaching for her bridle, Jaime said, "Are you sure? I mean, hells yes, Lady, I would be honored, but you know . . . he might not be there when we get back."
In the background, Arlen offered, "Simney will go to work as soon as Anfeald stabilizes. And the sooner we reach the peacekeepers—"
Neither Jaime nor Lady responded to him; Lady only dipped her head to Jaime again. Jaime reached out to stroke Lady's arched neck, running her fingers over the spellstones braided into her mane. "I'm supposed to tell you . . ." she said, and hesitated, but in the end got the words out. "He's sorry. Whatever happened . . . he's sorry."
Lady blinked; she ducked her nose and rubbed it along the inside of her front pastern, full of feeling and self-knowledge a horse wasn't meant to have, and wondering if the bittersweet pain of it would hurt any less if horses could cry.