Free A Trace of Moonlight by Allison Pang

loose.” He chuckled at my questioning grunt of incredulity. “We need to disappear, Abby. A horse eats and shits a lot. Where we’re going we’ll move faster without him.”
    “Crafty,” I said lamely. I didn’t know the first real thing about living rough, so I was more than willing to let Talivar play Aragorn if it gave us a real chance of escape. So here we were, several hours later. He’d turned off the road at some indiscriminate location, stripping the horse of what looked to be a bedroll and some odds and ends, his bow slung lightly over his shoulder.
    Slapping the stallion on the rump, he sent it gallopingdown the road and into the mist, sighing as the darkness swallowed it up. “He’ll find his own way home. The mud will make it easier for the Queen’s men to track us, so we’ll take to the water,” he said finally, leading me to the shallow banks of a fast-running stream. “This isn’t going to be pleasant, but if we can get enough distance between us and the road, we’ll have enough breathing room to set up a camp.”
    “Camping on my honeymoon,” I muttered. “Hoorah.”
    “I’ll try to make it better than that,” he said slyly. “I know where the best hot springs are, after all.”
    “I’ll bet you do. Not that it matters.” I groaned as fire swept up the inside of my thighs, my muscles cramping. “If I ride anything else in the next three weeks it will be too soon.”
    He let out a noncommittal laugh and took my hand. Mountain streams run deep and cold even in the Faerie world, and this one was no exception. Immediately, water seeped into my boots, flooding through the tops when I stumbled into a deeper eddy, my trembling legs having forgotten the basics of movement.
    Time became a blur of damp and cold and darkness as we trudged through the woods. Or, really, I was the one who was trudging. Talivar stepped neatly as though he were dancing, each careful slide of his foot finding a quiet place. I might even have been jealous about it, if I could have stopped shaking long enough to put two coherent thoughts together.
    Phineas had passed out ages ago and the little shit was getting heavy. I’d have made him walk, but as deep as the stream was, he would have been swimming before long and I wasn’t going to be that cruel.
    Around and around, Talivar led us up and down andout of the stream and across the stream until I couldn’t have said which way we were going. For all I knew we’d been walking in circles for miles.
    My foot slipped on a pile of slick leaves and I staggered against him. He paused, letting me catch my breath for a moment. “There’s a small copse at the top of the ridge,” he said. “Just a little farther and we’ll get a chance to rest, Abby.”
    I grunted at him, too tired for words. I understood his methods. If I stopped now I wouldn’t start up again, but that last bit seemed to stretch on forever, until I lost myself in a trance of mechanical movement, each leg lurching as though there were anchors hanging from my calves. When he finally motioned that I could stop, I sank where I stood, my entire body quivering.
    Phineas slipped from my arms with a little bleat, his mane a drenched mess. “See you’ve fixed the château up nicely for us, prince.”
    The prince pulled back his hood with a sour look. “At least it’s stopped raining.” Which it had, with the exception of the excessive dripping from the trees. Talivar squatted down beside me, cupping my cheek tenderly. “I’m sorry, Abby. I hadn’t planned on taking this route, but I had to get us as far from the road as I could.”
    “Pretty goddamned out of the way, if you ask me.” Phineas grunted. “What are the chances of a hot dinner? I’m starving.”
    “Can’t imagine why you wouldn’t be,” I said. “After all that hard pulling you did to get me up the mountain.”
    “Yeah, yeah. Everyone’s a critic.”
    “Let me get the shelter set up first, and then we’llsee about something to