Jessica had never been a horse girl. Not at six, not at sixteen, and certainly not at 25. She wasn’t an animal girl in general, really. Her family had a cat, Hani, growing up, but Hani wanted nothing to do with Jessica and that suited her fine. The closest thing to affection she felt toward an animal was the spider in her room who killed flies for her. It was something like a business arrangement.

  Her lack of animal handling skills had never been a problem before now. Not until she needed to mount a horse who actively despised her.

  “I got no idea why he’s doin’ that,” the stablehand said in response to Burnish, for the fifth time, swinging his hindquarters at Jessica.

  She had a pretty good idea why the horse didn’t like her.

  Per whatever weird laws Elsifeya operated by, she had functionally inherited everything Sir Hayek owned. If he’d had any children or next of kin his property would have gone to them with Jessica receiving only a small reparation. However, because his line died with him, his armor, bank account, sister’s apartment, and every little nick-nack he and Melisande had owned now belonged to Jessica, including his stupid horse.

  “Can I just borrow another one?” Jessica asked from a safe distance.

  “They’re all in use right now, m’afraid,” the stablehand replied. “Mystiferia took most of ‘em to cart the monsters out.”

  Mystiferia’s ability to be inconvenient in every conceivable way astounded Jessica. She dreaded how much more inconveniencing the elf warden would be once she was physically present again.

  “I’m screwed then, cuz this dumbass is all I’ve got and the queen wants her package delivered today.”

  The stablehand looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t know what I can do for ya.”

  The queen’s ‘errand’ was theoretically simple. All she had to do was deliver a time-sensitive package to Fort Neusa in the mountains north of the prairie. It wasn’t even a trick or a test. By the queen’s admission, she was having Jessica do this simply because it would save her from hiring an adventurer.

  “Does corporal punishment work? I’m not a bleeding heart. I’ll beat a live horse,” Jessica said, glaring sidelong at the obstinate equine.

  “Er, carrots work a lot better than sticks when it comes to horses,” the stablehand said.

  “What’s the point of spurs then?”

  “Not to jab them with, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  They had thick hides. What was wrong with nudging them a little, Jessica thought?

  “What are we supposed to do then?”

  “You seem to know the horse. What does he like?”

  It was not Jessica’s choice to know the horse, but during the journey from Barleyfield she had been witness to Hayek’s doting. Whenever they came across some mint plants the knight would give Burnish a break to munch on them.

  “Mint, I guess. Do we have a mint plant somewhere?” Jessica asked.

  The stable hand went out and came back with a pile of mint leaves. Jessica took them and held them up to Burnish who sniffed for a moment and then made a blatant attempt to bite her entire hand off.

  “You ass!” Jessica said, yanking it away.

  “He’s a horse, actually,” the stablehand said.

  “Could’ve fooled me,” Jessica grumbled, tossing the mint leaves just out of reach of Burnish’s stable. This earned her a snort from the disgruntled horse. “Where’s the riding crop?”

  The stablehand laughed awkwardly. “Sure ya can’t think of anything else?”

  Truthfully, Jessica didn’t want to. She was meh about animals, but Burnish was a different story. This was an animal she actively loathed for being complicit in Sir Hayek’s plot to have her burned. Was it fair to blame an animal? Maybe not. But her disdain was real and tangible and the horse could smell it on her.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “I s’pose if ya wait around we might be able to go into town and buy a new horse, but I don’t think the steward’d care for us buyin’ animals without asking. Especially when we’ve got a horse who oughta be able to make the journey right here. The king and queen’ve been tight-fisted lately, y’see.”

  Jessica looked at Burnish again. As horses went, he was admittedly quite handsome. His coat was rich reddish-brown like the color of a roasted pig and as glossy as his name suggested. The muscles along his flank and shoulders had a herculean beauty even Jessica had to admire. It felt unfair such a beautiful animal had belonged to such an awful person.

  She saw herself reflected in his glaring yellow eyes. Here she stood as the annoying primate who had replaced his master as his sole access to the outside world. When she thought about it like that, it was no wonder the horse wanted nothing to do with her.

  “I’ve got an idea. I’ll be back in about an hour,” she said.

  Unburdened of her concubinal duties until she delivered the package, Jessica had free rein to collect a handful of things from around the castle. To begin with, she performed a crude steam distillation on peppermint leaves by boiling water and condensing off the bottom of the lid until she’d extracted a decent amount of peppermint oil.

  Taking some table sugar, she melted it into a workable syrup to which she added the peppermint oil and some more corn syrup. The castle cooks watched in sheer confusion as she threw this mixture into a pan and chucked it into the oven. They were no less confused when it came out as brittle, brown sludge.

  Two experimental batches later and she had peppermint candy that tasted decently sweet despite being the color of poop. The cooks, though hesitant, tasted it and liked it. Jessica returned to Burnish with a few chunks of her winning batch. The horse sniffed, snorted, and moved his hindquarters to kick her.

  “Oh you fu— hmm, hmm, hmm,” Jessica said, biting her lip to keep herself from insulting the ungrateful horse.

  She looked around for the stablehand to help her but he was nowhere to be seen.

  “I didn’t want your master to die, you know,” she said as though the horse could understand her.

  Burnish glared, but his hindquarters were stationary for the moment.

  “If it had been up to me I would’ve had the queen pardon him. Especially after I—” Jessica’s voice crackled out. “I guess you knew Meli, huh?”

  The horse let out a low nicker at the name. Several of the letters between Melisande and her brother had mentioned her love of her brother’s warhorse. It seemed that love was mutual.

  “I’m not her, but I’m who you’ve got,” Jessica said, holding out her hand again. “And I don’t think you’re gonna find anyone else willing to invent peppermint candy just for you.”

  Burnish stared at her for a few seconds before dipping his head down to the brown globs. He sucked on it for a moment before letting out an approving sigh. Jessica found herself joining him. While Burnish was not especially excited to go on another journey with her, he reluctantly let her onto his back.

  The stablehand reappeared shortly thereafter and was kind enough to give her a tutorial on how to give Burnish orders with her words, legs, and reins. He also explained how to get on and off without a mounting block by using the stirrups for leverage. Nonetheless, the only commands she planned to use were ‘go,’ ‘walk,’ and ‘stop.’ The brief trot the stablehand had her try was enough to convince her a walking gait was all she was ready for.

  “Alright, Burnish. Let’s go,” Jessica said, squeezing her legs into his flank.

  The stallion immediately launched into a cantor gunning for the castle gates. Jessica felt herself being thrown up and down like a shaken soda bottle.

  “Walk! Walk!”

  Burnish let out a nicker that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

  Jessica’s brief training went out the window and she leaned in and clutched desperately at the horse’s neck to avoid being thrown off. Burnish only eased up once they were on the streets of Eslifeya City, dodging in-between the people and carts. Jessica shimmied back into place on the saddle, thighs quivering like jello.

  “If you bolt again I’ll fall off,” she said.

  Burnish let out a couple snorts which Jessica didn’t like the sound of. Despite her lack of animal whispering, she could tell the stallion was trying to make a point to the effect of, ‘If you’re going to be my owner, you need to keep up.’ Her suspicion was confirmed as the crowd thinned around the north gate and he picked up to a trot, bouncing Jessica in the saddle.

  “Please… please walk…”

  They passed through the gate and he picked up his pace. A particularly heavy bounce nearly threw Jessica from the saddle but she leaned in and just managed to keep her arms around his neck.

  “If you walk I’ll give you more candy!” she said.

  Something told her Burnish understood perfectly well what she was saying but the second the road ahead cleared, his head dipped and he flew into a full gallop.

  For the first several minutes Jessica felt the same panic as if she were climbing a mountain without a rope. Below her was a 40 mile-an-hour treadmill of hard stone which Burnish was trying to hurl her onto. More than once she felt herself float in the air over the saddle for what she thought would be her last few seconds alive.

  But she held.

  Minute by minute, second by second. Jessica’s internal metronome synchronized with the train-like chugging of Burnish’s gallop. All at once her panic was replaced by soaring exhilaration. Then, right as she was beginning to enjoy the hair-fluttering freedom of a full gallop, Burnish gave up and dropped down to a walk.

  “Guess I win, huh?” she said, patting his neck.