Runaway Horses
"Y-you… you talk like you saw it with your own eyes? Who is it? Which little rat blabbed to you?!"
Flustered, Jared swept his friends with a glare cold enough to freeze. They all waved their hands in frantic denial, but Jared was in no mood to believe a word of it. If there were no traitor in the ranks, there was no way Aidan could have learned all of that in such detail.
"Don't drag innocent people into this."
"You gonna tell me which rat it was or not?"
"Why does it even matter who told me? What matters is whether it's true or not. Jared, one more stunt like this against Bayul and you're on your own. I won't stand by and watch next time."
"Is that supposed to be a warning?"
It went beyond absurdity and landed somewhere in the realm of farce.
"Getting a warning from some kid — how ridiculous can you get. Fine, enjoy it while it lasts. Your day is coming."
A fight like this, he welcomed any day of the week. It had its own flavor, quite different from the ones who simply bowed and obeyed. Jared glared at Aidan, then Bayul, then Quinn, and finally Schubik, before whirling around and stalking off to another seat. His lackeys trailed after him like prisoners, heads bowed low.
"Well, what do you know — he actually backed down quietly."
The moment Jared was out of earshot, Schubik, who had been silent as a mute with a mouthful of honey, snapped back to his chattering old self.
"Honestly, I figured he'd raise hell about me spreading rumors."
"You're scared of him too?"
"If I were scared, I wouldn't have said a word about last night to begin with."
"But?"
"Just feels a bit icky, I guess? Getting tangled up with him means nothing but headaches."
"Then why spread the rumor if you knew it'd give you headaches? You're a strange one."
"What am I supposed to do when my mouth itches? Besides, now everyone knows the truth. I'd say I did the right thing. Wouldn't you agree, Bayul?"
Schubik's eyes looked for all the world like a little child begging for a compliment. Gratitude was, in truth, what Bayul felt, so he smiled and nodded — just as the class bell rang and Professor Marta Janet walked in.
"Sharp as a blade with time, as always. And she's got Lanasa glued to her side again today."
There was a peculiar note of resentment threaded through Schubik's voice.
Late thirties, perhaps? To Bayul's eyes, Professor Janet's first impression was that she was strikingly beautiful.
Her hair was cropped short, but her face was finely sculpted, with sharply defined features. Her figure was slender, and her dark, sun-kissed skin glowed with vitality.
Her one flaw, if it could be called that, was an expression as cold as ice — utterly at odds with her lovely appearance. Bayul could suddenly understand why they called her the Winter Rose.
"Aidan, you feel it too, right? Professor Janet clearly favors Lanasa."
"Favors her? What are you talking about?"
"You seriously haven't noticed? She goes out of her way for her because they're both women."
"I wouldn't call it favoritism. Maybe she just pays her a little more attention."
"That's literally what favoritism is!"
Schubik frowned, frustrated.
"Why else would she do it? I'm telling you, it's because they're both women!"
"I don't buy it."
"Then what's your theory? Why else?"
"Lanasa's a faculty scholarship student, isn't she? And she's the only female student who can actually spar with Logan. That's probably why she watches her so closely."
"Well, look at you, bringing Logan up first. What's gotten into you? I thought you couldn't stand him."
"Can't I dislike him and still acknowledge him?"
"Ohh, so dislike is dislike, but credit is credit, huh? Fair enough, the guy is pretty extraordinary. Annoyingly superior. There's not a single thing missing from the package. Tall, handsome, smart, and his family's prestigious too. At this point the guy's just flat-out overpowered."
"I'm growing too, you know! By next year I'll be way taller than you are now!"
"I sincerely wish you the best with that. Maybe it'll finally put out the dumpster fire that is your temper."
"You son of a— you want to finish that sentence?! What exactly is wrong with my personality! Compared to you—!"
"Um, hey, guys."
Bayul had zero desire to wedge himself into the bickering between Aidan and Schubik, but an unfamiliar-yet-familiar name left him no choice.
"Did you just say Logan? Logan de Seymour. That Logan goes to the Academy here? With us?"
"Huh? What was that, Bayul?"
But Bayul's voice was swallowed by the noise. Without warning, a chorus of rough, frantic whinnies split the air, and the ground began to tremble.
"Wh-what's going on?!"
By the time anyone grasped the situation, it was already too late. The horses tethered at the edge of the riding grounds, startled by something, had suddenly bolted into a frenzied rampage. No one could tell how the reins had come loose, but the horses scattered in every direction, and in an instant the grounds dissolved into chaos.
"AAAHH!"
"Everyone, get away!"
At someone's scream, the students flung themselves out of the path of the animals.
M-my body won't move!
But Bayul was rooted to the spot. As though the soles of his feet had been glued to the earth, his legs refused to answer him.
F-Father!
One horse came charging at Bayul at a dead gallop. His father's face rose unbidden in his mind. And then his brother's face flickered across his memory too.
Bail!
Swallowed by terror, Bayul bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut.
"KYAAAAH!"
"MOMMY!"
Screams tore through the air everywhere. The children who had been fleeing the coming carnage spun around, shrieking in terror. Some students couldn't bear to watch at all and turned their heads away.
"Bayul!"
"Redmain, stop!"
And yet — a miracle happened. Bayul, eyes squeezed shut, every muscle wound tight — felt, strangely, no pain at all.
What? What's going on?
He had braced himself for at least a broken bone. If it ended at that much, he would have counted it a mercy. He had prayed to God for nothing more than to be spared death.
But there was no pain — no sensation, no impact, nothing at all. Had the shock paralyzed him? Was this the nerve damage he'd only ever heard about? Surely he wasn't… dead?
No!
Bayul's eyes flew open.
"…Hup!"
He barely swallowed the scream that leapt to his throat. Astonishingly, his body was whole. Not a single scratch. He was standing on the ground in the exact same posture as the instant before he'd closed his eyes.
"Snort!"
The only thing that had changed was this: an enormous black stallion was now snorting and heaving for breath directly in front of him, towering over him in menace.
"It's okay, Bayul. He's just a little worked up. You don't need to be scared."
Aidan had somehow appeared at his side. The boy soothed Bayul, then reached a hand toward the black stallion.
"There, there, Redmain. Good boy. Such a good boy."
The hand stroking the stallion's nose looked remarkably practiced. Aidan pressed his forehead against the horse's face, murmuring words of comfort — gentler and more tender than Bayul had ever seen him.
"Good job, Redmain."
So Redmain was apparently the horse's name. Come to think of it, he'd heard something a moment ago. 'Redmain, stop!' — did that mean the horse had stopped on Aidan's command? In the middle of all that frenzy?
If it was true, it was nothing short of extraordinary. Taming a rampaging, half-mad beast with a single word was a feat even the most seasoned trainer would struggle to pull off. Without a deep bond between them, it would be impossible.
So it wasn't just talk, when they said he was the best rider in the whole school.
It was one of those rare moments when Aidan seemed, in an entirely new light.
"I know you didn't mean to. I understand completely, so don't apologize."
Under Aidan's voice and touch, Redmain could be felt settling down little by little. The bloodshot whites of his eyes returned to normal, and the froth of drool stopped flowing. Before Aidan, the stallion was as docile as a lamb.
"What in the world is the meaning of all this commotion?!"
Just then, a sharp reprimand rang out across the grounds.
"Yikes, the professor is fuming."
Schubik hunched his shoulders and muttered under his breath. Professor Janet's face, cold as ice a moment before, was now blazing like an active volcano.
"Lanasa, would you call the stable hands over?"
"Yes, Professor."
As Professor Janet surveyed the riding grounds, her expression grew grimmer by the second. Thanks to Aidan's quick thinking, Redmain had calmed — but the other horses were another matter entirely. Some lay collapsed on the ground making strange, ragged noises; others drooled and rubbed themselves against the hitching posts, their symptoms as varied as they were alarming. That they had stopped their rampage was, at best, the one small mercy.
"Aidan, explain what happened here."
Professor Janet ordered in a stern voice. Bayul couldn't imagine why Aidan of all people had been singled out, but the boy answered without a moment's hesitation.
"Someone fed them a stimulant, Professor."
"A stimulant?"
"Yes. Look."
Aidan pointed at the horses sprawled exhausted across the grounds.
"Bloodshot eyes, dripping saliva, mating cries you'd only hear during the breeding season. Someone clearly mixed a stimulant into their feed. Given how short-lived it was, the dose probably wasn't very large."
Though he spoke of it as if it could have been anyone, Aidan's eyes were fixed the entire time on a single direction.
Jared? Why…? Don't tell me — because of me?
Bayul wanted desperately to believe it wasn't true. But after everything he had lived through in a single night, he knew: the Jared he knew was more than capable of pulling something like this.
Dear God.
And Professor Janet was no fool. Her gaze cut toward Jared like a drawn blade.
"Tch."
It was around the time her expression had chilled to a knife's edge that the boy who had been dawdling finally moved his feet. She said nothing, but Jared came and planted himself before her of his own accord.
"What did you do to the horses?"
"What did I do to them?"
"Did you feed them the fever-grass, perhaps?"
"You mean that horrifying plant that kills small beasts like chickens and rabbits the moment they eat it?"
He answered her questions with questions, offering nothing in return. It was the moment everyone realized that his arrogance was not reserved for his fellow students alone.
"Professor Janet, do I look like someone who would do that? Why would I feed them something like that? It wasn't me."
"Then why did you come over here?"
"Your eyes were terrifying me, Professor. When you look at a student like that, what's he supposed to do? A man has to know when to crawl."
"You call that crawling?!"
Aidan, unable to stomach Jared's insolent attitude any longer, erupted. Startled by the shout, the barely-calm Redmain cried out and stumbled backward.
"I'm sorry, Redmain. I got too angry. I would never yell at you like that, so calm down. You don't need to be scared. I will never, ever be angry at you."
The moment Aidan apologized, Redmain settled again almost instantly. Bayul, who had flinched along with the horse's movements, quietly let out a breath of relief.
"Now that's a good one. You talk like that and you think he understands a word of it? He's not a child. What exactly do you think you're doing?"
As Jared clicked his tongue, a wicked smile soon spread across his face.
"Oh — is he still a child, actually? Right, you're a year younger than me, aren't you? You look half-grown at best too. Shouldn't you be running along to nurse at your mother's teat a little longer?"
"What did you say? You little—!"
