Raphael Moreau stared in disbelief as his bay horse—which moments ago had been charging toward certain death—now stood calm beneath him. His gaze fixed on Lyra's back as she rode ahead on Chasing Wind, her posture revealing years of expert horsemanship.
"Impossible," he whispered to himself.
The commotion had drawn a crowd at the edge of the field. Stable hands rushed forward, and Percival Covington strode past everyone, his face a mask of controlled worry as he approached Lyra.
"What the hell happened out there?" Percival demanded, his eyes quickly scanning her for injuries.
Before Lyra could answer, Raphael dismounted, his legs still wobbly from the near-death experience. "She saved my life," he admitted, his voice carrying across the suddenly hushed gathering.
A murmur swept through the onlookers. Raphael Moreau—proud heir to the Moreau fortune and notorious for his arrogance—acknowledging debt to the woman his family had treated as a pariah.
