Other humans were summoned to approach the Queen. Each knelt, and Cara saw that while they were with her their faces were transformed by a look of bliss, but that when they stood to leave, grief overwrote it and tears spilled down their cheeks.
Ivy Morris was last to be called. She knelt by the Queen, then fell forward across her neck, weeping with despair. This impropriety brought a gasp from the assembled unicorns — a gasp quickly replaced by a cry of mingled sorrow and joy as the Queen, the Old One, vanished.
Jacques, who had come to stand behind Cara, tightened his hands on her shoulders, and she wondered if he saw what she had seen: the Queen rise from the ground, looking as young and as strong as she had in the Rainbow Prison, though no more substantial than a beam of light. She had stood, staring down at the Wander for a moment, then turned to look around the circle of loved ones, bowing and smiling to each of them. Then she stepped onto the stream, and, laughing herself, let the laughing water carry her away.
Now there was nothing left of her body except the horn, which lay glowing in pearly perfection beneath the stricken form of the Wanderer.
M’Gama stepped forward and slid the horn from beneath Ivy Morris’s body. Holding it in both hands, she raised it above her head. Deep silence filled the clearing, as if the stream itself were holding its breath.
“What I do now, I do at the Queen’s bidding,” said M’Gama, her voice low but powerful. “The Queen’s council knows this to be true.”
She turned in a slow circle so that all could see the horn. Then, with one swift movement, she raised her knee, brought the horn down sharply against it, and snapped it in half. The unicorns cried out in horror, then fell silent as a rush of wind swept through the clearing, clean, crisp, and ripe with magic. The leaves swirled up in dancing patterns, and silver stars seemed to rain about them. Cara thought, for just a moment, that she heard the Queen herself, singing.
And then Ivy Morris stood, and cried out in joy and in pain as she shed the false form that had imprisoned her for so many decades, and returned at last to her own true shape and name.
“Behold!” cried M’Gama, pointing to the beautiful young unicorn. “I give you Amalia Flickerfoot, long-lost daughter of Arabella Skydancer, returned at last from wandering and exile in time to bid her mother farewell. Amalia Flickerfoot, rightful Queen of the unicorns!”
A cry, a song, a shout rose from the clearing.
The Queen is gone. Long live the Queen!
* * *
And that is the story of how one who was lost was found, of how one who wandered at last made her way back home.
What happened next, how Beloved made her attempt on Luster, and the battle that followed, is another story altogether.
It is recorded, like all such tales, in the Unicorn Chronicles.
About the Author
BRUCE COVILLE grew up in a rural area around the corner from his grandparents’ dairy farm. He considers himself especially lucky to have had a swamp and a forest behind his home.
His writing for children was affected by his own early reading, which included lots of pulp fiction and comic books, but also had a healthy dose of myths and legends — a taste he first developed when one of his teachers read aloud the story of Odysseus.
He has been reading fantasy ever since and has long dreamed of creating an epic series like The Unicorn Chronicles.
He lives in an old brick house in Syracuse, New York, along with his wife, author-illustrator Katherine Coville, and an assortment of cats. You can visit Bruce on the web at www.brucecoville.com.
Praise for
Bruce Coville’s
UNICORN CHRONICLES
Into the Land
of the Unicorns
“Coville combines all of the known myths about unicorns into one smooth retelling.” — School Library Journal
“Coville weaves traditional unicorn myths into his accessible fantasy.” — Booklist
Click here to learn more and to purchase.
Song of the Wanderer
“Readers eagerly awaiting the second book in Coville’s Unicorn Chronicles will be richly rewarded for their patience with this volume. Into the Land of the Unicorns was excellent, and this book is even better.” — Booklist
“[F]illed with magical creatures, strange encounters, and dramatic confrontations.” — School Library Journal
“Readers will thrill to the story of Cara, an earth girl who becomes both ward and savior of the unicorns.” — amazon.com
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