Ascendant

by Diana Peterfreund

  Not only did they remember what I’d done to that other einhorn, but they also remembered what the other hunter had done to them. She’d drawn them in, clasped those collars around their necks, and captured them. Now, they were trapped, and once the wildlife of these woods had been consumed—all the rabbits, voles, and foxes—they were utterly dependent on the largesse of their captors.

  I laid a sausage in my open palm and held it out to Fats. She tottered closer, her nose twitching as it shifted into high gear. Her thoughts fell into grateful, Bonegrinder-like patterns, and I bit my lip, not realizing until now how much I missed the little zhi. I felt her lips on my skin, the soft grazing of her fangs as she snuffled up the treat, and I laid my other hand lightly on her head, just behind her spiral horn.

  Fats froze as I ran my fingers through her mane, scratching the red, shiny scars that marked the places where the electric collar bit into her skin. In spots, her regenerative hide even grew over the edge of the collar, the way I’d seen Bonegrinder’s flesh heal over a bullet. We remained like that for a few moments, Fats with her neck awkwardly stretched over my lap while I scratched her head, until something startled her and she sprinted off.

  Not like Bonegrinder at all. I must keep that in mind.

  Their behavior fascinated me. They weren’t tame like zhi, yet their attraction to hunters seemed even stronger. The second I came to the enclosure, I felt their attention turn my way—even if they were frightened, even if they were wary—they knew where I was and their thoughts held a certain fascination with my every move. They weren’t devious like kirin, either; their thoughts remained open and easy, with a certain malleability to their minds—almost as if they invited me to peek inside or share my own feelings.

  It was strange, this magic. I was used to the altered state I slipped into while hunting, and even the low, idling hum of readiness I experienced in the Cloisters, but this felt odd. Every time I was in the enclosure, the magic washed over me at full tilt, and yet, there was no outlet for my energy. I didn’t have to chase these unicorns; I didn’t have to hunt them. My body didn’t know what to do with itself; I buzzed for hours after every encounter.

  The next morning, Stretch was there to meet me at the boundary, his associates lingering in the brush and watching me with wide black eyes. His thoughts showed he resented having given up his food to the female yesterday, and he planned to be the first unicorn I met on my rounds.

  “Hello,” I said to the einhorn, and it did not deter him. I turned my back on the animal and marched into the forest. He followed, and when I didn’t immediately reward him with a sausage, he started nosing at my bag.

  “Watch it,” I said, and when I turned around again, he shied back. Blotchy and Jumps were a few more yards back on the trail, Fats hid in the brush even farther away, and then there was a new unicorn sniffing around the perimeter of the group. Another male, not as sure of himself as the three I’d come to know. I divided my sausages into five bits, threw Fats her share, and held Stretch’s out to him. He paused for a split second that seemed far longer in my unicorn-awareness, then snatched it from my hand, retreating again before he chewed.

  Blotchy and Jumps were still too close together to throw them separate bits. I knew they’d fight, which didn’t seem conducive to my “keep the unicorns pacified” prime directive. I clucked my tongue at them, holding out more sausage, but they held their heads back, even as Stretch lunged for more.

  Then, from out of the bushes came the new unicorn, the fifth unicorn. His mouth was parted, his tongue dangling out from between his fangs. Stretch looked up and growled at his approach, and he growled back, then licked his chops. His tongue flopped down again, as if too swollen to withdraw into his mouth.

  Was every unicorn in the enclosure suffering from an ailment of its own?

  I tossed Tongue his sausage, then walked toward Blotchy and Jumps, my hands outstretched and filled with their portions of meat. They backed up as I came closer, Stretch hot on my heels.

  “Come on,” I coaxed. “It’s okay, you can have it.”

  The unicorns clustered around me, jostling one another to get closer to the food I offered them. Velvety snouts pushed against my hands, my arms, my neck, and I ducked to avoid their swinging horns.

  “Watch out, you vicious monsters,” I said, chuckling, reminded more than ever of our house zhi. They pressed closer, nosing in my bag for more meat. By now, Blotchy and Fats were in a tug-of-war contest over the wax paper wrappings on the sausages, while Jumps and Tongue waited to see what was left. Stretch stood guard over us all, face at the level of my shoulder, head tilted back and horn well out of the way, as if in response to my warning.

  I glanced up at him. “Can you understand me, fella?” Stretch stared straight ahead, eyes unblinking. Guess not.

  The others seemed only to understand the language of food. I wished I knew more about the differences between the species. The kirin and re’em I’d fought never seemed to want more than to skewer me, but Bonegrinder, a zhi, was subservient to me, and was known to occasionally obey the commands of a hunter. I never considered that she could read my mind, nor the other unicorns, and yet, the karkadann had considered our telepathic link to be as much a part of our powers as speed and aim.

  And if the karkadann thought nothing of reading my mind, did it mean that the other unicorns could do so as well? Were they always reading my mind, as I was reading theirs, and understanding it in whatever way they could? Was the reason Bonegrinder had stopped loving Phil a result of her lost magic but not in the way we all thought? Was it just that, for the first time, Bonegrinder couldn’t sense, telepathically, how much Phil adored her?

  As Isabeau had said, was our reliance on the magic blinding us to what our natural senses might easily be able to convey?

  The sausages gone, the unicorns began nuzzling me for more. The odor of fire and flood filled the air around me, emanating off the unicorns in waves. Beneath it, I could smell dampness and animal, their musty coats, their waste and festering wounds. Their thoughts crowded in on me, too: hunger, pain, desperation, and fear that burned almost as brightly as the magic that bound us. My hands were in their fur, my cheek against their manes, my blond hair tangled with their white as their tails flicked rhythmically in the fading light. I could hear their noises, soft snuffles and lowing that sounded somehow like the cross of a cow and a cat and the hum of the bones on the Wall of First Kills back in the Cloisters.

  I caught my breath and reveled in their nearness, suddenly hungry for the feel of them, the scent, the strange comfort their nearness brought me. I wanted this.

  I hadn’t known.

  This must be what Alexander felt in the company of his karka-dann. Here, alone, communing with the unicorns, the magic between us flowing like the tides of an ocean, I could understand why he’d loved Bucephalus, why Bucephalus had stayed so long with him. This strength, this power, these thoughts that blinked through my brain at the speed of enchantment—I could do anything! I could take over the world if I wanted, could lead armies into battle, could change the entire course of history.

  In the distance, there was a sound—a car backfiring or the crack of thunder—and the unicorns scattered. In seconds, I was alone in the woods, as the magic dissolved into the dying sunlight. My hands dropped to my sides, and the rest of the world came back into focus. Yes, it must have been thunder. Now, without the pull of unicorns, I could feel the drop in air pressure, the scent of rain on the breeze, and the blackening sky.

  I hiked out of the woods, feeling drained by my encounter, yet strangely alive. Neck-deep in the combined magic of these beautiful creatures, I found it easy to forget about reality for a few moments … but I had to remember that an even better world waited beyond. Since coming to France, I’d been sleeping better, studying better, dressing better. I had my own room, I—mostly—set my own hours, and as long as no humans were injured by an escaped einhorn, I answered to no one. Working for Gordian was a way to parlay my hunting ont
o a path with a non-unicorn-hunting future. It was like Giovanni had said: it was okay to be a unicorn hunter, but I needed to think about who I was when I was just Astrid as well.

  At the Cloisters I was simply another member of the Order, no matter what noises my mother made about supposed “glory.” I was just another hunter who followed the rules of the Church and the missions of the don. Another hunter who waited in the nunnery, surviving days of interminable boredom punctuated by moments of abject terror on the hunt.

  But here I could concentrate on my own life—one without magic. I could drink chamomile tea and do my schoolwork and spend most of my time without being reminded that just beyond the walls, right behind the greenhouse, there was a herd of monsters—breathtaking, magnetic monsters—that only I had the ability to subdue.

  That only I had the ability to speak to.

  Before I knew it, a month had passed at the château. The weather turned cooler, and the geodesic glass panels of the greenhouse misted over with condensation in the mornings and evenings. Brandt traded in his T-shirts for sweaters, peacoats, and preppylooking scarves in a blue stripe that brought out the color of his eyes. The leaves in the wood grew golden and began to gather on the forest floor. I rustled through them on my rounds, a steady pack of unicorns trailing behind me, their numbers increasing every day as they slowly learned I meant them no harm. Or maybe they’d simply do anything for increased food rations. They certainly appreciated the addition of sausage to their diet, and they looked less scrawny by the day.

  Phil sent me regular reports of progress, or lack thereof, back at the Cloisters. She was making baby steps toward saving the unicorns. Neil hadn’t managed to find any new hunters. The girls had killed three kirin and two zhis, and a new report had just come in about a pack of einhorns in Poland. They were sending out a team next week. Did I have any einhorn tips?

  Cory’s reports were similarly status quo. They’d sent Valerija to guard her, as the runaway was free to go where she pleased. Additionally, Valerija would probably most benefit from the English lessons she’d get while living in the United Kingdom. Things had been relatively quiet for them. Valerija had sensed the presence of unicorns on the Bartoli’s country property, but they’d kept their distance. She’d killed a few on assignment in the neighborhood, and folks seemed happy to have unicorn hunters in residence, which made Neil optimistic that his future schemes would receive a good reception.

  Cory related that, during all this, she sensed nothing of the unicorns’ presence. And all of her doctors’ tests came back inconclusive. One said it could be MS, another hypothesized lupus, a third suggested chronic fatigue syndrome. Since her most notable symptom was her inability to access unicorn magic, there wasn’t a lot of information on the subject.

  Five weeks after I arrived in France, I was headed out on my morning rounds of the einhorn enclosure when I saw Isa-beau standing in the hall, surrounded by her staff. One of the Gordian scientists was with her, wearing a long white coat and sharing notes on a clipboard.

  “Astrid,” Isabeau called, beckoning me over. “I am happy to have caught you.”

  The scientist handed her a large syringe.

  “You were a hospital volunteer in your hometown, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you familiar with giving injections?”

  “Sort of.” We hadn’t been allowed to do it at the hospital, but I’d observed it many times. In an emergency, I could probably handle the situation.

  “On your rounds today,” Isabeau said, “would you please take this and inject it into one of the unicorns. We’d like it to be a …” She looked at the scientist as if for clarification.

  “Un jeune masculin,” he said.

  “A young male, if at all possible. Thank you, chère.” She handed me the syringe and turned back to her notes.

  The scientist spoke to Isabeau again in rapid, rushed French.

  “Oh, oui, yes. Astrid, make sure that you do not inject the animal until you have come very close to the boundary. I would not have you be forced to drag it out like dead weight, and obviously, we cannot bring our carts within the enclosure.”

  I eyed the needle. “It’s a sedative?”

  Isabeau gave a quick jerk of her head. “No, it is an anesthetic. A euthanasic. How do you say it? To put the unicorn down.”

  12

  WHEREIN ASTRID MAKES A KILL

  Isabeau found me in the greenhouse, still gasping for breath, face buried in a chamomile plant, though I doubted anything would drown out the images of the unicorns fighting over the sausages as I laughed in the woods.

  “Astrid! Whatever is the matter?” She came striding down the aisle, her steps long and sure despite her short stature and the tottering height of her heels. Gog and Magog trotted behind her, their ears perked, their eyes as dark and piercing as any einhorn’s. “Why did you run away from me?”

  “I—I was just taken aback, that’s all.”

  “By what?”

  “I didn’t realize I was being asked to kill one of them.”

  She stopped then, and her expression was one of confusion. “Je ne comprends pas. You are regularly asked to kill unicorns. You killed one in your first hour here. Why should this request cause you to flee?”

  “I—” She had a point. “I was just surprised. I didn’t realize … that this would be part of my duties.”

  Her confusion gave way to amused bafflement. “But you’re a unicorn hunter. You’re the only one who can kill them.”

  “Right, but—” There was no point explaining. Yes, I killed unicorns. All the time, with rarely any thought. I, who could see right into their hearts, who could taste their terror as my arrows pierced their chests—I’d still killed dozens.

  Though perhaps my favorite part of this job was that until now, I hadn’t had to kill anything.

  “Why do you need it?” I asked.

  “For our experiments. We use the parts of the unicorn in our attempts to re-create the Remedy. This is the reason we keep the animals here to begin with.”

  “Yes.” I nodded miserably. I knew that, too. They were not just captives there for my amusement. They were lab rats. I needed to snap out of this shock.

  “This way, the anesthetic, it is quick. Humane. And painless. So much better than one of your weapons.” Isabeau handed me the syringe I’d dropped in the hall. “This is part of your job, just as killing one that escaped would be.”

  I swallowed. My job was to be a unicorn hunter, not a unicorn executioner. I’d never killed one that wasn’t either actively or about to attack something. And yet I couldn’t argue with Isa-beau’s point. I couldn’t get squeamish over a gentle euthanasia when I seemed to have no problem with the prolonged, painful death of a mis-shot arrow.

  Though it had been quite some time since I’d hit a unicorn anywhere that didn’t bring a quick death.

  “I need sausages or some other meat. To tempt him over to me.”

  Isabeau’s eyes narrowed. “I thought they found your hunter wiles temptation enough.”

  “Please,” I croaked, then hated myself for it. “I can give him a last meal.”

  Her face softened. “Yes, chère. That is only fair.”

  I headed into the enclosure armed with my knife, a packet of meat, the deadly syringe, and a jaw filled with firmly gritted teeth. This was my job, my duty. And how was giving one unicorn a peaceful, painless death any worse than stabbing one in the neck from ten feet away?

  Perhaps it had been a bad idea to name the unicorns that followed me through the forest every day.

  I let myself through the gate, then marched across the no-man’s-land and past the electric barrier, chin held high, telling myself to just stick the first young male unicorn who wandered by. I was not going to play favorites with the lab rats.

  Please don’t let Stretch come first. Please don’t let Stretch come first.

  The forest was still and quiet that morning, the thoughts of the einhorns as dim and insubstan
tial as the mist coating the ground at the base of the trees. They must be asleep, dreaming of food or freedom or whatever lay in the hearts of captive monsters. Fine, I would wait. I was good at waiting. How many sleepless nights had I spent up on the cramped and vertigo-inducing quarters of a tree stand? At least here I could be on the ground.

  I sat down a few yards into the wood, my back against the trunk of a tree, and removed the meat from my bag. The combination of hunter and fresh food should provide an irresistible combination to any nearby unicorns.

  It didn’t take long. Within minutes, one approached. I could taste its thoughts. Driven by a hunger that seemed to consume the creature from the inside out, the unicorn moved toward me. I tensed. This was not any of the einhorns I’d known. He was wary, angry, and did not trust me. Fury burned in his belly in the place of food, and for the first time since coming to France, an einhorn reminded me less of a zhi than of a kirin and its endless rage. He’d kill me if it meant more food.

  I reached into my bag for the syringe, and the unicorn took off. I leaped to my feet, scattering food, and had already rushed in the direction of the fleeing unicorn before I remembered that I wasn’t hunting. I didn’t need to chase after this one unicorn. Another would come.

  Even if this was the only one I’d met whose life I felt comfortable ending.

  I plopped back onto the ground and dug the heels of my hands into my forehead. No. I wasn’t going to play favorites. Any of these unicorns would do—the ones I knew, the angry one who’d almost attacked me—it didn’t matter. Their lives were all forfeit for the good of whatever people Gordian would be helping once they were able to formulate the Remedy. I’d killed dozens of unicorns to save the lives of people and livestock. Surely it was no different to kill a few more, even if the people I was saving didn’t even know it yet.