by Wendy Knight
“Because it takes a lot of magic to maintain it, and you have to have others to fight. And once you let it go, you’re pretty much done. There might be enough magic for one or two more attacks, but that’s it, and only for the very powerful,” Iros explained, seeming pleased that Kylin had taken an interest in his lesson. Especially when Ashra and Torz were still swooping and swaying like overgrown, very bored birds.
“Namely, us. Havik, Torz, and I.” Ashra twisted her long neck to study Kylin. Scout could swear there was suspicion in her eyes. My horsy doesn’t like her, either.
Ashra snorted and tried to whip Scout with her tail.
Kylin raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. “You have limits to your magic?”
Havik, who seemed so calm and leader-like with everyone else, seemed to have a serious thing against Kylin, and Scout heard herself intervening before she even realized she wanted to speak. “Well yeah. Everything has to have a weakness. That’s what keeps us humble — our weakness.” Winking at Havik, she said, “Otherwise our unicorns might get big heads and try to take over the world.”
Havik rolled his big brown eyes, which lost some of his intended effect because unicorns were too beautiful to look mock annoyed. Ashra tossed her head, and Scout got the impression she might be trying to throw her off or poke her eyes out with her ears. Scout giggled.
“We could so take over the world if we wanted to,” Ashra grumbled. Without warning, she pumped her wings several times, shooting Scout and herself both into the air. Scout squealed, holding tight to Ashra’s neck as they soared straight up.
“You’re going to kill us!” Scout shrieked. What if her fingers slipped? What if Ashra had a heart attack? What if…
“Stop worrying so much. Feel the freedom. Feel the wind in your hair. That’s why I fly. Let go of the fear and I promise no one will get hurt.”
Freedom? What was freedom? There was no freedom; there was only pain.
“Let it go, Scout,” Ashra whispered.
Scout bit her lip, hard enough to split it where it had just started healing, and cracked open one eye. They still flew straight up in the air so high even the mountains were far below now.
“Other eye, Princess,” Ashra said dryly. She pushed her wings down and they exploded deeper into the sky. Scout forced the other eye open. Ashra’s wings weren’t on fire, and the wind ruffled the silky black feathers. The wispy, wraithlike mane blew around Scout’s face, but it wasn’t there any more than smoke was, and she couldn’t feel it.
“Now feel.”
Scout took a deep breath and raised her head. The wind attacked immediately and she screamed, but it was lost in the roar of the air rushing by. She almost ducked down again, almost, but something inside her that she hadn’t recognized before said no.
“Do you have me? You won’t let me fall?” Scout thought hard, praying that Ashra got the message. She felt the ghost-like strands wrap around her waist more tightly and she sat up. Her fingers slid away from Ashra’s neck and she held her arms out. The wind whipped at her, pulling, tugging, trying to break Ashra’s grip, but it didn’t happen. And Scout felt it.
Freedom.
Ashra tilted her wings and they leveled out, soaring easily through the clouds. Scout could see forever, the entire land beneath them, but she didn’t look down. She looked ahead, up to the rising moon. The wind stopped trying to pull her free and instead swirled through her hair, gently, like Trey used to do with his fingers when they were supposed to be studying and instead he would spend the evening watching her.
She pushed the thought away and focused on the wind, on the feel of Ashra beneath her, the powerful muscles as Ashra pushed them through the clouds. They could stay up here forever. Nothing could hurt them. No more pain…
But it wasn’t true. Eventually, the pain would find them because nothing had changed — except Scout. She had changed.
“Ready?” Ashra asked.
Scout nodded, but somehow Ashra knew anyway and flicked her ear back. “You might want to hang on for this part.”
“Ashra! Ashra no-o-o!” Scout screamed as Ashra tucked her wings, stretching her neck out as they plummeted, rocket-like, toward the ground. Somehow, Scout kept her eyes open, and as the ground came closer and closer, she was assaulted by memories of the semi coming closer and closer. Fear tried to strangle her.
She shoved it away.
She felt like somehow, she had borrowed some of Ashra’s strength, and she buried the fear so deep she couldn’t find it anymore just as Ashra’s wings shot out and they pulled up, mere feet from the ground. “Admit unicorns could rule the world or we’ll go up again.”
“Do it. I’m not scared.” Scout laughed. She wasn’t. That’s why she laughed.
Torz thundered up the valley, not stopping even as he almost crashed into Ashra’s wings. She tucked them just in time and he skidded to a stop where they’d been just seconds before. “What was that? Do you have a death wish, Ashra?” Scout had never heard Torz angry. Usually he was mild and laid-back. When he was angry, even without the voice bellowing in her head, he was terrifying. His nostrils flared, his mighty head thrown back and his teeth bared. Scout shrank on Ashra’s back.
“You could have killed her!” Trey yelled, leaping off Torz’s back and landing hard on the ground. He stalked toward Ashra. Bad idea, Trey. Bad idea. But only Ashra could hear Scout’s frantic thoughts, and she seemed to welcome the fight, so Scout slid from her back, yelping just a bit as the landing hurt, and slid between Ashra, Trey, and Torz.
“Trey, seriously? She outweighs you by, like, a ton, and she’s got razor-tipped hooves and shark-like teeth. Back. Up.” Scout pushed on his chest, knowing as she did that she weighed less than he did by about a hundred pounds and she barely reached his chin in height, but he winced and stepped back, holding up his hands.
“And Torz. Ashra’s a big unicorn. She knows what she’s doing.”
“You do know what you’re doing, right? You didn’t almost kill us?”
Ashra snorted. Scout chose to take that as a yes.
“Hope you learned those lessons, people. We’ve got work to do,” Iros yelled as Havik flew up, wings aflame, terrifying battle armor in place.
Chapter Ten
“Soul stealers?” Trey asked. He looked at Scout and his face went white. “Are you up to this yet?”
No. “Yes. Do we get armor like yours?” she asked Iros, praying he didn’t hear her voice shake in fear.
“Ashra, Torz? Help your riders out, will you?” Without waiting for their response, Iros turned to the dark green unicorn that flew fast as a hummingbird behind him. Scout hadn’t even noticed it until now, hidden behind their giant leader. “Sound the alarm. Alert the other Irwarro.” The Ekse nodded and spun mid-flight. He was gone before Scout could blink. She felt the warmth before she actually saw the armor enveloping her — thick, shiny black with spikes on the wrists, knees, elbows, and ankles. Great, she’d probably poke her own eyes out now. Trey looked ferocious. He and Iros both, if she couldn’t see the kindness in their eyes, would have been enough to give a girl nightmares for weeks. Both of them stared back at her. “Scout, you haven’t recovered yet…” Iros said, his voice cracking just a bit as he swallowed hard under his armor.
Trey opened his mouth, but Scout shook her head. “I’m going. I’m fine. Ashra just tried to kill me and I survived.” Ashra snorted and threw her head, the misty mane weaving through the breeze.
“And I’m supposed to stay here and hope you don’t die? If you go and die, I’ll be stranded here forever.” Kylin stormed up, carrying her heels.
“Thanks for worrying,” Trey grumbled.
“Yeah, like you ever worry about me,” she snapped, looking away from him.
“Kylin, if something happens to us, the unicorns will make sure you get home,” Iros said, but Scout could see the muscle in his jaw working as he spoke through clenched teeth.
Behind them a roar like thunder, only eight thousand times louder, echoed
across the valley. Kylin screamed and dove behind the thick tree root she’d been sitting on, burying herself under it. Scout felt her hands dig into Ashra’s neck. The cloud of black materialized from the trees, as hundreds of gigantic black unicorns pounded toward them, hooves kicking up mossy green dirt and tearing down trees in their path.
“They’re going to trample Kylin!” Scout yelled, but Torz moved before she had a chance. He lunged for the tree as Trey leaned over his wing, snatching Kylin’s outstretched hand. He pulled her onto Torz’s back and they all shot into the sky and out of the way. The tree and gnarled, ancient root were crushed seconds later under the weight of hundreds of hooves. The mass of unicorns stopped in front of Iros, horns lowered. Until this moment, Scout hadn’t realized that the mighty Havik was their leader. She’d known it, but she hadn’t known it. They revered him, these hundreds of warriors.
His horn lit up, flames shooting into the sky, splitting it with a crack of lightning. “That’s the way out?” Scout asked, feeling her eyes widen so much they were in danger of falling out of their sockets.
“Yep. Hold on,” Ashra said cheerfully and she snapped her wings out. Flames engulfed them and they flew into the sky on Havik’s right. Torz and Trey, minus Kylin, were on his left, and hundreds of unicorns were at their back.
“Take a good look, Princess. At least a hundred of them won’t come back alive.” Ashra’s words echoed through Scout’s head as they escaped through the gap in the sky. She strained her neck around to watch the unicorns pour through the opening. Horror struck her hard and she couldn’t look away, her subconscious convinced that if she didn’t let them out of her sight, they would all return home again safely.
Not her smartest move, riding into battle looking the wrong way. Scout had for some reason thought they would come out over her hometown and fly to wherever the soul stealers were attacking. She was wrong. They were in a city — a big city. She’d never been out of Montana except for the two times she’d gone to California for drill team competitions, so she didn’t know which big city, but Chicago, maybe? Or New York? The air below them was so thick with horrendous nightmare creatures that she couldn’t see any landmarks, just the brief shimmer of lights on tall buildings between the bloody rags and brittle skeleton bones.
“Ashra? I’m scared,” Scout whimpered. Before she’d been all hopped up on adrenaline — she’d just discovered unicorns! Now, not so much. Terror nearly choked her.
“Scared? Not as scared as your little sister is. Get over it, Princess.” Ashra tucked her wings and they nose-dived straight at the mass of writhing soul stealers. Scout wanted to scream. Or kick Ashra like she would a horse. But she did neither. Instead she looked for Trey, made sure he was still alive, searched for Iros, found him leading the battle and looking thrilled about it, and lifted her scepter.
It took them seconds, not even long enough for Scout to swallow her terror before the first soul stealer screamed and dove at them. Because of Ashra’s free fall, they had hit the mass of evil first. “Do you always go roaring in like a maniac? We need a plan!” Scout shrieked. But she couldn’t be heard over the hundreds of soul stealers that suddenly turned on them. Scout forgot about the unicorns behind her. She forgot about Iros and Havik and even Trey. It felt like she and Ashra faced this army alone. From somewhere deep inside where she didn’t even realize she had courage, she found it.
Her scepter lit up.
Arms shaking, she swung it toward the closest soul stealer, and the magic exploded, wrapping and twisting with Ashra’s colorful flames. It slid around the demon and Scout yanked hard. The rope-like flames sliced the soul stealer in half and it exploded in a flurry of blood and screams. Scout winced and clawed at her ears.
“I’ll help.” Ashra’s mane was there, wrapping her ears as the wispy tail slid tight around Scout’s waist. “Here they come,” Ashra whispered.
Scout didn’t want to raise her eyes, didn’t want to see what she knew was coming, but that brave part of her took over. She looked up.
The soul stealers started to scream, their hollow skulls opening wide as they soared through the sky. Fast, faster than Scout had seen anything move before. She froze, every fiber in her too terrified to move.
Colorful flames shot around her, past her, and Scout remembered they weren’t alone. Unicorns flashed past her, meeting the soul stealers head on. Magic lit up the sky, and with it came the lightning. So that’s where thunderstorms come from, Scout thought wildly.
“Scout! I need you!” Ashra screeched. Scout jerked her mind back from wherever it had run in fear, gripping the scepter with sweaty hands. She searched, in that part she didn’t know very well, found the courage, found Ashra. Ah, that’s where it’s coming from, she thought, unsure whom she was even talking to in her fear-crazed mind. She swung her scepter wide, the bright magic shooting in an arc, Ashra’s flames meeting it in an explosion of sparks. There were at least a dozen soul stealers who fell under their onslaught, screaming as they tumbled through the sky. It was the most awful sound Scout had ever heard.
Whipping her scepter around, she listened for Ashra, feeling the next attack before Ashra’s horn lit up. Holding tight to the shred of courage, she willed all her energy into the scepter, delighted when the flames shot out with more force than before, hitting more soul stealers, smothering them in a thick cloud. “Now pull.” Scout tugged it back, the dark wraith of their spells closing until the soul stealers caught in it were nothing.
Ashra pumped her wings hard, shooting them through the sky, toward the middle of the dark mass of bloody, writhing bodies. “What are you doing?” Scout screamed, but she saw before Ashra had a chance to answer. Without riders, the unicorns were falling left and right, tumbling through the darkness to their death. Ashra lunged to the side, and they flew sideways across the sky. Scout shrieked as she felt herself slipping, but Ashra held her steady. She scrambled, found the courage, gripped it tight, and swung her scepter to the side. They flew parallel over the soul stealers, and Scout’s analytical brain couldn’t figure out how it was even possible to fly sideways, but the other part of her screamed in fury and lit up the inky blackness with another attack — a big one. From the corner of her vision, she saw Torz streaking through the sky after them, and she nodded. Digging deep, she shoved her strength into the scepter, and the dark cloud exploded, enveloping all the soul stealers she could reach. Hundreds. She had caught at least that many. “Wahoo!” she screamed, startling Ashra. “We can do it! “
“Who knew?” Ashra said dryly. “Our weird connection thing is enough.”
Torz’s horn burned with fiery magic as he and Trey shot attack after attack; and from across the sky, Scout saw Iros and Havik. It was hard to miss the mighty leader’s flames; they were so much brighter, so much more devastating than anyone else’s.
“We’ve got them! They’re running!” Scout squealed.
“Not fast enough.” Ashra’s voice was grim in her head. Scout swung around, still holding tight to the deep cloud that kept the soul stealers lost and vulnerable. Ashra leveled them out, her fiery wings beating hard. The soul stealers were fleeing, but they were killing too many unicorns along the way.
“I have an idea. Are you up for it?” Ashra asked, pumping hard.
They shot through the devastated heavens and Scout lost the attack she’d been holding. “Ashra! I can’t…” But that group of soul stealers was gone. Havik and Torz had killed them all.
“Scout?” Ashra wasn’t letting up. They sped past more soul stealers, galloping through the clouds faster than the lightning crashing around them.
Scout had a terrible, horrible feeling she knew what Ashra was planning. It wasn’t possible. She couldn’t. She wasn’t brave enough. She wasn’t strong enough.
“But I am,” Ashra said quietly.
Scout swallowed hard, dug deeper for whatever courage she had left. “How can we…?
Ashra didn’t slow, nearing the leading soul stealers, where they had the unicorns trapp
ed.
“We’ll save hundreds of lives, Scout. There’s no other choice.”
She really does have a death wish, Scout realized, her stomach sinking. Courage, where are you? “Are you fast enough?” Scout’s voice was surprising in its hardness.
“For a while.”
Scout tucked her legs tight around Ashra’s middle, holding to the wispy mane with one hand. Ashra tucked her wings and they nose-dived straight into the mass of soul stealers.
“Scout!” She heard Trey scream, but it was too late to pull up. Scout felt their claws, reaching and tearing, but Ashra didn’t hesitate as she plunged into their midst. Scout swung her scepter, willing it to shoot the flames Iros had taught them. The soul stealers shrieked in agony as the fire hit them, turning away from the fleeing unicorns to attack the single fighter in their midst.
“Now, Ashra!” Ashra’s wings shot out, igniting in flames, hitting the demons closing in on them. And then she shot straight up through them, knocking them out of the way, her mighty feet kicking as she galloped across the clouds. Soul stealers impaled themselves on her horn as she fought their way out.
Struggling to breathe, Scout eyed her scepter. The end had sharp flares around the orb. Screaming unintelligibly, forgetting her exhaustion, she lunged toward the first soul stealer she could reach, watching in satisfaction as the end plunged into its empty chest. The thing screeched and burst into flames from the inside. Scout jerked the scepter out hard and shoved it toward the next one waiting to rip her soul from her body.
They’d made the mass of soul stealers angry. Angrier. To penetrate their defenses was an insult, and the demons weren’t going to let them escape unpunished.
But they were no match for Ashra’s rage.
She fought her way free, kicking, biting, stabbing, and shooting attacks and fire and then they shot straight up through the sky, followed by every single remaining soul stealer.