Dark Unicorn

by Taylor Haiden

  The second snow leopard pounced at him from behind and would have ripped out Calen’s throat, had not Thackery thrown his sword end-over-end. The weapon plunged into the second cat’s side, throwing it off balance. Instead of a killing stroke, the teeth sunk into Calen’s shoulder.

  Calen yelled and repeatedly stabbed, falling to the snow as the leopard’s weight bore him down. Calen had killed the creature, but he was trapped under its weight.

  The remaining cat approached us.

  “What are you waiting for?” Thackery demanded. “Light that one on fire too.”

  I tried to draw in more magic, but it wasn’t working. What little magic I had left wouldn’t be enough for a spell that powerful. “I can’t!”

  I drew my small blade and looked at Thackery desperately. Why wouldn’t the snow leopard just run away? Had it been sent to kill us?

  Then I had an idea. I put my two fingers to my lips and whistled, casting a nuisance spell.

  The cat yowled and swatted at something nearly too small for anyone to see. Tiny black specks, no bigger than a fingernail began to swirl around the great head of the beast.

  The flies buzzed in the cat’s ears and clogged its noise. No matter how much it shook its head, there was no relief from the tiny pests.

  At last, the cat roared and bolted away from us, disappearing in the snow.

  Calen rolled the dead cat off of himself. “What kind of spell was that?”

  Chapter 15.

  Wren

  Calen’s eyes lit up as I described what I had done.

  “Good thinking,” he said. “I wonder why you weren’t able to draw more magic in when you needed it?”

  “Seems a little unreliable, this ice magic” Thackery said.

  Closing my eyes, I calmed myself. I imagined I was standing in a white field with perfect snowdrops falling lightly all around me. I stuck out my tongue and caught one, absorbing the magic through the tip of my tongue. This time, I was able to pull in magic slowly from the freezing air itself.

  Calen’s eyes twinkled and I realized he could see the transfer of power. “It must only work when you are calm enough to keep your emotions under control.”

  “Good luck with that,” Thackery huffed, trudging forward to retrieve his sword.

  “A problem you both seem to have.” Calen looked first at the charred carcass and then in the direction that the third snow leopard had run. “At least we know which way to go.”

  We spent a few moments calming the horses. Calen spoke a few soft words to each that seemed to reassure them. I was able to cast a spell to rejuvenate their muscles and Thackery uncovered some grass to restore their strength.

  We mounted once more as Calen continued to stare off into the horizon. He seemed to be focusing on something beyond the edge of my vision, head cocked sideways, forcing his silver bangs into his face like a thick veil of rough lace. He looked so inhuman then, listening to something we couldn’t even perceive.

  I thought about how far we had come together and all of the unknowns that still lay ahead. It all seemed so unreal. I hadn’t known what to expect when Thackery told me we would be journeying through the woods to find a unicorn, part of me had assumed it was a metaphor for a rare sort of warrior or something—and Calen was certainly that. But he was also so much more. I don't think anything could have prepared me for actually meeting, or kissing him. Now that I was warm again, my thoughts returned to the feeling of his lips pressed against mine. I grew even warmer between my legs.

  “Suffice to say,” Calen began, dragging his gaze back to the horses, “our presence here has not gone unnoticed.”

  There was no emotion in his voice, no hint at how he might be feeling. I was terrified and Thackery looked worried, but the unicorn seemed completely calm. I cast a spell to try and read his mind. Probing an empty void, I met a hard wall. Nothing. I pushed against the wall, but got nowhere.

  “That’s not polite,” Calen said with a wink.

  “Maybe the snow leopards were out on patrol and just stumbled across us by accident,” Thackery speculated as he turned his horse to face us.

  Calen frowned. “If their master didn’t know of our presence before, he certainly does now. That cat is running back straight to the Collector for sure. I shouldn’t have let it escape.”

  “Don’t blame yourself,” I said. “You were trapped underneath one of them, remember?”

  With a disapproving look, Calen turned to me. “Then you should have stopped it with your magic. It was a foolish mistake—one that we can’t afford.”

  “Leave off, Unicorn,” Thackery rumbled. “She saved your life and mine.”

  “I’m not sure delaying our deaths counts as saving,” Calen replied.

  His words stung, more than I was willing to admit. Calen was right. I had been unable to keep my emotions in check and because of that I had lost my ability to pull magic. It was my incompetence that had let the snow leopard escape to warn the Collector that we were coming.

  Even if he knew we were here, we couldn't give up. We had to push forward, we couldn't fail—I wouldn’t allow it.

  “We’ve already failed,” Calen whispered.

  The droop in his shoulders told me enough.

  “He’s watching us,” Calen said, “I can feel it.”

  “Tell me again how to draw in more magic” Thackery said, his feeling of inadequacy plainly visible on his face.

  “It’s like feeling cold,” I replied. “Like goosebumps on your skin. You have to dive into the cold water, channel it through your veins until your blood turns to ice—then somehow force it to warm.”

  “Um…” Thackery’s face went blank. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “None of it makes sense,” Calen said. “Why would someone with such power just allow us to live? Either we are doing what he wants, or we are like flies.”

  “Like flies?” I asked.

  “Just like the ones you made appear around the head of the snow leopard—only we haven’t annoyed the Collector enough to make him swat at us—not yet.”

  “If you're suggesting we find reinforcements, I am afraid the time for that has already come and gone,” Thackery said. “Our only hope now is to press on.” He kicked his horse and rode ahead.

  They were both right.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Calen said in a strange tone, “I hope it’s worth it.”

  I nodded at him before sending Juko after Thackery, and we fell in line along the icy waterway once more. Calen let his midnight horse canter next to Thackery's for a moment, before eventually reclaiming the lead.

  The new pace was a little more hurried, but the reinvigorated horses no longer skid or struggled in the snow. Besides man-eating leopards and the ground itself swallowing you up, the most frightening thing was our own paranoia. Every time I lifted my neck to check on Calen, his eyes were scanning one way or another and never on me.

  It bothered me more than it should, like the coil in my middle tightened every time he failed to simply look at me. It was the unicorn thrall, I told myself. It had to be, no matter how much I'd wished for the feelings to go away. I'd known Calen for hardly any time at all. I still couldn't trust him and it was very likely he was leading us into a trap. Yet, there was no other place in the world I would rather be. I tried to take comfort in that, but I was still hollow inside over worry about my family and my people.

  The horses were climbing up, I noticed. The incline was gradual, toward mountains that hovered in the horizon. They had spindly and narrow tops like castle turrets.

  The river seemed to flow upstream here. A strange sight. I reached into my bag drawing heat from the Eternal Flame—better to save my magic for a fight, just in case I was unable to draw more when I needed it.

  We reached a fork in the river. The larger body continued to race upwards toward the mountains. The place had a cruel kind of beauty and I was almost sad when Calen lead us in the other direction. The smaller branch cut around the
heights, disappearing into a large copse of trees. The smaller stream looked calm, but looks could be deceiving.

  “We aren't headed toward the mountains?” I asked.

  He whipped his head around so fast that I had to wonder if I'd imagined his unwillingness to look at me earlier. Perhaps I was meaningless to him and he simply didn't care enough to avoid me. I felt the fire of my blood race to my cheeks and rubbed at them before Calen dared voice his disapproval.

  “I thought you were smarter than that,” he said.

  He sounded as tired as I felt. He may not have been a man, but apparently even he had limits.

  “We’ll be too exposed if we try to brave the mountains,” Thackery said.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Calen agreed before turning away again. “Plus, if it gets too steep, we’ll have to leave the horses.”

  I shivered at the thought. I could feel Juko's heat from under my legs, between that warmth and the Eternal Flame, I almost felt comfortable. I was not sure how long I’d last without them.

  “We’ll have an easier time on the south side of the mountain,” Calen said, his decision seemingly final.

  The sun had begun its slow descent, making the snow shine like it had been dusted in gold.

  “I wonder,” Thackery said, “if this place has always been like this—eternal winter.”

  “Not always, I'd imagine,” Calen replied. “Otherwise nothing would ever grow under all this snow. So, we can only assume that there are seasons like any other region—unless the Collector refuses to allow it for his own protection.”

  “Maybe it turns to summer when he leaves?” I asked.

  Thackery and I both watched and waited for Calen to answer, but he must not have known and remained silent.

  I shuddered. “Then the Collector is waiting for us.”

  Chapter 16.

  Calen

  It was hard to tell them anything without giving away everything. My silence wouldn't bring any harm to the two mages, not really. The only thing in jeopardy was my pride. My pride was the reason I was here in the first place—playing the third wheel to a pair of mages, looking for something I should never have lost in the first place.

  “Are you ready?” Thackery asked Wren, but she was looking back at me then. She was always staring at me. I was used to having a woman’s gaze track my every movement, but this was somehow different.

  Just when I thought that she'd shaken off my spell over her and had regained the use magic to defend herself… I thought of telling her then, how to cast a spell that could free her of my pull forever—but I couldn’t bring myself to utter the words. I didn't want to be rid of her, not really, not yet. The thought of it made me feel every bit the monster I had always feared I might one day become. It made me remember when I’d had my wings…

  * * *

  Smoke rose up from the scarred black earth, the dying breath of fire. A ring of flames surrounded the battleground far beyond the edges of my vision. I summoned my wings and they burst into brilliant substance, each feather shimmering white as I took to the sky. Destruction surrounded me. I looked up as the sky opened and heavy rain began to fall. It could not extinguish my radiance as it did the flames, nor could the storm swallow me up. I flew higher and higher until I rose above the surrounding clouds. Untouchable in the air, I was out of bowshot and outside the reach the army that waited below. I could hear them screaming my name—calling for my blood. The entire living mass of soldiers was ready to drag me down and cut me to ribbons. They would rip me apart with their bare hands if they had too—but they were made of paper and bone, and I was born of lava and gold.

  I laughed and folded my wings into a steep dive. Frozen raindrops hurled by the wind bit at my cheeks as the ground rushed towards me. They were ready for me—or so they thought.

  Then I was in their midst, slicing through a battalion as if they were nothing more than a column of ants. I mowed men down with a flick of my wrist. Surprise and fear registered in their eyes as an entire squadron fell dead at my feet. Their general rasped a desperate command and they swarmed my position. Countless men died upon my blade. A normal weapon would have dulled or caught in their armor, but mine was not forged from metal.

  Ten men dropped their weapons and grabbed hold of my legs. My laughter rang out sweetly as I flicked half of them aside. More rushed to take their place. I stumbled—ever so slightly—giving them an opening. My sword was torn from my grasp, lodged in the sternum of a cardboard knight—a perfectly timed sacrifice.

  A flash of lightning stripped away some of my magic along with the loss of the sword. No. A second and then a third soldier tackled me about the waist. I shook the men off and rolled away, leaping to reclaim the blade and wrenching it free from the corpse hugging it tightly.

  My power returned to full strength with a thunderous crash. Blood mixed with water and ran in a torrent down the hilt of my blade like a wayward river. What remained of the army fled and I was left standing alone as the rain stopped and the sky cleared. I held the pommel against my chest and vowed never to be parted from the weapon again. Without it, I was little better than a human. I would not live through that again.

  In the back of my mind, I knew it was a lie. I am a known liar. After all, I swore I would never set feather or hoof in this forsaken land—yet I had. I swore never to return home, and that was exactly what I did. Above all else, I told myself I had no chance of ever loving her.

  None of my kind had ever given voice to such a lie before, nor would they again. I could tumble from my place among the clouds, descending to the very center of hell, and I’d still not have fallen half as far as I had for that woman. I had forsworn all my oaths and deceived everyone, especially myself.

  * * *

  …best not to think of that now.

  I'd managed to live with myself for much longer than these mages combined had been alive—and yet, something compelled me to seek Wren’s approval. I felt like an adolescent fool. It was strange how immortality could stretch out your childhood.

  The further south that we wandered, the warmer the climate became. The setting sun reflected fiercely off the ground ahead of us and I realized finally that it was an enormous lake. The glassy water stretched from one side of my vision to the other.

  “Do you think we can safely cross it?” Thackery asked.

  Our vertical line had become a horizontal one as we gazed down at the frozen desert from a high and icy bank. White hoarfrost clung to the edge of the grass surrounding the area, an elegant lace frill on the neck of a pale lady.

  There were no other good options. If we tried to go around, we might add days to the journey. Ranging over the mountains and falling into whatever traps the Collector had laid along the way didn’t seem like a good idea. Turning back wasn’t an option.

  “What choice do we have?” I asked.

  The lake had clearly frozen. I looked to the east and west, but still could not see the end of it. It would have taken a great deal of powerful magic to freeze something so large. Maybe there had been no lake here before the Collector had taken up residency—perhaps there was no end to it and that was part of the madness of it.

  Would the ice hold our weight in the center? It could be another elaborate trap that might very well turn into a watery tomb. I wondered again how we had found ourselves in this tangle of magic.

  “Maybe we should try to go around it?” Thackery said to Wren.

  Her tired eyes were far in the back of the hood of her cloak when she answered him. “We’re running out of time. Crossing is a risk we are going to have to take,” Wren said.

  I nodded and Thackery sent his horse trotting. Frost crunched softly in our wake. The outer ring of ice was thick and solid. With any luck, we would cross without incident.

  We had nearly reached the center of the lake when Thackery suddenly pulled on his reins so fast that I assumed a wall must have sprung up before him, but I saw no such thing. Before I could shout my displeasure, Wren also stopped and bo
th she and Thackery stood in their saddles, attempting to see ahead of us.

  My senses flared to life as a group of men blinked into existence ahead of us. Not men—mages. They were as white as the powder they stood on. Staring back at us, they were dressed from toe to crown in white snow leopard fur. There were three of them, the first with a wild beard and tall staff. The second was holding a sword that looked like it was made out of ice. The third was the most frightening. His face was half missing—frozen off by the cold. The mage’s nose and eyes were gone and what remained looked like it had suffered from a bad case of frostbite—yet his head moved as we turned, somehow tracking our every movement.

  We wheeled our horses and ran. We had to. These three were too powerful together. They didn’t bother to chase us as we fled, instead hunting with their magic. The white Mages must be of this realm. The ice itself became their weapons and great spikes of it sprung up before us. Razor-sharp, the deadly spires seemed to bend toward us as we weaved around them. I drew my sword and cut through one that driving towards the neck of my horse. The ice melted before the black blade.

  I paused to check on how the others were doing. Thackery was relying on the speed of his horse and was having some luck outrunning the mage’s magic. Wren spewed fire around her like a dragon, but still the ice pressed closer.

  If I’d had my horn, I could have turned everything around us to dust and scattered what remained on the wind. We ran the horses near to exhaustion, putting as much distance as possible between us and the source of the spikes of ice rising beneath our feet. Fortunately, Wren’s fire magic seemed enough to keep us alive.

  As we reached the far side of the lake, the wizard’s magic faded—or perhaps they had just become bored.

  “I’ve got it!” Thackery yelled gleefully. “I was able to pull some magic.”

  “Congratulations,” I replied. “How about hiding us from the white mages?”