Throne of Sacrifice

by Jennifer Ellision

  “Good morning, young one. What preys upon your mind? You look distracted.”

  I smiled as Zacarina’s voice entered my mind and spoke aloud to answer her. She kept insisting that I could mind-speak back, but it was a habit that was hard to break, having known no other way in my entire life. “I’m sorry. You’re right, I am a bit distracted, but I’m well. And a good morning to the both of you in return.” I tilted my head toward Baby, indicating it was her that I meant. “And how is the leg?”

  “Good.”

  I froze. That voice in my mind was not Zacarina’s. It did not have the presence that the great unicorn did. It sounded timid, shy… new. “Was that…?” I looked at Zacarina for confirmation, wide-eyed.

  I didn’t think that I imagined the tinge of pride in Zacarina’s eyes. ”It was. My offspring has begun to mind-speak.”

  I laughed in disbelief. I had never expected to be able to speak with unicorns in the first place, it was true. But once I had started, had I thought about it, I certainly would not have expected to speak with a unicorn—with any being, for that matter—who was under a month old.

  But if I’d learned nothing else other the past few weeks, I had certainly learned that life was full of surprises.

  “Baby,” I breathed. “You’re… You can… wow.”

  Zacarina seemed to stand taller. “Epiphany. We reveal our own names at the time that we begin mind-speaking. She is Baby no longer.”

  “My… name is… Epiphany.” Small pauses of silence pocketed the space between the words, like a speaker of a foreign language trying to wrap their tongue around the strange words.

  I smiled. My mother had been right. It was cheering me up to visit the staviary. I could imagine no greater gift than conversing with the most innocent creature I’d ever met. A baby unicorn, talking to me. I couldn’t stop marveling over it. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance then, Epiphany. And the leg is doing well?”

  “It is.” She had a sweet presence in my mind. It made me think of spun sugar and dandelions.

  “Thank you for looking after her,” Zacarina said. “You may not realize it, but it’s meant a great deal to me. To both of us.”

  “Of course,” I replied aloud, and meaning every word of it. “I’d hope that someone would do the same for Fae if she ever needed it.”

  Zacarina nodded solemnly. “I will.”

  I waved my hands, trying to backtrack. It had sounded like I was hinting at something, hadn’t it? “Oh, I hadn’t meant to imply you somehow owed me.”

  “It’s fine. You didn’t imply anything. But it doesn’t change the fact that I appreciate all that you’ve done. I may not owe you, but I would return the favor in a heartbeat if I could. I will always be there for you and your offspring should you have a need of me.”

  A chill went over me. There was a gravitas to Zacarina’s words. As though they were not spoken idly, but a binding oath. Were the gods watching us even now?

  They could watch all they liked—they would whether I liked it or not. But I hoped to never need to see her words fulfilled.

  “Never mind all that,” I said flippantly, not pausing to allow myself to dwell over it. “I’m just sorry that I haven’t been able to do any more for you. I haven’t stopped looking for your flock, you know. They’re out there and I’m going to find them. We have leads now.”

  The solemnity with which she’d uttered her oath drained from her voice, leaving behind a tone of great sadness. “I appreciate that. Appreciate all that you’re doing and have done for us. I do hope that you manage to succeed. It is—lonely without them. But it helps to have someone to talk to.”

  I smiled. “Likewise. We have men in the villages searching for Rumpelstiltskin. We’ll get him.” I was just like Hardy, making promises when I had no clue how I’d fulfill them. I only knew that I had to do it.

  “Hey,” a soft voice—a human voice—interrupted our conversation and I whirled around to find Jay draped over the stall’s door. He looked tired—haggard, with deep, dark circles under his eyes.

  That was right. He had gone with the soldiers who had been conducting the investigation looking for Rumpelstiltskin last night. From the looks of him, he had to have been out all night.

  “No luck, I hear,” I said, with a sympathetic tilt of my head.

  He shook his head, settling down onto the floor. Hay clung to his pant legs and I tried in vain to clean a spot on the floor to join him there. Whatever. I’d just get dirty.

  “No. They sent me home. I stayed a bit longer than the others hoping maybe some people we spoke with would be more willing to speak with someone who wasn’t an official of the palace, but no dice. Either they really know nothing, or I’d done damage just by being seen with them. But I’m not giving up.”

  “None of us are,” I said, glad that we were having this conversation in front of Zacarina. She’d see that it wasn’t just me pulling for the unicorns, but all of us, working together to find Rumpelstiltskin and bring her brethren home.

  “You going out to search with them again tonight?”

  He nodded.

  I sighed. “Gods, I wish that I could join you. But Mother is in enough of a state about me leaving the palace walls. No way she’d happily let me skip off into the city to ask some questions.”

  “Yeah…” Jay ran a hand through his hair and huffed out an aggrieved breath. “I know that the guards are spreading to the further towns soon to search, but I can’t help but feel Rumpelstiltskin is closer than that. Of course it would make more sense for him to take the unicorns and to run just as far as he possibly could, but I don’t know… I think he’s here in Shipley.” He shrugged helplessly. “Can’t say why.”

  “I thought the same.” It struck me then that I had yet to fill Jay in on the bargain my mother had with the devious imp. I quickly told him the story and when I was done, he puffed out a breath, running a distressed hand through his hair as he took it all in.

  “That’s… a lot.”

  “I know. But it makes sense, like you said, that he would be close. My mother seems to think that he would want revenge upon her. Stealing the unicorns is terrible, and I’m sure he has a sinister plot in mind for them… but it’s not personal. It’s not the way to hurt her. That would be my father, me, her home…”

  He nodded. “All of which he’d need to be close to reach.”

  Groaning like his entire body ached, he pushed to his knees. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Where?”

  His eyebrows ratcheted up into his hairline. “Are you kidding? You just told me this guy might be after you specifically. I’m not wasting another second.”

  I tried to ignore the warm fluttering of my heart in response.

  7th May

  I tugged on my boots the next morning, intending to visit Mother once again. We were late enough into the morning that Hardy should have delivered his report by now. I doubted that he and his men had gotten very far in the investigation since yesterday morning, but that didn’t much change the fact that I wanted to know how far they had gotten. Whether it was an inch or a millimeter, I hoped we’d gained at least a little bit of ground. I’d cling onto any shred of hope that I could that we were gaining some ground on Rumpelstiltskin.

  Maybe I’d go see Jay later as well. I’d like to hear it from someone who had boots on the ground.

  And maybe, just maybe, I’d plain old like to see my friend as well.

  My friend who was becoming something a bit… more.

  I paused and exhaled, my hands on my knees as fluttering started in my stomach. I hadn’t thought of my upcoming date with Jay in a few days. Last week, we had decided to go to the party my mother was throwing to celebrate Fae’s birth together. Ordinarily, I might not have thought all that much about it. But the word “date” had been used. And I hadn’t been on one of those since before my husband, Luka, had died.

  There wasn’t much room in my mind for anything beyond Fae, Rumpelstiltskin, and the unicorns
these days. But the thought of Jay always seemed to find the little crevices and worm its way in, burrowing through my thoughts and finding its way into my heart.

  When I exited my rooms with my guards in tow and Fae left behind with a nursemaid again, I pulled my sleeves down to cover my wrists and pushed all other thoughts but those of business from my mind. I straightened my posture, squared my shoulders, and knocked on my mother’s door.

  As I feared, not much progress had been made. If you could call it progress at all. All Hardy and his men had managed was to rule more and more out. Rumpelstiltskin wasn’t in the pub. He wasn’t in the library. He hadn’t spoken to the innkeeper or the stable boy of the most frequented establishment in the village, which meant they’d be giving up on the city any day now in favor of pursuing more distant leads.

  I left my parents’ rooms, deep in thought when a hand suddenly tugged at my wrist. Jay. Williamson and Avery made a move toward him, startled by his sudden appearance, but dropped their weapons when they realized who it was and that Jay would never intend me harm.

  He was red-faced and panting. “There you are. I went to your rooms first, but you weren’t there. I’ve been looking everywhere.”

  Clearly, this wasn’t a social visit. “What’s happened?”

  “The mother unicorn,” Jay said. “I was sleeping in my office after passing out there after the search last night and I heard her start to make a ruckus so loud that it woke me up. When I went to check on her she wouldn’t let me get near her. I thought that since you always seemed to have a calming effect on her, maybe you could come?”

  I was already quickening my step. Acting out that way wasn’t like Zacarina. The same way that Jay thought I had a calming effect on the mother unicorn, she had always had a calming effect on me. In fact, the last time I had seen her upset and acting out, it was because we had found unicorn blood in the vicinity. This wasn’t some sort of wild overreaction, I was sure of it.

  When we got down to the staviary, I rushed inside and flipped the latch on Zacarina and Epiphany’s stall. Zacarina pranced far from the corner where her daughter watched wide-eyed.

  “Mama?” Epiphany asked. “Maybe the mortals can help?”

  Zacarina fixed wild golden eyes on me. “Get out of my way,” she demanded imperiously. She tossed her mane.

  “What’s going on?” The watchful eyes of Jay and my guards pressed in on me, and I bit my lip. With them watching, I couldn’t speak to her aloud as I usually would. I needed to mind-speak, the way that she did.

  I put a hand to her nose and leaned my head toward her. “Talk to me. Please.”

  Gradually, she calmed under my touch, but when her thoughts came, they were frayed and desperate. “I can feel them. My herd. My flock. They’re close, and I need—”

  Frustrated, she whinnied and stamped a hoof on the ground. “I need to be with them. Please help me.”

  Her sense of urgency filled my body. I too needed to escape this stall. I too needed to find our flock. “Of course, I’ll help you,” I murmured. The presence of Jay and the others outside the stall reminded me to be careful what I said aloud. I had accepted this new gift of mine, being able to speak with the unicorns, but I hardly had faith that everyone else would as well. To my knowledge, no other mortal beings could communicate with any animals, much less the nigh–on-untouchable creatures that the unicorns were. “We established yesterday: we’re a team.” I spoke mind to mind. “If you need my help, I’m there. But you’re not going alone. That helps no one. If he takes you too, then Epiphany will be left all alone. The last of the unicorns. No flock. No mother. Is that what you want?”

  Her restless prancing stilled. “Of course not.”

  I smiled. “Good. Then we’ll make haste, but we will go together.”

  With Zacarina temporarily calmed, I whirled around, turning to Jay and my guards, who watched from the hall of the staviary.

  “That’s amazing,” Jay breathed. “It’s like she really understands that you’re here to help her.”

  She understood more than they could possibly know. More than even he understood about me these days.

  “Send word to the castle,” I ordered. “Tell my mother we’ve gone for a ride.”

  I may have been an optimistic fool, but one thing I was most certainly was not was foolhardy. A guard patrolling near the stables was dispatched to the palace to send word to my mother about where we’d gone. Williamson stayed behind in order to keep watch over Baby—over Epiphany. I was not going to leave the little unicorn unguarded. My own child was safe within the walls of the palace while I was gone. I’d make sure that Zacarina’s offspring was just as safe in the staviary with someone watching over her while she was gone.

  I told Jay and the guards that I had a theory: what if—I posed the question as if it was a possibility that had just leapt into my mind—what if Zacarina was as wild as she was because her herd was nearby and she had no way of reaching them? It sounded crazy, I knew, but it couldn’t hurt to check… could it? I made sure to widen my eyes nice and innocently when I asked.

  And it worked like a damn charm.

  Zacarina allowed me to once again place a saddle on her back and reins around her neck. Jay and I would ride astride, searching for the missing unicorns as we had the other day. This time, though, I wouldn’t be sneaking out or evading my guards to do it. No, this time, while Williamson stayed behind, Avery would be following on horseback, hopefully able to provide us with backup in the event that we did indeed meet with Rumpelstiltskin today. And this time, instead of flying, our feet would be staying planted firmly on the ground.

  My heart pounded in my chest. Was it really possible that after all the searching and combing through towns that my mother’s men were doing to locate him, we would find him first, just this easily? And finding him was one thing, but if he did have the unicorns with him, as Zacarina’s senses suggested, would we really be able to wrest them away from him? There was only one way to find out, I supposed.

  On Zacarina’s back, Jay’s arms clutched me tightly around the waist, knowing how scared I was of flying. I held the reins loosely in one hand and patted his hands to comfort him with the other. “Ill be all right,” I assured him. “I won’t ask her to fly today. We’ll find the unicorns the old-fashioned way.”

  Still his arms tightened just a little bit more, and he pulled me back so that I could feel the rumble of his words in his chest. “That’s not why I’m holding on to you so tightly, Eliana. Point the first: You think Zacarina is acting like this because she senses her herd nearby. Point the second: our working theory is that the person who took the unicorns in the first place is Rumpelstiltskin. And point the third.” His tone was grim now. “You told me yesterday that your mother made a bargain before you were born that could mean that Rumpelstiltskin is targeting you very personally. I’m holding you tightly because I don’t intend to let that happen. Not while there’s breath in my body, anyway.”

  Again, my damnable heart fluttered at his words and I became keenly aware of everywhere we touched. Chest to back. Thigh to thigh. Hand to hand. I was warmed from the inside out.

  Clearly I needed a distraction. I cleared my throat and spoke to Zacarina silently. “Can you still feel them?”

  “Yes.” Her own voice sounded distracted as well. “It is like a tether, pulling me to them. The connection grows stronger, the closer that we get. I think… I think we’ll be there very soon now.”

  We had already taken the meadows at a steady cantering pace and the unicorns had been nowhere to be found, so we moved deeper into the pockets of the hills and valleys that lined the Valean countryside. The sound of distant, rushing waters reached my ears. Rivers could be deep here; some ran through the country all the way to the coast on sinister shores.

  Zacarina stilled. “Do you hear that?” Her voice in my mind was hushed and fearful. I strained to listen. At the edges of my senses, I heard what sounded like a chorus of cries for help.

  Jay’s
hands spasmed on my waist. “Eliana? I think—do you hear whinnying?”

  My head snapped around to look at him. His eyes were wide as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I think it’s coming from the river.”

  Zacarina lit off like a shot. We weren’t cantering anymore, but in a full-fledged gallop as we raced toward the river and hopefully toward her lost brethren, Avery and his steed right behind us. I could hardly catch my breath from the anticipation. Had we really done it? Had we actually managed to find the missing unicorns? And with not a little fear, I wondered too: Did Rumpelstiltskin wait with them?

  There was only one way to find out for sure.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes when the line of the river came into sight. The unicorns were there all right. And now that we were close enough to them, they were screaming into my mind. Sobs, shouts for help, terrified, wordless cries, assurances to each other that it would be all right. And it wasn’t hard to tell why. They were in the river, which was bad enough. The muscle-bound equine creatures were not known for their graceful swimming abilities. But to make matters about a thousand times worse, they were tangled up in a net, thrashing together in their attempts to get to land. They were struggling just to keep their heads above water, to keep on being able to just keep breathing. But already, they looked exhausted from their efforts. They couldn’t keep this up for long or they’d surely drown.