The roar bellowed again, closer this time. We hitched our steps, silently pushing forward.
A large red splotch, a living being, dashed in the corner of my right eye. I grabbed Scarlett’s arm to snag her attention, pointing to the trees where the beast hid.
Scarlett slapped Valik’s shoulder. When he turned, she passed on the same message by pointing to the forest where the heat signature appeared.
Within the forest and to my left, a massive creature snorted. For the love of the gods, I begged that this wasn’t the manticore coming back to finish us off.
Our mysterious guide cocked his head. “Ah, it’s simply a unicorn,” he murmured, tilting his head before shrugging. “No big deal.”
“A unicorn?” Scarlett gaped. “Those are actually real?”
Valik cocked an eyebrow. “Of course they’re real!” He began to walk forward again.
“And they”–Scarlett glanced back to the forest again, eyebrow raised–“sound likethat?”
I’d never known that unicorns could roar, considering they were basically horses, but whatever. New world, new problems.
“They didn’t use to, but now that they’re Endarkened, they obviously do.” Valik flicked a hand casually to the side, shockingly unbothered by the fucking Endarkened unicorn lingering nearby.
“Are we suddenly not worried that any Endarkened creature, unicorn or not, will kill us?” Scarlett asked sarcastically, shaking her head.
Without turning around, Valik shrugged again. “I mean, it might. Who’s to say?”
I sighed, frustrated with his non-answers as my anxiety grew. The unicorn followed us along the tree line as we continued to cut through another field at the bottom of the hill.
It roared again.
“Any tips on how to take it down if it attacks?” Scarlett asked.
“You can’t kill a unicorn,” Valik responded, bored. “They’re sacred beings here. Even if they’re Endarkened, bad things will happen to the one who kills them.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Scarlett slapped her thighs. “It’s Endarkened! It’s not like—” Another roar cut her off.Through the lens of my magic, the red blotch I’d seen in the woods flashed again, charging toward us. “Shit.”
Forgoing Valik’s warnings, we pulled our swords free, falling into a defensive stance to ward it off.
“I told you no weapons! Put them away now!” Valik ordered, all carelessness gone from his voice.
It felt wrong to put my sword back when faced with a threat; it went against everything my instincts and training taught me.
“So how are we supposed to defend against it?” Scarlett demanded
“Just run. I’ll deal with it,” Valik responded, not taking his focus off the Endarkened unicorn that raced toward us.
I returned my vision to normal, unsure what to do. Stay and fight it off? Or try to evade it altogether?
The unicorn dashed toward us, and Valik wasn’t lying—it very much appeared to be Endarkened, just like the manticore had. Black drool dripped from its snout, and large patches of fur peeled from its body, leaving grayish skin behind. The mane was dried out and knotted, and blackening veins lined up and down its neck and legs. The horn—which I imagined was once a pearly white, if the version of the legends we’d heard about unicorns back home were true—now rotted away, with black and gray matter oozing from the tip and rolling down past the base and its fur.
The unicorn’s ears lay flat back against its head, glaring at us with a sickened rage as it approached.
“I said, go!” Valik demanded.
I exchanged a quick, nervous glance with Scarlett before taking off at a sprint toward the Celestial Castle, hoping Valik knew what he was doing. I presumed he wouldn’t have lasted this long here if he didn’t.
The once sacred and beautiful creature ignored Valik as he planted himself and raised his hands to cast his magic at it. Instead, it blew past him in pursuit of me and Scarlett, racing toward us at an unnatural speed.
Well, fuck.
Only twenty yards separated us from the unicorn. Scarlett cast a look over her shoulder, her red hair nearly covering her eyes, before she stopped, holding out her hands. Her violet currents dashed up her neck as she maintained eye contact with the charging unicorn.
