Slowly the unicorn lowered his bearded head to the snowfall, long mane grazing the ground. His muzzle nosed at the base of a tree, hunting for buried shoots of greenery. The clearingthey’d come to wasn’t a safe one; this wild stretch of the Kettalist was full of the strange mountain folk. Normally she would have stayed horsed, but a strong desire overtook her. Ayla slid from the saddle, her feet sinking into the snow, and looped Gemshorn’s reins over the bare branches of a young oak. Her throat ached. A tightness constricted her chest.
She took one step closer, then another. The unicorn lifted his head and regarded her with one of his golden eyes. A feeling sank into her bones, an overwhelming sense of beauty and hope. For a moment the cold ache of her skin faded. She barely felt the snow that snuck inside her left boot or the dull pulse of her hip where Ditmar had struck her. The world was pure, serene. Like the fresh-fallen snow. The unicorn took a step towards her. The fierce tightening joy in Ayla’s chest threatened to make her cry all over again.
She could see shadows where its ribs lay, evidence of hunger that would only grow worse in the winter. Even hope was a fragile thing, like thin-blown glass that would shatter if you so much as breathed wrong. Ayla stretched out her hand, even though she was still a dozen paces from the unicorn.
“Please,” she whispered, desperately, not sure what she wanted—for the feeling to stay with her, perhaps. For something, anything, to save her from the grim darkness her daily life had become. Ayla took a step closer.
The unicorn’s eyes widened suddenly, white around the edges. He jerked his head back, pivoting on his hindquarters.
“No,” Ayla begged, the word strangled. But he was gone, vanished into thin air, not even a hoof print to prove he’d been there.
Gemshorn screamed.
She hadn’t heard that sound from her horse before, pure terror. Ayla spun, her heart confused and breaking all over again as pain flooded back into her body in the unicorn’sabsence. There, by the riverbank, Gemshorn tossed his head and sidestepped, yanking at the reins. The branch she’d hooked them over strained, threatening to snap.
Her breath caught. The most beautiful man she’d ever seen stood naked in the middle of the river, as if he’d appeared there out of nothing. The current lapped his bare, narrow waist. Rivulets of icy water dripped down his sculpted body and from his slicked-back silver hair. His pale eyes were fixed on Ayla.
A small voice in her body begged her to run. Strange men,especiallyimpossibly beautiful men standing naked in mid-fall mountain rivers, were not to be trusted.
He took a step towards the bank, his hips rising out of the water. Behind the man another face lifted from the water, this one green and oily, its nose two slits in its misshapen face.
Nix, she thought dully, taking a step back.That’s a nix. Which means he is too.They weren’t normally beautiful, not in their natural forms, but they could take many shapes to entrance their prey. He’d drag her below the water if he caught her. It would be cold. Ayla shivered, her eyes locked on him. She wondered if it would hurt. How fast it would end.
If she went with him, all this would be over.
The nix split his mouth in a ragged smile, ruining his disguise. Each tooth ended in a savage point, his pink gums swollen and fleshy. He took another slow step closer towards her and beckoned.
Gemshorn stomped and shrieked again. The sound broke Ayla free. She yanked his reins from the tree and grabbed the sidesaddle’s top pommel. Ayla got her toes into the stirrup cup. She launched herself awkwardly up as Gemshorn sidled away. With anoofAyla’s belly landed across the saddle, both legs still hanging over the side.
Gemshorn reared. She slid back, hands scrambling. Her left palm gripped the pommel tight as she leaned her body to stayon, core tense and one boot awkwardly jammed into the stirrup. As Gemshorn’s feet came down she hurled her right leg over the back of the saddle and grabbed his mane with her free hand. Her gelding spun and took off down the mountain, the reins not yet in Ayla’s hands. She was sitting the way she used to ride, astride instead of the sidesaddle Ditmar demanded. Her dress rode up her legs and bared her skin to the icy air. She didn’t care. All she wanted was to get away.
Even if the life she raced back towards was no safer than the threat she fled from.
A Brutal March
Lord Niel of Mount Eyron, traitor to the crown of Enar, was beginning to suspect the Maker hated him. On a deep, personal level. He’d never been a pious man, but surely he’d been punished enough in his life already.Hadn’the?
An icy blast of wind snapped snow from the boughs of the firs straight into his face. He tucked his gloved hands beneath his armpits to warm them, bent his head forward against the sting of the gale, and kept trudging across the snow-covered, rocky landscape of the lower Kettalist mountain range. They’d lost all but one of the horses. Only a quarter of the men he’d marched west were coming home with him now.
Behind him, his surviving soldiers were finally silent.
He wasn’t sure he trusted that silence. For four days they’d done nothing but complain, and with good cause. Either they’d grown so cold and weak they wouldn’t make it much further, or they’d finally decided to mutiny and were biding their time.
A throat cleared next to him.
“My Lord Eyron.”
Niel blinked in surprise. Focused on the bone-cutting chill and thinking about the soldiers, he hadn’t even noticed Kerr coming up beside him. That was bad. Niel couldn’t afford to be daydreaming, not in enemy territory: he needed to be alert at all times. Chiding himself, he gave Kerr an inquiring look.
The captain was dressed like Niel, his heavy fur cloak belted up to keep it from dragging through the snow, draped over dark layers of padding and armor that made them stand out terribly against the white snowfall. Kerr was a lean man in his thirties, big-nosed and lightly freckled, who’d proven himself in battle any number of times. A lock of his blonde hair peeked out from beneath his cap.
“The men are weary. They need to rest.”
“We don’t stop until dark,” Niel growled, trudging on. They had too much ground to cover. And for all he knew his loyalist brother Corin’s army was on their heels, about to catch up to Niel's band of traitors.
“They won’t make it much further without a break,” Kerr continued patiently.
“At this rate we’ll never make it back to Eyron,” Niel muttered. He waited halfheartedly for Kerr to insist they would, but the captain didn’t respond.
