“We need to get out of here fast,” Teryn said.
He was right, but no matter where they turned, another echoing horn would sound. She glanced between the boughs. It wasn’t yet sundown. The hunters shouldn’t be back yet. But, of course, she’d chosen risk over caution today instead of ensuring she knew exactly when to expect them back. Now Cora and Teryn could be caught. The hunters would be upon them. They’d seize the unicorn and Cora would have failed again.
Her legs begged to run while another part of her burned for a fight. Teryn was the one who’d insisted on avoiding bloodshed, while she’d only grown more furious at seeing what these hunters had done to the creature in her arms. Her heart screamed for vengeance. Her head, on the other hand, reminded her they had no idea how many men they could be facing. It was only her and Teryn—her quiver of arrows and his sword—against what would undoubtedly be insurmountable odds.
Then I fight to the death, part of her said.
No, I flee and hope I make it out alive, said another.
She felt torn in two, unsure which instinct to heed. She’d followed her impulse to stay and fight when they’d thrown caution to the wind and rescued the unicorns right away. Had that been the right choice? Or the wrong one? Regardless of what was right or wrong then, which choice would serve her best now?
A wave of vertigo seized her, forcing her to stagger her feet. But it helped her remember the soil that stood beneath her, acting as a source of stability. It reminded her of other things too. Of the air surrounding her, filling her lungs. Of the fire that was her fury. The water that was blood. The elements. Her magic.
The last thing she wanted at a time like this was to slow down and turn inward. Not when she was feeling so frantic.
But, as Salinda always said, magic was strengthened by challenge, and the simplest challenge of all was doing what felt the hardest in any given moment. If there was ever a time for magic to prove stronger than weapons, it would be now.
Fighting through her more predominant instincts, she closed her eyes and focused on her breath. She detached her emotional bond from the unicorn to focus instead on the feel of a soft wind dancing over her skin, the sensation of her hair prickling at the back of her neck. She noted the way the ground felt beneath her feet, firm and strong but with subtle give. A sense of calm went over her, telling her she’d tapped into her deepest Art. Extending her senses around her, she sought nearby feeling. At first, she felt only the unicorn and Teryn, but she brushed past them to clusters of energies beyond. She was struck by a cacophony of emotions belonging to several others—excitement, trepidation, desire, hunger. There was a darkness to these energies, a density that made her stomach turn. At least half a dozen hunters were closing in on Cora and Teryn. A spike of alarm threatened to break her composure, but she breathed it away.
Another horn sounded, and Teryn placed his palm on her back, angling her away from it. “Cora, we need to go.”
She put a hand on his forearm to still him. To tell him to stay. To do what, she still wasn’t sure.
Hide.
The feeling originated deep in her gut, firm and calm and certain. Opening her eyes, she saw a wide tree straight ahead, its boughs low and dense. It wouldn’t hide them, not if the hunters drew close enough, but she was going to try.
She met Teryn’s puzzled expression. “You’re going to have to trust me,” she said.
“How so?”
She tugged him toward the tree, following the internal pull she felt with every fiber of her being. The baby unicorn struggled in her grasp, but she made a soothing noise at her. “You’re going to have to trust me too.”
The question was…could she trust herself?
She shook the doubt from her mind and hefted the unicorn closer to Teryn. “Help me hold her.”
“What are we doing?” Teryn’s whisper was laced with terror, but he helped her hold the unicorn between them.
With a deep breath, she said. “Close your eyes. Whatever you do, don’t say a word. Don’t move, no matter what you hear. Put…” She swallowed hard. “Put your free arm around me and don’t let go until I tell you to.”
His eyes searched hers, his face pale. “I don’t understand.”
Another horn blast.
The hunters would find them in a matter of seconds.
She held his gaze, trying to convey everything she was feeling. The urgency. The hope. The gut sensation that told herthis—no matter how absurd it seemed—was what they had to do.
Finally, he stepped closer, the baby unicorn the only thing that separated their chests. He closed his eyes and hooked his free arm around her waist.
Her eyelids closed next, and she reached out for the trunk of the tree. Her palm met rough bark, thrummed with the pulse of its life force, of the elements surging through its roots, its branches, its leaves. She drew her attention to her feet, to the firmness of the ground below, and felt another thrum. The tree’s roots extended deep underground, merging with the soil, the water that fed them, the air and sunlight that helped them grow strong. Cora pressed harder against the tree, imagined she was no different. She too was nourished by the same elements. They fed her body the same way they fed her Art. She was no different from the tree, her skin so like bark she might as well be a sapling. A steady energy began to pulse through her, stilling her mind. She was aware of two distinct energies pressed close to her and extended this same feeling outward.
They were one and the same.
She, the tree, the boy, the fae.
The heartbeat of the tree was her own. Hers was the unicorn’s. The unicorn’s was the boy’s. The boy’s was hers. She could almost hear it pounding through her, vibrating up the hand that held her waist, echoing the beat in her chest. When she breathed, he did too. When they breathed, so too did the unicorn, the tree, the soil, the sky. Everything breathed.
