"Sulara is supposed to be the goddess of life and healing." I frown. "How could she allow unicorns to be poached?"
"Who says she allowed it?"
"Then how does her scepter have a unicorn's horn?"
"It truly is astonishing how little you know."
"And yet you're relying on me to help you." I don't bother hiding my irritation. "Strange, isn't it?"
"You say that as if I had a choice."
"You act as if I have any choices at all." My voice rises despite my efforts to control it. "As if I asked for any of this."
He exhales slowly and looks away. "Let's agree to stop reminding each other that neither of us chose this."
“Only if you agree to stop repeating how little I know about everything.”
“I don’t mean for you to take offense. It’s just surprising considering who raised you,” he argues.
“Just finish telling me about the scepters,” I mutter.
"The Creators made the scepters as punishment for their misbehaving children. They took a bone from each of them." His voice is flat, reciting facts he's known so long they've lost their horror. "A bone can regrow. It hurts, but it heals. So the Creators demanded something else as well. Something that couldn't grow back."
"Their familiars," I whisper.
He nods.
My stomach churns. Even if I weren't an animal healer, even if I hadn't spent my life caring for wounded creatures, this would horrify me. What kind of parent demands such a price from their children? What kind of god does that make them?
"Why would they do that?"
"The same reason they forced the gods to marry mortals." He shifts in his chair, and I catch another wince he tries to hide. "To ensure they never forgot how fragile life is. How easily it can be taken."
The words settle over me like a shroud.
"How did you learn about scepters in the first place?" he asks, steering the conversation away before I can dwell on it.
“Everyone knows about them. We have books with depictions and accounts of people finding them and beingcursed by them. They're a cautionary tale of sorts, which is probably why the Council allows those stories to remain unchanged. Where is the account about the scepter being brought here?" I ask, looking at the bookshelf.
“It’s an old legend.”
I stare at him. “You’re basing all of this on alegend?”
"It's a legend, not a fairytale."
"And that's supposed to make me feel better?"
"Legends should be taken seriously." His frown deepens. "More seriously than most things."
I laugh before I can stop myself, raising my hands when he glares. "I'm sorry. You just don't strike me as the type to chase old stories across kingdoms."
His expression shifts into something I can't quite read. "Someday, legends will be the only thing that remains of any of us. The only proof we ever existed at all."
I consider that. It's not like I expect my name to be remembered anywhere. "But legends change. They get twisted over time."
"Stories change," he says quietly. "Legends don't. Legends are only written once a story is over. The way they're told might shift, but the core remains. The truth of it endures."
"I don't see the difference," I admit. "History is told through stories, and those change constantly."
