We stumbled out into the courtyard, gasping for breath. Behind us, the shadow-wolves poured down the staircase like living nightmares, their howls raising the hair on the back of my neck.
“The doors!” I cried, turning to push them closed.
Together we heaved against the massive oak, our combined strength barely enough to move them. The wolves were halfway across the hall now, gaining with each heartbeat. The doors groaned, shifting slowly under our desperate efforts. Three more feet. Two. One.
They slammed shut just as the first wolf launched itself at the gap. A sickening thud, then silence from the other side. Had they given up? Or were they seeking another exit?
“The bar,” Alain panted, pointing to a massive beam leaning against the wall beside the doors. Together, we lifted it into place across the doors’ center, slotting it into iron brackets on either side. It wouldn’t hold them forever, but it might buy us time.
I turned, taking in the courtyard with new eyes. The stone walls were crumbling in more places, covered in the same creeping darkness that infected everything. And beyond them behind the castle, visible now, lay the sacred acre—or what remained of it. It was no longer hidden, the magic failing.
From out here, the devastation was even more apparent. What had once been a lush paradise was now a patchwork of decay, healthy sections shrinking like islands in a rising black sea. Theanimals I’d seen earlier were nowhere in sight, either fled or claimed entirely by the corruption.
“It’s worse than I thought,” I whispered, horror making my voice thin. “If the wolves got in, the sacred acre is failing...”
“We have only one horse,” Alain said, his practical mind already on our escape instead of my spiral. “Mine may have returned to the stables, but I can’t be certain.”
I shook my head, a desperate plan forming. “We don’t need your horse for two. I have something, something I hope the corruption hasn’t touched yet.”
“What are you talking about?”
Instead of answering, I stepped away from the doors, moving to the center of the courtyard. The claiming mark on my shoulder pulsed with each heartbeat as I closed my eyes, reaching out with senses that went beyond sight or hearing. I’d done this before, called to the magical creatures of the sacred acre. Last time, the gryphon had answered. This time, I prayed for a different response.
“A unicorn,” I whispered, remembering the Dark Lord’s words about them and how they only let their rider touch them, and this one had in the grove near the waterfall. Many books spoke on how they couldn’t be corrupted, how they remained pure even as darkness spread around them. “Please, if you’re still there, if you can hear me...”
For a moment, nothing happened. The courtyard remained still except for the distant rattling of the doors as wolves threw themselves against the other side. Alain watched me with a mixture of concern and confusion, clearly wondering if I’d lost my mind.
Then a soft whinny drifted across the courtyard.
From behind a crumbling wall stepped the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. Pure white, its coat glowing with an inner light that pushed back the shadows around it. Delicatelegs carried a perfectly proportioned body, and from its forehead spiraled a single horn that caught the morning light and refracted it like a prism. A unicorn, untouched by the corruption, its eyes wise and ancient as they fixed on me.
Alain made a strangled sound beside me, his composure finally cracking in the face of such impossible beauty. “That’s—that can’t be—”
“A unicorn,” I confirmed, taking a step toward the creature. It didn’t flee, watching me with calm assessment. “The darkness can’t touch them. They’re immune to the corruption from how pure their light is.”
The unicorn approached, each step deliberate, its gaze never leaving mine. When it reached me, it lowered its magnificent head, nudging my hand with its velvety muzzle.
“I need your help,” I told it, stroking its neck with trembling fingers. “My beasts are trapped by a curse. I need to free them, to stop the corruption before it claims everything.”
Behind us, a splintering crack told us the wolves were making progress against the barred doors.
The unicorn seemed to understand the urgency. It bent its front legs, lowering itself in clear invitation for me to mount. I turned to Alain, who stood frozen, his eyes wide with wonder.
“Get the mare,” I said, already swinging myself onto the unicorn’s back. Its body was warm beneath me, radiating the same pure energy that made its coat glow. “We’re leaving.”
“Where?” Alain asked, still staring as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“To find the witch who cast the curse.” His stable horse came then as if knowing she was needed. Alain didn’t hesitate getting on her. Once he sat on her perch, and I nodded like the answer had been easy all along. “We’re going to hunt her down and end this, once and for all.”
“We’re hunting the hunter, as we’re being hunted,” I said as the unicorn sprang forward. Alain’s mare knew to follow and did just as the raven’s caw greeted me from above, ready to guide me. “And this time, we won’t be the prey.”
fifty-five
Marcel
Sleep never came easy in this place. Not real sleep. Just moments of unconsciousness that felt like drowning in tar, where nightmares and memories twisted together until I couldn’t tell what was real. I jerked awake, my claws digging into the obsidian beneath me, the sharp edges cutting into paw pads that never fully healed.
The claiming mark burned on my shoulder to mirror where my bite rested on Isabeau. Not painful, but urgent. Isabeauwas close. Closer than she’d been in weeks. The realization jolted through me like lightning, chasing away the last dregs of whatever passed for rest in this hellscape.
