White were the ones who were untainted and pure. Those untouched by the cruelty of life. His sister’s had been white for most of hers.
Purple horns belonged to their priests and counselors. Those who’d developed a deep intuition or spirituality. Yellow horns belonged to unicorns who were driven and creative. They were the risk-takers and artisans of all kinds. Green held the stronger magick abilities—the healers and wizards. Blue horns emerged for those with diplomatic traits. Those who didn’t like conflict and who were slow to anger. The ones best able to think through complicated matters. His general, Kronnel, was a blue horn.
Sometimes those blue horns would turn silver if the bearer developed a greater level of wisdom or showed exceptional leadership qualities, such as his father’s. Although, silver could also manifest from other colors, too. It just wasn’t as common for silver to manifest from another source, but it did happen.
Orange horns were natural teachers. They were the ones who encouraged others and helped whenever they could. Then the red which was the normal color for most adolescents and a large number of their soldiers. Many of the unicorns outgrew their red horns. But acts of violence or trauma could turn any color to red at any time.
Then, there was the exceedingly rare gold horns that only Renata had managed to attain. It came from possessing a pure heart that was willing to sacrifice oneself for another. The one thing about his sister that had driven him to utter madness.
Her innocence. Her inability to see danger. Or any kind of ulterior motives in someone else. He was always suspicious, but never her.
She would defend anyone. Even Keryna.
He’d envied his sister the luxury of her horn. Of being able to trust like that.
While his horn was technically one of protection, it came at a dire cost. It let other unicorns know that he had no restraint when it came to protecting those around him. He was capable of anything.
That was why a black horn was so feared.
There was only one other color that gave unicorns almost as much pause. A gray horn. Not because they were more powerful. Far from it.
Gray horns were the ones who were indecisive and unsure. Tricksters. Dubious, and usually troublemakers.
Keryna.
A dangerous thing to befriend a gold horn who would never believe they were capable of deceit because a gold horn would only see their insecurity and indecisiveness. Never their treachery.
You always see conspiracy, Dash. You have to stop that.
And he was still seeing it. He just couldn’t quite believe the elves were helping him because they wanted peace.
Horned or not, he intended to keep his eyes open and watch them closely.
Chapter 15
Tanis was impressed by Tova’s palace. Like her father’s, it was set into the mountainside for protection. But that was where the similarities ended. Blue and gold, it appeared more like a jewel box than a place where someone lived. Spires twisted upward, toward the sky. She half expected to see dragons circling it, yet it was more majestic than their homes.
The road up to it was narrow for defense and there were slits all along the mountain where archers could site victims or others could pour flaming oil on an invading army.
Smart.
Huge battle gryphons lined the drawbridge that led to an outer bailey where there were a group of homes she assumed were for the palace servants and their families.
The gryphons were a surprise for her as she hadn’t realized that they lived anywhere other than Indara. Because they had such a large population of gryphons and wyverns in their kingdom, she’d assumed that they were like dragons and didn’t intermingle with other species.
But they seemed happy in their guardian roles. “Are there many gryphons here?” she asked Dash.
“A fair amount. Why?”
“I just had no idea any lived here.”
“Don’t worry. They’re not prisoners. The elves use them in battle against us... or they used to. We have our own small population of them, too.”
“Do you?”
“We do, but ours are strictly civilian. Since we fly, we don’t need them in our military.”
That seemed odd to her, given that Indara was a neighboring kingdom with a large gryphon population. “Then why do they choose to live in Licordia?”
