I’m so stunned I lower my weapon. My heart aches at their midnight blue shade. It’s as if they’re here to mock me, blooming even in the winter.
These are the roses so often symbolically used during the vows made with a Dark Companion. And here they are, whole bushes of them despite the snow. It melts on them, so they look as if they’re weeping, and I absentmindedly move in their direction, drawn to the dream they represent. One in which I close my fingers around the thorns, and Nate puts his over my hand as we make the promise that binds us for eternity.
Nate belongs with me, and if he learned anything from the story of this place, he should see it like I do. But I can’t voice that thought. He’s been through so much because of me that if he chooses the illusion of safety over happiness, I have no right to interfere, no matter how much it hurts.
“Amazing,” he rasps, crossing the former ballroom and emerging in the garden. The plinth of a statue still stands at its center, but whatever it used to uphold is long gone.
I follow and pick a rose off the bush on the way. How are they surviving here in the cold?
“Tristan,” Nate whispers, and I’m instantly on edge, looking around for dangers.
And then I see it stepping from behind the bushes, cocking its head at us curiously.
The unicorn.
Its coat has an inner glow that illuminates the garden, and its bright, long horn shimmers in the moonlight. It’s smaller than a horse, lithe, with elongated legs and a luscious mane shimmering with sparkling particles I don’t have a name for.
It might just be the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.
Chapter 34
Nate
I’ve seen so many fantastical things since Tristan invited me to the Nightmare Realm, but deep down I kept thinking our chase after the unicorn was based in vain hope. Really? There was only ever one such creature in existence, and one could predict its movement based on the position of stars?
Impossible.
And yet it stands in front of me, just like I imagined it when I was a little boy convinced such animals really lived in the far reaches of the world.
I remember being so deeply upset when my aunt popped that happy bubble that I refused to speak to her all weekend. But unicorns do exist. They have feathered hooves, eyes like sapphires, and theyglowin the moonlight.
I want to greet it, touch it, but I pull back my hand as soon as I stretch it out, because the last thing I want is to spook this wonderful being made of starshine.
“It’s real… it really exists,” I whisper, slowly sinking into a crouch with my hands covering the lower half of my face.
But it doesn’t show any fear at all and shakes its head, scattering a flurry of sparkling dust.
“It’s here, like Nightscribe predicted,” Tristan whispers. I worry about the sword he squeezes in his hand, but unless the unicorn turns out to be a feral beast out for our blood, Tristan wouldn’t hurt it.
The animal—though it’s hard to call it that when it’s supposedly sentient—approaches, its curious eyes focused on me. My heart is beating so fast it feels as if it's about to bounce out of my chest and join the stars in the sky. I’m afraid to move, but I kneel in the snow and reach toward the soft muzzle, because I can’t resist the pull of this mythical being, no matter how much I worry I’ll scare it off.
My heart beats faster. My temples pulse, and there I am, about to reach beyond my understanding.
Is this what the first person on the moon felt once they finally got to take that first step off the lander? Is this the elation of discovering an ancient ruin with walls covered in pictures of a life no one remembers?
Under the endless sky I, Nate Kekoa, might just be the first human to see a unicorn in hundreds of years. But it doesn’t matter if I’m the first, or the second, or the tenth, because this moment is mine, and so is the elation in my heart.
When I mindlessly extend my fingers to the horn, Tristan pulls on my shoulder.
“It’s sharp,” he reminds me, and I wake up from my stupor.
Right. It’s sharp. So sharp that it can cut through a bloodline, or a promise written in the stars, or one's destiny. Or a shadow bond.
I swallow, looking up into the unicorn’s eyes, and I clear my throat. It’s unafraid, seemingly as curious about me as I am of it.
“I… I have a request.” Oh God. It sounds so clunky. And now I also realize I came to ask for a favor yet have no gift or offering or reward.
The unicorn gently drags its hoof over the snow as if in encouragement. It understands me. I swear it does.
