Chapter 1
The evening sunlight appeared lilac, beaming through the heavy, groaning boughs of the ancient forest. I moved with the ease of a moonlit specter, casting no shadow on the plush undergrowth. The same woods, the same trees, the same sunlight I’d watched for ages—decades, or centuries perhaps, though how was I to know? Time meant nothing to a creature of magic, a creature of falling snow and ceaseless wonders.
Careless butterflies darted through the flowers. Leaves, disturbed by the breeze, fluttered over acres of lush, rolling hills. Birds swooped in fantastical arcs, squirrels chittered and played in the towering branches. Another perfect day almost gone as every day before it.
Rapid hoofbeats echoed in the distance, sparking an unnatural alarm within the forest, and by extension, me. Unicorn hooves made no sound, and there had been no others in my woods for ages yet. These were strangers or potential intruders. Guided by preternatural senses, I galloped through the forest in pursuit of the strangers.
An oppressive dusk settled over the woods, shrouding the eve in a darkness bearing an omen. The song of night birds and crickets went silent and the whistling wind in the eaves was a blatant portent, sending dread prickling over my hide.
From atop a shadowed hill, hidden by the low-hanging branches of a welcoming oak, I spotted two figures trotting through the woods. The sounds of hooves carried to my vantage point. Chestnut horses, bearing riders.
Men.
Retreating fingers of sunlight glinted off them, highlighting the shiny armor adorning their frames. Worse than men; soldiers. Humans, as an unspoken law, never entered my forest. The sight of them increased the pace of my heart, pounding away in my chest.
Voices. It had been so long since I’d heard voices spoken aloud. It took me several moments to remember their words, their strange languages. The soldiers continued yapping away, and I followed along from the safety of the high ground. One man appeared older, gray with age, and wrinkled by time. The other, young and smooth, lacked even a single hair on his chin.
“…the feel of these woods unsettles me,” the younger said.
The older soldier laughed, a loud, boisterous sound like the barking of a dog. “Magic seeps into everything in a unicorn’s forest, lad. You must not have the stomach for it.”
The young lad scoffed. “Unicorn’s forest? You’re daft, old man. This is a plain old forest and nothing more.”
“We wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t one.”
“He’s gotten them all by now, hasn’t he? This feels like a fool’s errand.”
The older soldier’s expression grew somber as he looked around. His bushy beard twitched with his frown.
“The nearest village has rumored that leaves in these woods never fall to autumn and it never welcomes snow. It is forever spring here, and the villagers dare not enter.” The old man sighed, weary yet resolved. “I daresay there is one unicorn remaining in the world, and she’s in these woods.”
“And if she is?”
“The king will find her, and when he does, he will claim the last unicorn.”
My legs rooted me in place, seized by my dismay at that statement. The soldiers continued, urging their mounts deeper into the arms of a night darkened forest. Their absence left me with a frigid horror sweeping through my veins.
‘The last? I cannot be the only unicorn there is.’
An owl cried as it soared over the peaks of long-lived trees. The sharp screeching call carried a warning, followed by the veil of night descending over the mountains and valleys of my home. The bird was a harbinger of something worse than soldiers steadily nearing the edge of my forest. Something harboring malicious desires and cruel intentions, prowling after the scent of wondrous magic.
I turned my head in that direction, and though weighed down by uncertainty, I saw clearly a vision—a prophecy of a red river bleeding into my forest and poisoning everything within. What force existed in the world with the power to pollute a forest steeped in centuries of magic?
‘How could I be the last?’ I wondered, shaking that vision from my head. ‘Those men know nothing but their own search for greatness and fame. Just because they have not seen a unicorn does not mean we are gone. Unicorns have stood since the beginning of time and live forever. We do not—cannot—simply vanish.’
Determined, I wandered through the starlight-kissed woods, traversing a path well-worn. I passed a familiar bubbling brook that split off into a wide, coursing river. Undaunted by the words of foolish men, or visions of crimson stained corruption, I swept through my woods, my home, and found solace in my thoughts.
‘Though unicorns may be trapped or killed if we leave our forests. Otherwise, we have no natural predators to fear.’ Lifting my head from the gently flowing brook, I gazed out over a field of flowers glowing under the pale moonlight. ‘Nothing would dare hunt a unicorn. Therefore, I cannot be the last.’
Horizons brightened and darkened. The moon changed again and again, and the winds whistled their usual tune as days, maybe months, passed. No more men crossed through my woods. A mild relief when, each time I glanced to the west, visions of a red poison crashed beneath the shadows.
‘Man cannot see unicorns,’ I comforted myself. ‘There must be others. They simply wouldn’t know.’
And the moon changed again, forever chased by the sun, whether waxing or waning. On a night like any other, when the moon was full in the sky, pregnant with silver light, another disturbance breached the forest. An abnormal force of magic infringed on the protective barrier of my woods. It crept in, slithering like a snake in a garden.
I drifted toward the fracture, half expecting to find more soldiers with mouths of new lies. That edge of the forest bordered a land of men, a village of mortals who knew better than to transgress magical woods. There were no soldiers, young or old, no red haze come to life. Instead, I found a moth. A black moth larger than any I’d seen before. Emblazoned on her back, spread across her fluttering wings, a skull.
“Where were you?” the moth cried in a woman’s voice.
Startled, I shifted away from the creature.
The moth swooped in the air and flared her wings. Lightning cracked across the sky and her body erupted into clouds of smoke. A whinny escaped me, and my tail swished as the inky smoke twirled upward into the shape of a woman garbed in form-fitting robes.
“Gods-damn you!” She cried again. “Where were you, unicorn?”
Her jade green eyes glinting with magic were wet with unshed tears. The cloak of her elaborate robes covered her head until she yanked it away, revealing short cropped black hair and an ageless face. In the moonlight, her agonized features shifted, one moment carved deep with wrinkles and the next smooth and unblemished. A witch.
“When the young women of the world, women like me with real magic, needed you, where were you?” She collapsed to her knees, and a sob ripped from her throat.
‘I am here now.’ Drawn to her, compelled by her tears, I halted, patiently waiting.
“It is my luck that I would find the last. And now it is too late,” she said, looking up at me. “It’s too late for the unicorns.”
‘What do you know of unicorns, witch?’ My thoughts stalled. ‘Have you seen others of my kind? Do you know where the unicorns are?’
“You don’t know?” The witch swiped at her cheeks, stumbling to her feet. “There are no more unicorns. They have been hunted to the edge of the world.”
‘No.’ I drew back, shaking my head. My horn shone with silvery light from within. ‘It is not possible. You lie, witch.’
“I would not lie to you, not when I have waited my whole life to find you.” She pressed her hands, wrinkled one second and spotless the next, to her chest. “I am afraid that the red haze is coming for you.”
She spoke of the thing returning to my dreams—the witch knew of the red haze searching for my woods. The dreams were true visions, after all.
‘Who are you, witch? Who knows of the red haze or the fate of unicorns?’
“I am the High Witch Fortunia, and I have searched for unicorns for a hundred years.” She dazzled me with a show of her magic; sparks shot into the air from her fingers, the ground rumbled, and the wind rushed.
I nickered and shimmied a few paces back. ‘How do I know you are not hunting my kind, Fortunia?’
“I would never, blessed unicorn.” Even as her magic stilled, the wind continued howling, shaking the boughs together. She glanced over her shoulder, sensing the same shift in the air. The brittle tension carried a portent of doom. “Listen to me, listen please, you are in danger, unicorn.”
‘There is no danger to me here. Not in these woods.’
“He is coming, the wizard with the magic eye, and he will find you,” Fortunia said.
‘What wizard?’ Those men moons ago spoke of a king. ‘What portent have you come to bear?’
Fortunia opened her mouth to speak, but a ruby glow from above cut her off. The witch and I glanced up. Her breath caught and a frenzied whiny breached me as I watched in horror as the silver light of the moon wept red. A crimson ring haloed the once silver orb, casting a bloodied glow on my forest.
A tidal wave of horror dawned on me. There was no more denial in the face of my visions erupting in the sky.
“It is too late; he is coming for you!” she warned.
‘Who? Who is this wizard?’ I urged. ‘What has become of the unicorns?’
“The wizard, Blaise Roan. He’s spent decades hunting and collecting magical creatures such as yourself!” The ground shook again, rumbling and quaking all around us. Not from her magic or mine. “The wizard seized power across several kingdoms, labeling himself as the Crimson King. He is to blame. He has chased the unicorns to the cusp of extinction, and now he is coming for you!”
All around us, the nature of the forest reacted to the encroaching disturbance. A wave of red assaulted the edge of the woods, a barrage of dark magic cascading over everything it touched. Miles away still, yet I heard the clamber of thousands of horses, the rattle of armor, and blades singing for blood as their wielders pulled them from their sheathes. At the head of the horde, I sensed him—I felt the magnitude of the darkness enveloping the wizard who hunted creatures of magic.
He stood at the forefront. I knew without seeing him; I sensed his motivations, the sticky sludge of his wants aimed in my direction. The madness clinging to his mind and the venom of his magic reached far and wide. He was the king those men spoke of. The red haze in my visions. He was a few harrowing seconds from infiltrating my forest, from violating my home.
I wished for the wind to carry me away, to take me back to a time ages ago when men were still living in caves and beating each other with clubs. I wished for the sun to shine down on the crimson moon and wash away the crippling fear in my bones. I knew no names for the mortal gods, yet in that moment I flung prayers into the heavens, hoping they caught something—anything.
Frightened, I reared up on my back, legs whinnying and neighing. My head thrashed and my horn glowed brighter. A silvery wave of glittering magic erupted out from me, rippling over the forest. The burst of magic rushed through the trees, over the grass, mingled with the wind. It clashed against the invaders at the edge of the forest, erecting a glittering shield.
A temporary additional protection, I knew. The wizard’s noxious magic brushed against the surface of my power, twisting my stomach into greasy knots. The soldiers lacked the ability to breach the newly erected barrier, but a wizard would manage it.
Fortunia looked at me, jaw dropping upon witnessing a unicorn’s magic. Her hair bled with gray before morphing back into a glassy black. Overhead, the blood moon cast flares of garnet, ruby, and crimson. The ruddy light over the woods warned of my fate despite the brief wall of magic.
The presence of doom I’d tried to ignore had come for me. Heart shattering, I realized that must be it—I truly was the last unicorn. Soon there would be none. Nothing more than a myth mothers told their daughters.
‘I am the last, and soon I will be no more,’ I lamented. ‘Run far away from here, Fortunia. Go!’ Though I wasn’t there for the poor witch as a girl, I could send her away from the mad wizard now.
“No, I won’t leave you!” She slapped her palms together and magic crackled in the thin air. “As a magic user, as someone who respects creatures such as yourself, it is my duty, nay my responsibility, to protect you! I will not let the Crimson King wipe out the unicorns. I cannot let him take you as his prize!”
‘If it is my fate to be taken, I will face it with my horn high.’ My front hoof pawed at the ground and a snort vented from my nose.
A thunderous crack rendered my recent barrier nonexistent. The wizard’s magical barrage ruptured it apart. His horde would be watching a filmy, iridescent wall pop like a glass bubble at that moment.
The crimson light radiated brighter, sending a wave of terror through me. A blast of heat and smoldering red fire crashed through my forest, turning the layers of my magic into cinders. My chest squeezed my lungs and my heart galloped faster as that magical, murderous fire descended.
“The Crimson King is coming!” Fortunia cried.
‘There is no escaping.’ I bounced on my hooves, head shaking as I backed away from the licking blood-red fire.
The high witch’s appearance drastically flickered from old to young as her emotions swelled. Her fear gripped her, sending her magic into a swirling frenzy that lifted her graying-black hair and whipped up the layers of her robes.
“The fire will drive you to him. It will force you toward the Crimson King!” She stepped between me and the towering wall of fire. “But he cannot take you if you are not a unicorn!”
My head shook faster as the heat licked at my hide. It wasn’t fair. I was the last and I would die not having known what he did with my kind. He would take me as his glamorous prize, and I wouldn’t know where my sisters were or what stories men would tell of magical creatures in the centuries to come.
High Witch Fortunia flung her arms into the air, flowy sleeves billowing as the wind picked up, thunder crashing overhead, and visible sparks of lightning crackled in the clearing. A wide plume of pitch-dark smoke swelled from behind her. Smaller bolts of magical light zapped and sizzled within.
“As above, so below, magic come to me and do as I will!” Her voice lifted, booming over the woods. The trees bowed, the flowers wilted, and her dark magic clouded the blood moon. Tendrils of fire assaulted her shadowy barricade, fiery magic hurling itself against her thunderous, black blockade.
My bones cracked, ripping a scream from my throat. Incandescent greenish light flared and wavered. Scalding heat flushed through my blood, melted into my straining muscles, and seeped into my marrow. Whatever dark magic Fortunia called upon cracked open my ribs and plunged into my heart with all the force and sharp pain of a dagger. Whispers of her power draped over the luminous essence of my being, the center of my magic, and caged it behind irrevocable bars of iron.
The darkness of her magic twisted inside of me, sickened me, tainted something vital within me.
An agony beyond mortal understanding ripped me to shreds and proceeded to build me back up. The pieces of me, reshaped and transformed, slotted together into something new. A creature never before seen by gods or man.
Fortunia dropped to her knees, eyes fluttering closed as she crumbled. Her shield of crackling black smoke withered away into wisps. The barrage of magical fire leapt over us, tickling our skin—searching, assessing as my heart stopped beating—then it soared away. Floating around us, away from us, exiting the clearing before fading from sight altogether.
My body collapsed into the ashen grass, with cinders staining my limbs. And I felt different, grotesquely wrong. I dropped my head, panting from the lingering pain in my muscles and joints. A pale hand rose in front of my face.
An abomination.
Hands, fingers, reached up and caressed my face—skin. I had skin. When I reached higher to the top of my face, my head I found no horn, no source of my power. It was gone, and my body—now a mortal thing of skin and flesh—it failed me, rotting away from within.
“What have you done to me?” A tortured cry, a wail full of centuries of misery, flew free from my human lips. Breathing fitfully, limbs quivering, I screamed, mourning who and what I was. “No, please no.”
“The Crimson King came for a unicorn. He cannot take what you are not.”
“What have you done to me?” I repeated, and a whimper followed. My hands, filthy with ash, pawed at my soft, vulnerable body. Nails dug in, scratching and clawing at the ill-fitted flesh and muscle. “I am a unicorn. A unicorn!”
“Only in this shape do you have some hope of escaping the Crimson King’s clutches.” Fortunia panted, quickly losing her energy after that exhausting display of magic.
“This body is mortal!” I shouted, hugging unfamiliar arms around myself. “This body is dying. I can feel it. You should have let the Crimson King have me, because now I will die, regardless! You—you have cursed me. I am cursed.”
“But you will survive. Only like this can you survive the red wizard.” Her eyes closed, hair fading from luscious black to brittle gray. Her shoulders slumped and her supple, youthful body shrunk, becoming shriveled and etched with folds and spots of age. “I have saved you. I have saved the last unicorn.”
“You shouldn’t have.” I ran a soothing hand over her face, and the single tear leaking from her eye coated my thumb.
“Now you must run. Flee this place, unicorn. Find the shadow who will embrace you. Only he can save you now.” Fortunia withered into ash in my arms. The High Witch ceased existing in the same rattling breath as the last unicorn ran from her forest.
