Tascius nodded in agreement. “To Hekla Fell, then.”
Azazel cast a sleeping spell over Vyra before we left, ensuring she’d slumber through the rest of the day and the night after. He kissed her forehead and shut her door, and we descended to the ground below.
“Melisande’s horse is a little too small for you, Nephilim,” Azazel said, looking over Tascius. “We need something a little… larger.”
“Are there horses in the Fields?” I asked, ducking around a shade with a mouth full of asphodel.
“There are if you know where to look.” He smiled thinly, then placed a finger in his mouth and whistled.
Instead of the sound being swallowed by the swirling fog, the piercing note seemed to grow, splintering into a chorus of sound that swept away across the Fields. I waited with bated breath, clutching Tascius with one hand and Lucifer with the other.
Several of the roaming shades looked up and wandered away, the grass hissing from their retreat. I strained my ears, and under the swish of grass, a sound that seemed like a quiet heartbeat began to pick up its pace.
It grew louder and louder as the whistle died away. A dark shape burst through the mist, trampling the grass underfoot.
My mouth fell open at the sight of the dark horse. It was dark as night, with tiny purple asphodel flowers braided in its mane, and dwarfed Capheira even from a distance.
Its hooves were dense iron, as well as the spiraling horn protruding from its forehead.
“You want me to ride a unicorn.” Tascius’s voice was emotionless.
The unicorn slowed to a trot, then a walk as it approached Azazel. He reached out and touched the velvety dark nose. “He’s a very nice unicorn.”
“Oh, come on friend, how many people get to say they rode a unicorn?” I tugged his sleeve, grinning up at him.
Tascius rolled his eyes upwards, then stepped forward. I pressed a spare sugar lump in his hand. “Here, give him this.”
The unicorn watched him approach with dark, unfathomable eyes. I held my breath, wondering if my poor Nephilim was about to get himself gored with that pointed iron spiral, but Tascius held out the sugar. “You do look like a very nice unicorn,” he muttered.
It accepted the offering, licking his palm for more.
The unicorn didn’t stir as Tascius swung himself up on its back, a graceful-looking feat for a man so large, but I could’ve sat cross-legged on the creature’s back with room to spare. With his silvery hair and carved features, he almost looked like a prince from a fairy tale.
“Where’d you make friends with a unicorn?” I asked Azazel, who stepped back from the horse. “Does he have a name?”
“He’s always lived here, and no. He just… is.”
“Do you think the old tales are true, that unicorns only approach virgins…?” I wondered aloud, and Azazel growled.
“No more questions,” the Watcher said briskly.
“One would think you’d encourage a healthy curiosity in your students-”
“Not today, I don’t.”
I raised an eyebrow at Lucifer as Tascius nudged the unicorn into a trot, picking his way down the sloping fields.
“I’m pretty sure he’s not,” Lucifer whispered with a conspiratorial smile. “But I could always be wrong.”
Azazel gave us a scathing look and dissolved into mist, following the unicorn overhead.
Lucifer and I took flight, dancing around each other as we followed the unicorn to the edge of the fields, where the soil gave way to black sand. The dunes were smaller, flowing more gently than those in the Starsea, and I raised a hand to shield my eyes as I peered in the distance.
The rim of the crater I’d made when I’d fallen was just visible. The shards of my broken halo were probably buried somewhere under all that sand.
We rounded Dis, careful to keep a distance from the city as we headed towards the mountains in the distance. They rose in jagged spires and pillars, painting the rim of the sky like a set of teeth.
Tascius’s unicorn trotted lightly over the sand like it was as solid as the ground of the Fields of Asphodel, and I occasionally swooped down low to fly alongside him, reaching out to touch his hand.
Despite the fact that he was riding a unicorn, he gave me a smile every time, his fingers tickling my palm when we touched.
But when we were flying, and he looked up, there were flickers of loss in his face, pain at knowing what he was missing out on.
It took two hours to reach the edge of the wasteland, where the first spikes of jagged, glassy stone rose out of the sand. My back muscles were burning from the strain of flight on such still air, and a fine layer of sweat coated my forehead.
I spiraled down to the smooth rock and landed, my wings gratefully pulling in against my back.
“The way to Hekla Fell is through here.” Azazel re-materialized, looking up at the crags dispassionately. “We’ll go on foot from here on out. There is a tunnel we’ll need to pass through.”
Tascius patted his unicorn’s neck and dismounted, and I gave him another bit of sugar to pass over. Thank god for Belial and the little sack of horse-treats he’d given me. The unicorn preened under Tascius’s touch, even though I knew very well that he wasn’t a virgin by any means.
Lucifer, to my annoyance, looked as cool as if the flight to the edge of the wastes had been nothing but a walk in the park. He gripped my hand, pulling me up to the edge of a trail worn in the stones.
“There will be an answer here.” His silver eyes flashed as he looked up at the mountains. “I know it.”
“If there’s not, we always have the back-up plan,” I reminded him.
He glanced down at me, his brow furrowed. “You’re not touching the Sword of
