Thankfully, Hekla just had a small knot on her temple. It could’ve been so much worse.
Lucus waved off Hekla’s praise, but I touched his arm and whispered a thank-you. The place where our skin met tingled, and I longed to fold myself into his arms.
“We should get Hekla to the list quickly,” Lucus said. “She’ll need a moment to greet the animal.”
We set off, letting the crowd help us along.
“What do you mean greet?” I asked.
“Unicorns are intelligent creatures who are drawn to auras much like us,” Lucus said. “Hekla’s mount will want to scent her aura, to be clear on the rider’s persona.”
I wanted to ask more questions, but the path through this area of the woods was tight and packed with flying and walking fae. They bumped against me now and then, each touch sending a frisson of fear through me. Their glowing eyes and veins grew more obvious as the canopy blocked out the late afternoon sun.
The crowd separated us from the Binder and Nora as the unseelie group spilled into a long clearing stripped of its oaks and beeches. Tinted by the setting sun, citrine clouds floated above a low wall of stacked stone. Held by unseelie trainers dressed in solid black, two massive obsidian unicorns stamped the ground at either ends of the wall. The animals’ horns glowed in a way similar to the unseelie fae’s eyes in the dark. Their black manes floated around their sinuous necks like they were underwater. It was as if they inhabited this world and another dimension, too, like ghosts.
I squinted as we got closer. “Is their fur kind of glowing too?” The ends of each black strand looked luminescent and cast a haze of ruby light.
A fae at the far end was allowing two others to tie her wings down with twine while the trainer held her unicorn.
Hekla stared. “Horses don’t have fur. It’s hair.”
“See?” I shook her, forcing a brightness into my voice. “You’re an expert. You can do this. No problem.”
Each unicorn wore a tasseled saddle of red, blue, and black and had matching reins and bridle. The unseelie holding Hekla’s mount had long fingers that tapered to become jagged twigs, and he wore his tangled hair in a knot on top of his head like a bad man bun. He looked Hekla up and down, adjusted the stirrups, then held out a hand to help her up.
“Wait.” Lucus glared at the fae holding the beast. “She wants to greet him.”
The unseelie smirked. They’d thought Hekla wouldn’t know about this little step, hmm? Assholes. All this smirking was making me feel very stabby.
Lucus stepped back as Hekla walked to the unicorn’s head.
She held out a palm dusted in crumbs. “I’m Hekla, and these are scone crumbs. There are more if you help me live through this.”
The unseelie holding the reins snorted. “He won’t eat that. Try offering a finger.”
The unicorn rose up on its hind legs, and I reached to pull Hekla back. But she avoided my grasp and stood her ground, her gaze on the unicorn and her hand outstretched. Nostrils flaring, the animal dropped onto all fours. He sniffed the air around Hekla’s head. Her hair shifted as he snuffled. Her feet looked so tiny next to the unicorn’s hooves. The thing’s horn was easily as long as one of her legs. This creature was going to haunt my nightmares for sure.
Going still, the unicorn locked its gaze on Hekla.
It took everything in me to keep from dragging her away from the beast.
“Steady,” Lucus whispered.
The unicorn had a smell, and it wasn’t the cozy scent of horse. It was more like something sweet and musky, like a rotting rose.
With a blast of air from its nostrils, the unicorn relaxed and lowered its lips to Hekla’s palm. She yelped and jumped backward.
“The damn thing bit me!” She pressed her palm against her shirt.
The unseelie laughed, grabbed Hekla, and tugged a breastplate armor shirt-thing over her head. It looked like it was made of bark and maybe like walnut shells. He swung her onto the unicorn. “That means he approves of you,” the unseelie said. “If he didn’t, you’d have lost an arm.”
And before we could say another word to her, before I could complain that walnut shells were a crap attempt at armor, Arleigh was addressing the crowd from a tangle of oak branches high in the tree line. “Welcome to the joust! Today our fine fae knight, Aella, faces our human guest. Lances at the ready!”
From the other end of the list, Aella smiled and lifted a hand in some sort of salute aimed at Hekla. The female had the vibe of a killer zombie linebacker but the body and face of an archangel.
Hekla’s trainer thrust a lance made of a length of sharpened wood into her hand. Hekla lowered her gaze at Aella, took the reins with her free hand, and tightened her legs around the animal’s girth.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Ride!” Arleigh shouted.
The unicorns took off, thundering hooves throwing earth and horns blazing a bright red. I could only see Hekla’s back from where I stood next to Lucus.
I cupped my hands around my mouth and shrieked, “You rock, Hekla!”
My encouragement was lost in the cacophony of shouting from the unseelie, and surprisingly, Nora, who was jumping up and down beside the Binder. I could only glance her way, though, because Hekla’s unicorn was about to pass the fae’s twin beast. Hekla lowered her lance and aimed. Honestly, Aella’s lance bounced around a lot more than Hekla’s.
As they passed, the unicorns jerked their heads across the low stone wall. Hekla’s unicorn dragged its horn along the other creature’s neck, drawing a line of shimmering blood. The unseelie roared in anger, her lance missing Hekla just as Hekla’s missed the fae’s. Both animals screeched like barn owls before galloping on to the end of the list. Hekla’s leg moved
