Summer of the Unicorn

by Kay Hooper

  Then Siri remembered.

  Prices.

  She slipped from his embrace carefully, gently, then sat on the edge of the bed and stared down at his sleeping face. The gray light was stark and critical, but it couldn’t alter the face of her lover. The strength and character and beauty of him would challenge and defy even the unloving light of honest dawn.

  The memory of their night of love held her spellbound for long moments, then she shook her head slightly, dispelling the mist. Not because her thoughts were unwelcome, but because such treasures were meant for the innermost heart and not the incredulous mind.

  No, she didn’t regret her choice. She regretted only that the choice had been demanded of her. And now the consequences had to be faced.

  Siri shied away from that. She didn’t want to face the Unicorns; for the first time in her life she dreaded the sight of their glossy white bodies as they greeted the morning out in the meadow.

  How long would she and Hunter have together?

  She wondered, as he had once wondered, what god or gods would demand such a thing of her. Were women on other worlds forced to cut short life for love? She didn’t know. She knew only that she could have made no other choice.

  She gazed at her man, and in that quiet moment of love and contemplation a thought dropped softly into her mind, appearing without her conscious volition from the well of knowledge.

  A Prince among his people.

  It explained so much, she thought. The cool, level eyes and commanding voice. The nobility of face and pride of manner. The obvious wealth needed to set out on a years-long Quest. Somewhere lay a kingdom Hunter had left on a Quest to save his people. And to gain a throne. A throne he would abandon for her? She didn’t know, couldn’t ask. But she knew now that his world needed more than the knowledge he would take to them. His world needed him, their prince. Would he return to them for good?

  Only time would tell.

  She wondered, vaguely, at the tangled threads of destiny. She, Keeper of the creatures he had sought; he, his lost history rooted in this world, this Earth, searching the galaxy for myth and finding it alive on the planet his ancestors had nearly destroyed ten thousand years ago.

  How much had been Fate—and how much had been their own free wills shaping destiny? Siri didn’t know. She knew only that it was time to face her own destiny.

  She left the bed and moved to the far corner of the cabin and the small cupboard cunningly hidden there. It was not a secret place, but rather more of a place for secret things. The clothing that had belonged to her father—retrieved long ago from The Reaper’s sea-cave—was folded neatly on a shelf; she made an absent mental note to alter whatever she could for Hunter’s use.

  And there was Hunter’s backpack, the one he had borne during his trip through The Reaper’s defenses. She had never opened it, had, in truth, forgotten all about it. As had Hunter, she realized now. Or perhaps he simply believed it destroyed in his fall. She made another mental note to give it back to him in case there was anything in it he wanted.

  She searched the shelves. She didn’t even know what she was looking for until she found it. Far back on a shelf, folded neatly, lay a tunic woven from the purest silk. It was long, starkly white, and possessed full, flowing sleeves. Special, the old Keeper had said, for special times.

  Could there be a more special time, a more important time, than this?

  Siri felt the cool smoothness of the silk and listened to it whisper as the material slid against her skin and molded her slender body. There was no superstition within her, merely an instinctive need to stand before the Unicorns clothed in the purity and joy of white. Though no longer physically innocent, she felt no shame in her love for Hunter, and she would not stand before her adored Unicorns in apology.

  There was another tunic, a close match to the one she wore, among her father’s things. It, too, was white, but it was decorated on the shoulders and sleeves with intricately woven colored threads. Her mother’s hands had fashioned it for her father. She held it up briefly, then closed the cupboard and carried it across to the bed. It would fit Hunter.

  She wouldn’t let herself think about what she would do if the Unicorns denied her even the most minimal trust.

  Still, there were no regrets. If that price were demanded of her for this time with Hunter, she would pay it willingly. She would make this time an eternity.

  With a last, lingering glance for the man sleeping peacefully, Siri squared her shoulders and went out into the dawn. She moved several yards from the cabin, unconscious of the faint chill of the air but very aware of the chill around her heart. She sent out a soft, trilling call for the Unicorns and waited quietly to know what her own choice had cost her.

  She stood, straight and proud, the white tunic glowing in the weak dawn light. And her love for Hunter kept the coldness around her heart at bay. Her eyes were deeply purple; the black eyes were reserved now for the warrior, and never again for the woman.

  When she heard the first soft thud of hooves, Siri focused her gaze on the ground before her. But then she realized what she was doing, and lifted her chin firmly. They would accept or deny her. It was their choice now.

  They came in a group, standing before her at last in a half circle. All were subdued, still strong in their grief for the lost Cloud. The two foals remained close to their mothers’ sides. No creature stepped forward to cross that invisible line separating them from Siri.

  She swallowed hard and fixed her gaze on Storm, the new Leader. Then, as Siri stared incredulously, dazed with delight, the stallion stepped forward to gently nuzzle her shoulder.

  Chapter 11

  Barely aware that she had stopped breathing, Siri stared into liquid dark eyes that were uncannily like Cloud’s because they held the ancient wisdom the old stallion had possessed. Dark liquid eyes, old and wise, and infinitely trusting. With a muffled cry, she threw her arms around Storm’s satiny white neck and held him tightly.

  “Siri?”

  She released Storm and turned quickly, seeing Hunter dressed in the tunic she had left for him. He looked both relieved and anxious; clearly, it had disturbed him to wake and find her gone. Even more clearly, he was disturbed by the tears flowing, unheeded by her, down her cheeks.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked quickly.

  “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong!” Siri could have shouted aloud in joy, and laughed. “Hunter, they still trust me!”

  “Did you think they wouldn’t?” he asked uncertainly, puzzled.

  She smiled at him, reaching up to touch his cheek as he came to her. “It was a part of your people’s knowledge lost to you, and I couldn’t speak of it. Hunter, only a maiden can guard and protect the Unicorns. Only a maiden can be Keeper. Physical innocence forms the bond of trust.”

  He caught his breath suddenly, and his eyes were vivid. “You mean you thought that because we became lovers…” Then he glanced past her at the quietly watching herd.

  Siri was nodding, clearly incredulous. “I can’t understand it. There are only two immutable laws governing Keepers, and that’s one of them.”

  Hunter, still struggling with what had happened, didn’t ask what the second law was.

  The Leader decides.

  Startled, both Hunter and Siri swung around to stare at Storm.

  “I—I heard—” Hunter broke off to stare at Siri.

  “You heard his thoughts?” She gazed at him questioningly.

  Hunter nodded. “As if he spoke aloud.”

  She looked at the new Leader of the Unicorns, asking a silent, puzzled question, knowing that Storm would answer now as Cloud had answered in the past.

  And Storm, the weight of new responsibilities lending him maturity and dispelling his arrogance, took another step toward them and answered. And Hunter heard the answer as clearly as Siri did.

  The Leader decides. It has always been the destiny of Keepers that they never know the love of a man. This was decided long ago by the Guardians. I
n order that the Keeper be most effective, her heart must not be divided. She is apart from other women, out of reach of man.

  But unbreakable laws await only those strong enough to break them. Love forms the bond; how, then, could love be its destruction? Always, the Leader watched and waited. In ten thousand years, the Leaders watched and waited in vain; the Keepers loved only their charges and scorned men. But Cloud knew that it was intended in his lifetime for one Keeper to know the loving touch of a man.

  “He knew?” Siri whispered aloud. “But why didn’t he tell me? Why was I forced to make the choice?”

  Hunter looked at her for a moment, then at Storm to await the Unicorn’s answer.

  He was forbidden to tell you. It was necessary that both you and the man struggle to find your love. Cloud waited until both choices had been made. He approved your union with his life.

  “All this was…meant?” Siri asked, stunned.

  You saw it yourself in the cards, Keeper. You knew the man would be your lover. And we knew of the man before he came. Knew of his Quest. It was foretold long ago that a Prince would bond a Keeper to his side and his heart.

  Hunter started slightly and glanced at Siri, but if she had noticed Storm’s mention of a prince it didn’t seem to surprise her. Instead, she asked another question.

  “How is it that Hunter can hear your thoughts now?”

  No man has touched the heart of a Keeper in ten thousand years. Storm’s thoughts were curiously gentle. It is a magic thing. And though he did not come to you seeking power, or an enhancement of his own abilities, both are a gift from the Guardians.

  Siri looked at Hunter, her eyes shining. And even though she addressed the Unicorn, her gaze was all for the man. “Hunter will always be able to know your thoughts as I do? You trust him as you do me?”

  He has more than earned the trust of the Unicorns. And he has a home here always in this valley, if he wishes to remain.

  The sun had come out finally, bathing the valley in the warm radiance of waning Summer. No grayness now. No oppression.

  Neither of them noticed that the Unicorns had gone away quietly to graze in the meadow, leaving them to their privacy.

  Siri was smiling mistily up at Hunter. “Is that what you want?”

  “There’s nothing I want more.”

  “You’ll have to return your people’s knowledge to them.”

  “Yes.” They both knew that. “But I’ll come back.” He remembered that she had said she could never leave the valley, and his realization that he would never sit on the throne of Rubicon was distant. He would come back.

  Siri clearly followed his thoughts, and her eyes widened in wonder. “Abandon a throne for me?”

  “I love you.”

  Even in her awe, she realized there was something else, something he wanted to ask her. “What is it?”

  “When we became lovers,” he said slowly, “you believed the trust of the Unicorns lost to you. That was why you fought so long, why you said—you couldn’t change what you were.”

  “Yes,” she confirmed steadily.

  “Then you don’t love me less than you love them?” Painfully, he added, “Not a very worthy question, beloved, but an honest one.”

  “Hunter…Is that what you thought? That you meant less to me than the Unicorns?”

  “I can bear it,” he said quickly. “I knew you loved me as much as you could love a man. But that bond, that lifelong trust with the Unicorns—I knew I couldn’t equal that.”

  “I chose your love,” she said softly. “If the Unicorns had demanded another Keeper, there still would have been no regrets.”

  “But you would have lost them.”

  “I couldn’t lose you.”

  Awed, Hunter could only stare at her for a long moment. His mind worked sluggishly. “You…would have had to leave the valley?”

  Siri hesitated.

  She would have died.

  Turning her head to look toward the grazing Unicorns, Siri said, “Sometimes mind-touch can be irritating.”

  A Unicorn’s laughter touched their minds.

  But Hunter was too shocked to feel humor. “You would have died? That second immutable law you spoke of? You said you couldn’t leave this valley. You can’t live outside the valley?”

  She smiled slightly, seeking to reassure him. “I would have remained at least until next Summer in order to train a new Keeper. We would have had years together.”

  “But you would have died,” he said flatly, hoarsely.

  Siri stepped close, sliding her arms around his waist. “We all die, Hunter. But in choosing to risk losing those years, I gained them instead.”

  He held her tightly, shaken by how nearly he had come to losing her—even though that loss would be years in the future. “I couldn’t live without you,” he said unsteadily, adding in a fierce tone, “I’ll make damn certain you don’t leave the valley!”

  A point of interest, Storm mind-voiced idly. Unless Outcast, leaving the valley will not harm her.

  “I didn’t know that,” Siri said, surprised, and she felt a sudden rush of delight at the new possibilities before her. “Hunter—I can go with you! I can see your world.”

  He smiled down at her, more grateful than he could say that she could be with him. “I want to show you my world. And others—”

  As long as you return next Summer.

  Hunter glanced toward Storm, his brows lifting. “Is he going to keep jumping into private conversations like that?”

  Unicorn laughter.

  Siri felt a joyous laugh of her own bubbling up. “It looks that way, doesn’t it? He’s much less serious than Cloud was.”

  “Cloud,” Hunter murmured. “I’m so sorry about him. Does it make a difference, beloved? That he died for us?”

  Serious, she said, “There’s no taint, Hunter. No stain. Cloud did what he had to do.”

  The last of his burdens slipped from Hunter’s shoulders. “I was so afraid…”

  She smiled. “And now?”

  “And now I feel as if someone has given me the right to paradise.”

  You’re getting maudlin, Storm observed sternly. Want a ride?

  “My life’s ambition as a boy,” Hunter confided gravely, “was to ride a Unicorn.”

  Laughing, Siri gestured toward the two Unicorns who had left the herd and now paced gracefully toward them. “You get Storm, then. Hang on tight. He likes to jump.”

  “Jump what?”

  “Anything.”

  Weeks before, Hunter would have felt more than a little peculiar climbing up onto the back of a white creature he knew very well to be a thinking, reasoning being with racial memories older than his own. On this day, he gave the matter no more than a passing thought.

  Storm led the way at an effortless gallop, Hunter’s weight disturbing him not at all. Fancy followed, matching her mate in more than speed; his new maturity had sparked her own, and she was now a calmer, more dignified consort for the new Leader of the Unicorns.

  They raced the wind and won.

  Astonishing Siri as well as Hunter, it became obvious that the thoughts of all the Unicorns now touched them. And since the entire herd soon entered the game, it became wildly confusing—especially to the unschooled Hunter.

  I’ll carry you one day, Green-eyes.

  Hunter nearly fell off Storm. “Who was that?” he called in astonishment.

  Siri was laughing. “That was Rayne.”

  “But she’s just a baby!” he protested. “How can she seem so—so mature?”

  Racial memories, Rayne explained calmly.

  “Oh,” Hunter said somewhat blankly, then considered. “Little Joy, too?” he wondered, somewhere past astonishment.

  Hello.

  He tried to experiment. Hello, Joy.

  “You’re learning how to focus your thoughts,” Siri called approvingly. “I caught that.”

  “Self-defense,” he explained dryly, but with a feeling of elation.

 
; Shall we go over there?

  We’ll follow the path.

  “Siri?”

  “Fancy and Storm.”

  “Ah.”

  Don’t eat that, darling.

  “Who?”

  “Teen talking to Joy.”

  “I thought she claimed racial memories—no, that was Rayne, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. Anyway, racial memories don’t always tell them what they can eat.”

  “I see. And the endearment?”

  “Is that a question?” Siri wondered innocently.

  Hunter sighed. “Not really. Am I correct in assuming Unicorns call each other darling on the slightest provocation?”

  Only when we want to.

  “Storm?” Hunter guessed cautiously.

  Right, Green-eyes.

  Siri was laughing again. “It seems they’ve found a name for you!”

  “What do they call you?” Hunter wondered.

  “Keeper,” Siri answered.

  Darling, Storm corrected placidly.

  Siri nearly fell off Fancy. “I didn’t know that!”

  Hunter chuckled. “I’m glad you don’t know everything, beloved. It’s very wearing on a man to think he’s the only one asking questions.”

  Tell him about the Well of Knowledge, they heard Storm mind-voice. He should understand that in addition to loving you.

  The two Unicorns slowed to a walk, moving side by side as they headed back toward the cabin and leaving their riders free to talk quietly.

  “Well of Knowledge?”

  Siri explained as best she could how knowledge was passed from Keeper to Keeper, augmented by the knowledge of Merpeople, Unicorns, and Guardians. She explained that answers to questions were found simply by asking her mind.

  And Hunter shook his head at the information. “That explains a great deal I found bewildering about you, beloved. You know so much about life outside this valley. It almost seemed believable that you were ten thousand years old!”

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to explain before—”

  “It was just that it never seemed strange to you,” he finished, answering her smile with one of his own.

  She liked your questions.