The Unicorn Quest

by Kamilla Benko

  “The doctors … they’ve never seen it.” Sophie shivered. “I thought in Arden … I mean, there’s magic … I thought …” She began to cough, and Claire waited quietly, though each cough felt like a slap. When she finally stopped, Sophie whispered, “I’m sorry I lied, but I … didn’t want you … to worry.”

  Claire nodded, forgiving the lies.

  Sophie’s voice went in and out. “I was wrong. You didn’t need protection.” She smiled. “And I’m … so proud of you.”

  But even her sister’s words—the words Claire had wanted to hear from her for such a long time—could not extinguish the cold creeping through Claire’s body.

  Sophie gave a shaky laugh, then immediately winced. “I thought … I could awaken … the stone unicorn. I should know better … there are no such things as unicorns, are there? Not even here.”

  Claire glanced at where the ashes had been at the foot of the rock. Only traces were left. Even now, a suddenly icy wind was scattering them across the Sorrowful Plains.

  “I’m here, Sophie,” she said. “I’m here.”

  Her sister’s face crumpled in pain. Sophie looked less and less like her vibrant sister and more and more like a wax doll.

  “We’re going to be okay,” Claire whispered. “You’re going to be okay. This is another Experience. Just … just wake up!”

  The silence broke her heart.

  From somewhere deep within Claire came a low moan. An unarticulated word of immeasurable loss. Now the sun had finally and truly set.

  At the edge of Claire’s vision, something scurried.

  A coldness wafted toward them, clinging where it touched her skin. Twists of darkness like the black beneath rocks began to crawl toward them. Slowly, they took shape.

  The wraiths had finally come.

  Claire squeezed Sophie closer to her. There would be no running this time. No mad dash to the well and the safety of a chimney. No help from Sena or from Nett, who was also grievously ill.

  Claire closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see the wraiths slinking closer, or the too-much-red on the ground.

  She wanted to see the strong, healthy Sophie who dominated her memories.

  Bossy Sophie, who tricked her into standing up to change the channels when the remote was lost.

  Melodramatic Sophie, who cried dry tears when she claimed Claire had stepped on her toes.

  Nurturing Sophie who had spoonfed Claire Jell-O after her tonsil surgery.

  A thousand Sophies flashed through Claire’s mind, followed by a thousand more.

  Moody Sophie. Stubborn Sophie. Laughing, wild, kind Sophie.

  Her intolerable, lovable sister.

  A loud howl rent the air, and Claire’s eyes flew open. Immediately, she wished they hadn’t. The wraiths were approaching—not fast but slow, a stalking predator made from darkness and horror and bone.

  The air was so cold that Claire could see a little puff of white each time Sophie exhaled, and she took comfort in each tiny wisp.

  If only unicorns still roamed the plains, she knew they could heal her sister. But all that was left of the unicorns was a pile of smoldering ashes and a false legend.

  But the legend had been partly true, Claire’s thoughts whispered. Sophie and Claire might not be the princesses of Arden, but … a place where fire met water did exist.

  The wraiths prowled closer.

  If only Claire were a Forger, who knew how to fight with a sword. Or a Tiller, who could call sunlight from mulch. But she was just Claire, and the only thing she had ever really been good at was drawing. Noticing the small details that everyone else overlooked.

  Claire tried to remember what Fray had said. The Royalists wanted Sophie because they needed royal blood, the same royal blood that flowed through Queen Estelle’s veins and carried her power.

  Claire’s heart began to pound.

  The same royal blood.

  Sena had said that guild magic was like eye color—how sometimes, brown-eyed parents would give birth to blue-eyed children. And gray-eyed Claire knew that sometimes even sisters didn’t share the same eyes. Sophie’s were a warm brown.

  Sophie’s blood hadn’t worked, but maybe that was not because she wasn’t a princess. Maybe it was because she wasn’t a Gemmer princess.

  But Claire—whose drawing of unicorns seemed to have come to life, who’d pushed a pencil into rock, who’d spoken with a wyvern, who’d plucked a story from stone trees—she was.

  She’d known, but hadn’t wanted to know. She didn’t want to be a member of the guild that had enslaved Sena’s people and had created a rock slide that destroyed a Tiller village. The guild that Sena said was full of stubborn, hard-hearted people, the guild that only produced villains.

  But as a Gemmer, Claire had a chance to save her sister.

  The Unicorn Harp, though mostly ember and ash, still burned. Its magic lingered in the air, like rain before a storm. To wake the unicorn, all she needed to do was add her blood to the rock.

  She slipped out from under Sophie’s weight and gently lowered her sister’s head to the base of Queen Rock. Then she ran toward Unicorn Rock.

  Getting royal Gemmer blood would be easy enough. The wound on her knee from when she’d fallen by the narrowboats had opened when the club-swinging Royalist knocked her down.

  Wiping the blood away from her knee with her thumb, she hesitated for just a moment. What if she was wrong? But then she saw the wraiths, hundreds of them, circling Sophie’s pale form.

  “GET AWAY FROM HER!” Claire screamed. “DON’T TOUCH HER! STAY—” Something cold and hard wrapped around her throat, cutting her off.

  She had been so focused on Sophie, Claire hadn’t noticed the wraith that had come for her.

  As its skeletal hand, smelling of rotten flesh, tightened around her neck, Claire knew, in that horrible way one always knows, that she had made an irrevocable mistake.

  She gasped for breath as the wraith dragged her slowly back, away from Unicorn Rock, and away from her sister, lying still on the ground. Sophie seemed so small as she lay there, unaware of the shadows swooping down toward her.

  Dark thoughts wrapped around Claire’s mind as she felt herself drowning in the wraith’s cold. All she wanted to do was stop caring. Numbness might even be all right.

  No.

  Something turned inside Claire. She would wade through swamps, traverse a thousand tunnels, and even face a hundred wraiths—but she would not lose her sister.

  She would not lose her again.

  Claire lunged, swinging out with her hand. She missed the shadowy skeleton, but the wraith had not expected her sudden movement and she felt the creature’s grip slip just a hair.

  She slammed herself forward once more.

  Pain thrummed through her knuckles as they scraped against the Unicorn Rock.

  Nothing happened.

  Her blood wasn’t enough. She wasn’t enough. She couldn’t do it. She didn’t know the spell Fray knew. She didn’t know how to harness magic. The wraith began to pull her away from the rock again.

  How had she crafted magic before? The answer was there almost before she’d finished the question: with her pencil.

  It was with her pencil that she had collapsed the cave. And she remembered the unicorn she’d drawn by the Rhona River—the one that had come to life. The one she’d sketched when she’d let herself imagine what it would have been like if there were still unicorns.

  Try harder, Sophie’s voice came from a memory. They sat at the dining room table, Sophie holding up multiplication flash cards for Claire. Think!

  Claire had created magic before with her pencil and her thoughts. She didn’t have her pencil anymore, but if she imagined what she had to do … If she could shape it …

  Scraping the last of her strength, Claire lurched against the wraith’s grasp again and slammed her bloody hand against the rock. But this time, she imagined the feel of glossy fur instead of obsidian. The warmth of a living heartbeat instead of a sur
face that cooled at sunset. The pounding of hooves against rock.

  The tiniest tingle blossomed in her pinkie. The smallest of hums that Claire now knew wasn’t a sign that something was wrong, but a sign that something was completely right.

  Gasping for breath, she tried to focus. Storm-swift legs. Mane like a waterfall. Magic that crackled like lightning. A horn that pierced the sky.

  The hum of magic zipped through Claire’s bones and the rock beneath her palm warmed. Exhaustion crept toward her, threatening to drag her under, but still Claire held on.

  She remembered the luminescence of the harp’s strings, of the fire in Kleo’s tapestry. She remembered the splintered unicorn statue that had stood alone, guarding Windemere’s chimney.

  A sharp blast of heat erupted from the stone, and the wraith screamed. Its clawed hand released Claire, and she fell to the ground, gasping as air rushed into her lungs. Lifting her head, she saw that the monolith had turned blazing white, the color of sun on snow.

  Claire stumbled to her feet and ran back toward her sister. She threw herself next to Sophie just as there was a loud crack, followed by the sound of a million pebbles hitting the ground.

  Scared of what she might see, she hesitated, but only for a second. There would be no more hiding from the truth. She forced herself to look.

  Where the monolith had stood, there was a blinding radiance. And in the center of the brightness, she glimpsed diamond hooves, an arching neck, and eyes as clear as water, filled with such understanding that Claire wanted to sob for joy.

  And between pointed ears, nestled in ribbons of silky mane, was a slender spiral that reached toward the sky.

  Claire’s eyes welled with tears.

  The unicorn reared up, challenging the night, before it charged the sea of wraiths.

  Claire clutched Sophie to her as the shadows howled their fury. And though some of the monsters tried to stand their ground, they stood no chance against the unicorn’s horn, which dipped and rose, growing brighter and stronger each time.

  Every strike of its hooves sent tremors through the ground, and the wraiths fled from it, like storm clouds from a spring wind.

  It was beautiful, and yet even though the wraith’s hand was no longer around Claire’s neck, she still felt its chill pulling her away from consciousness, dragging her under. She willed herself to stay awake, but acrid thoughts, black as crude oil, were slowly eroding her away.

  With misty eyes, Claire watched the last unicorn reach the edge of the plains. She wanted to call out to it. To tell the unicorn to come back and help Sophie, but her throat felt like it had been crushed.

  And then, as if it had heard her thoughts—and maybe it had—the unicorn pivoted. Suddenly it was galloping back across the plains, streaking like dawn, toward the sisters.

  As it drew near, the unicorn became less defined, until it looked more like a ball of light than a creature with legs and a tail—or maybe that was Claire’s vision flickering out.

  She thought she saw the arched neck bend low over Sophie, touching its spiral to her bleeding heart, but it was hard to know for sure.

  Claire’s own eyelids were closing, and something gleamed above her. But was it a spiraling horn, or the edge of a double-headed ax?

  Before Claire could decide, everything—rocks and unicorn and world—extinguished like a falling star.

  And then she, too, went out.

  CHAPTER

  27

  Something wrapped around Claire’s chest, keeping her trapped and still and angry. But she couldn’t remember what it was, exactly, that she was mad about.

  Sweat dampened her back. At least she was warm now, because the last thing she could remember was being cold—achingly cold.

  No, that wasn’t right.

  The last thing she remembered was a burning harp. And rocks cracking, and a brilliant light, and ruby blood.

  Her heart pounded faster.

  And Francis lying, and the Royalist notching an arrow and—

  “Sophie!” Claire surged awake, knocking the heavy quilt that had been tucked suffocatingly tight around her to the floor. She blinked.

  Warm, white walls with scenes of golden trees and birds surrounded her, while the ceiling above was decorated with sunbursts. A pinecone fire crackled behind a delicate lattice, filling the tiny room with the sharp, fresh smell of the mountains. The overall impression of the room was of sun and light and air.

  Trying to find the memory that linked her last image of icy gloom to this merry place, Claire almost missed the soft sigh next to her.

  Turning her head, her heart stopped. If this—the cozy room, the soft blankets, the sight in front of her—was a dream, it was one she never wanted to wake from.

  For slipped under the heavy quilt and breathing evenly next to Claire was Sophie.

  But not Sophie as Claire had last seen her, tunic crusted in dirt, hair wild, and complexion fading.

  The Sophie next to her looked as though some museum restoration workers had come along with their paints and glosses, brushed away the fine tension around her lips, touched up her freckles, and added something else to her features that hadn’t been there before.

  As Claire stared at her sister, Sophie opened her eyes.

  “You took all the covers again,” she murmured. “Oof!”

  The oof came from Claire flinging herself at Sophie. This Sophie wasn’t some dream too delicate to be touched. She was warm and solid, even if she was a bit bony.

  And the strength with which Sophie returned Claire’s hug was the strength of a girl in full health—one who could be squeezed by her sister and be fine. A girl who could have Experiences and scrape her knees again. A girl who had never spent a month in a hospital … or taken an arrow to her chest.

  Claire pulled back. “Sophie, what happened?”

  Sophie flopped back down onto the pillow. “I have no idea. The last thing I remember is looking at you, and then just kind of”—her fingers fluttered—“fading, I guess.”

  That wasn’t exactly what Claire had meant, but before she could ask what Sophie had been doing in Arden this whole time, she needed to know one very important thing first.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I think so.” Sophie wiggled her toes. “I’m pretty tired, but in a good way. Like after an afternoon of running around, or field day, or something.” She rubbed a spot below her left collarbone, the same spot where the arrow had entered. “I’m a little sore here.”

  She moved her hand away to reveal a small pink scar in the shape of a crescent moon.

  “The unicorn!” Claire breathed.

  “Unicorn?”

  And so Claire told Sophie what she thought she’d seen, never taking her eyes away from the unicorn’s mark. When she’d finished, Sophie’s eyes sparkled, shining with a joyful radiance that only comes after a harrowing ordeal.

  “Does it hurt?” Claire asked.

  Sophie brushed the crescent with the tip of her finger. “It kind of aches, but not really.”

  Gently, Claire placed her palm on Sophie’s, and they interlocked fingers. “Can we go home now?”

  “I’m afraid that is impossible,” a voice said from the doorway. The tall form of Anvil Malchain stepped into the room.

  He was even more terrible in person than he’d seemed in the Looking Glass. Everything about this man, from his haughty posture to the studs on his leather gloves, reminded Claire of barbed wire and sharp edges.

  She lunged for the copper pitcher on the side table. “Get back,” she said as she stood. “Leave us alone!”

  “Please lie down; you’ll exhaust yourself,” Malchain said. “I mean you no harm.”

  “Why should we believe you?” Claire asked. The pitcher was small, but it was heavy. She could swing it if she needed to.

  Malchain looked over at Sophie. “I take it you haven’t told her yet?”

  Sophie shook her head, her expression slightly bemused. “We just woke up.”

  Claire
felt suddenly cold again. Maybe her sister wasn’t okay after all, if she was talking to Malchain as though he were a friend and not a terrifying hunter.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded. “Why did you kidnap us?”

  “Claire,” Sophie said exasperatedly. “You’ve got it all wrong. Anvil hasn’t captured us. He’s helping us!”

  Claire stared at her sister. She couldn’t understand what Sophie was saying. “Helping us? Sophie, he’s been chasing you! I saw you running from him in the Looking Glass!”

  Malchain ran his hand over his shorn head. “Sophie, would you like to explain?”

  Sophie bit her lip. “I can try.” She looked at Claire and patted the quilt. “Sit.”

  But Claire had been quick to trust before, and that had gone badly. What if her sister was making the same mistake now? She shook her head.

  “Suit yourself,” Sophie said, sounding surprised. After all, Claire usually did what she asked.

  Sophie sat up a little more in the bed and leaned back. “After the trip to Dr. Silva’s, I knew the only thing that could fix me was magic. Real magic, not the coincidences that hospitals talked about at home.”

  Sophie brightened. “And there’s such wonderful magic in Arden, Clairina! I’ve seen cloaks that make you invisible and shoes that help you dance and—”

  Malchain cleared his throat, and Sophie quickly stopped. “Well, I’ll tell you later. Anyway, I knew what I really needed was a unicorn, but everyone I asked in Arden said that that was impossible. Everyone, that is, except my friend Thorn. He’s—”

  “I know Thorn,” Claire interrupted. “And Sena and Nett.”

  Sophie raised her eyebrows. “Really? Okay, then I guess you know that Thorn’s Grand—that’s what he calls his grandmother—was a Royalist. He told me that the only unicorn left in Arden was turned to stone. When I asked Francis about the legend of Queen Rock and Unicorn Rock, he told me to meet with Historian Mira Fray.”

  Sophie sighed as she wriggled deeper into her pillow nest. “I figured out the poem myself—it wasn’t hard to do when all I could think about was the well and the chimney. I wasn’t sure what to do with the information, but everything at home kept getting worse and worse. That day when we were packing in the unicorn gallery it all kind of snapped into place. Even though I didn’t know how to wake the unicorn, I just needed to try.” Her mouth quirked into a smile. “You know me.”