Chapter 3 The Monstrous Wood
The Monstrous Wood
Once his anger was spent and his mind had turned to drink, Ayla fled, as she always did.
Not to Liron, the Queen’s city. Not to Carinth, the town where her family’s house lay. Not even past the borders of Blackfell fief. She could not truly run, not without consequence. But she could ride, and let the wind clear her mind.
Snow churned under Gemshorn’s feet as the gelding cantered up the hunting path into the low ridges of the Kettalist mountain’s foothills.
Somewhere far behind her, so far behind he likely wouldn’t find her until she was on her way home, one of the castle guardsmen was surely rushing to saddle a mount and follow her.
If she were a proper noblewoman, she’d have waited for the escort.
But Ditmar was too drunk now to know the difference, and so she had left without giving the guards a moment’s notice. None of them would dare tell their lord that they’d failed to keep up, anyways.
Against the sharp white of the fresh snowfall, the pitch-dark firs of her husband’s homeland were stark giants.
They always had snow in Blackfell by late October, but autumn this year was a brutal promise.
It was colder than usual, the snow a solid foot deep instead of a dusting.
Icicles dripped like melted glass from the boughs.
This winter would be particularly harsh.
She hadn’t dressed well enough, and she didn’t care. The cold air ached in her lungs and numbed her bruised skin. The fir trees blurred behind Ayla’s tears as she reached a flat stretch of ridge.
Ditmar required her to sit sidesaddle. She was meant to use a riding cane on the horse’s right side, since both her legs were slung over the left, to give Gemshorn cues about his speed and turning.
But even knowing the cane did not hurt him, or even bother him, she could not bring herself to do it.
Ditmar wielded his own riding cane like a weapon when he rode out of Blackfell.
Now, just the thought of holding one made her feel sick.
She’d left hers behind in the stable, as she always did when Ditmar wasn’t watching.
Drawing a deep, icy breath, she clucked her tongue and urged Gemshorn into a gallop with her voice alone.
The dapple gray horse snorted, his breath a puff of cloud. He tossed his head and lengthened his stride until he flew. It was silent apart from his footfalls, the world muffled by snow. Ayla tangled her leather gloved hands into his mane as the wind stole the water from her eyes.
Then she squeezed her eyes shut, hardly caring if the ride ended in disaster.
If she could just keep running. If she could ride so deep into the Kettalist nobody ever saw her again. She’d ride until nobody knew her name, until even she could barely remember it; until the air was so thin she could barely breathe, until she had no companions but birds and beasts and trees.
But duty was a leash around her neck, shackling her to Blackfell castle and the man who waited there. She’d briefly hoped Ditmar might ride off to war when the Queen’s orders came that summer, but instead he’d just sent a portion of his men to join the army, and kept himself at home.
Gemshorn drew to a trot, then a walk, without command from Ayla.
She opened her eyes to see they had reached the Maurchet river.
It ran narrow this time of year, a foot of ice spreading from each edge but not yet coating the center where the current surged fastest. Gemshorn planted his hooves at the base of the riverbank and bent over the ice to drink from the clear flow.
Ayla lifted her chin and stared up at the white sky beyond the black crowns of the trees.
Another storm was coming. Soon, she wouldn’t be able to ride out into the mountains. The snow would be too thick.
Gemshorn’s head jerked up and to the left. Ayla turned to see what had caught his attention.
There. Between the dark pillars of the trees, in the blue-shadowed snow. Movement. Her breath caught.
The unicorn stood twenty paces off, its coat iridescent-pearl and shimmering with hidden color. Its long, curved horn glimmered like a diamond catching the light. Ayla had never seen one before, nor met anybody who had, though her father had once purchased the horn of one to trade.
Legend said they only showed themselves to the innocent.
Legend, Ayla realized, was wrong. She hadn’t been innocent for a long time now, not in body nor in mind.
She’d prayed for Ditmar’s death too many times to deserve any mercy herself.
But no matter why it was showing itself to her, the beast was beautiful.
Slowly the unicorn lowered his bearded head to the snowfall, long mane grazing the ground.
His muzzle nosed at the base of a tree, hunting for buried shoots of greenery.
The clearing they’d come to wasn’t a safe one; this wild stretch of the Kettalist was full of the strange mountain folk.
Normally she would have stayed horsed, but a strong desire overtook her.
Ayla slid from the saddle, her feet sinking into the snow, and looped Gemshorn’s reins over the bare branches of a young oak.
Her throat ached. A tightness constricted her chest.
She took one step closer, then another. The unicorn lifted his head and regarded her with one of his golden eyes.
A feeling sank into her bones, an overwhelming sense of beauty and hope.
For a moment the cold ache of her skin faded.
She barely felt the snow that snuck inside her left boot or the dull pulse of her hip where Ditmar had struck her.
The world was pure, serene. Like the fresh-fallen snow.
The unicorn took a step towards her. The fierce tightening joy in Ayla’s chest threatened to make her cry all over again.
She could see shadows where its ribs lay, evidence of hunger that would only grow worse in the winter. Even hope was a fragile thing, like thin-blown glass that would shatter if you so much as breathed wrong. Ayla stretched out her hand, even though she was still a dozen paces from the unicorn.
“Please,” she whispered, desperately, not sure what she wanted—for the feeling to stay with her, perhaps. For something, anything, to save her from the grim darkness her daily life had become. Ayla took a step closer.
The unicorn’s eyes widened suddenly, white around the edges. He jerked his head back, pivoting on his hindquarters.
“No,” Ayla begged, the word strangled. But he was gone, vanished into thin air, not even a hoof print to prove he’d been there.
Gemshorn screamed.
She hadn’t heard that sound from her horse before, pure terror.
Ayla spun, her heart confused and breaking all over again as pain flooded back into her body in the unicorn’s absence.
There, by the riverbank, Gemshorn tossed his head and sidestepped, yanking at the reins.
The branch she’d hooked them over strained, threatening to snap.
Her breath caught. The most beautiful man she’d ever seen stood naked in the middle of the river, as if he’d appeared there out of nothing.
The current lapped his bare, narrow waist. Rivulets of icy water dripped down his sculpted body and from his slicked-back silver hair. His pale eyes were fixed on Ayla.
A small voice in her body begged her to run. Strange men, especially impossibly beautiful men standing naked in mid-fall mountain rivers, were not to be trusted.
He took a step towards the bank, his hips rising out of the water. Behind the man another face lifted from the water, this one green and oily, its nose two slits in its misshapen face.
Nix, she thought dully, taking a step back.
That’s a nix. Which means he is too. They weren’t normally beautiful, not in their natural forms, but they could take many shapes to entrance their prey.
He’d drag her below the water if he caught her.
It would be cold. Ayla shivered, her eyes locked on him.
She wondered if it would hurt. How fast it would end.
If she went with him, all this would be over.
The nix split his mouth in a ragged smile, ruining his disguise. Each tooth ended in a savage point, his pink gums swollen and fleshy. He took another slow step closer towards her and beckoned.
Gemshorn stomped and shrieked again. The sound broke Ayla free.
She yanked his reins from the tree and grabbed the sidesaddle’s top pommel.
Ayla got her toes into the stirrup cup. She launched herself awkwardly up as Gemshorn sidled away.
With an oof Ayla’s belly landed across the saddle, both legs still hanging over the side.
Gemshorn reared. She slid back, hands scrambling.
Her left palm gripped the pommel tight as she leaned her body to stay on, core tense and one boot awkwardly jammed into the stirrup.
As Gemshorn’s feet came down she hurled her right leg over the back of the saddle and grabbed his mane with her free hand.
Her gelding spun and took off down the mountain, the reins not yet in Ayla’s hands.
She was sitting the way she used to ride, astride instead of the sidesaddle Ditmar demanded.
Her dress rode up her legs and bared her skin to the icy air.
She didn’t care. All she wanted was to get away.
Even if the life she raced back towards was no safer than the threat she fled from.