Reckless (Free Preview) (15 page)

The Unicorns
lifted their heads.
 
Of course they
weren't white.
 
Why were things in his
world always whitewashed?
 
Their hides
were brown and gray, mottled black, and pale yellow like the autumn sun
drifting through the damp fog above.
 
They were watching him, but so far none of them looked ready to attack.

Jacob looked
around at his pursuers.

There were
five of them.
 
He immediately recognized
the officer.
 
It was the same one who had
led the Goyl at the farm.
 
His
jasper-brown skin was cracked at the forehead, as if someone had tried to split
it open, and one of his golden eyes was as cloudy as watery milk.
 
So they really were following him.

Jacob leaned
down over the neck of his horse.
 
The
gelding's hooves sank deep into the damp grass, but fortunately he hardly
slowed down.

Ride, Jacob.
 
Draw them away, before your brother gets it into his head to join them
.

The Goyl were
coming closer, but they didn't shoot.
 
Of course not.
 
If
they believed Will was the Jade Goyl, then they'd want him alive.

One of the
Unicorns whinnied.
 
Jacob shot a look at
the herd.
 
Stay where you are
.

Another glance over his shoulder.
 
The Goyl had split up.
 
They were trying to encircle him.
 
The pain from the wound made his eyes water,
and for a moment Jacob thought he was falling back through time, and he saw
himself lying on the grass again with a hole in his back.

Faster.
 
He had to be
faster.
 
But the gelding was already
panting heavily, and sadly the Goyl no longer rode those half-blind horses they
bred under the earth.
 
One of them was
getting very close.
 
The
officer.
 
Jacob averted his face,
but the hood slipped off his head just as he tried to reach for it.

The surprise
on the jasper face quickly turned into rage, the same rage Jacob had already
seen in his brother.

The game was
up.

Where was
Will?
 
Jacob glanced desperately behind
him.
 
The Goyl officer was looking in the
same direction.

His brother
was galloping straight at the Unicorns, with the Dwarf perched in front of
him.
 
He was riding Clara's horse and had
given her the mare.
 
The grass beside her
rippled as if the wind were blowing over it.
 
Fox.
 
Nearly as fast on her paws as the horses.

Jacob drew the
pistol, but his left hand no longer obeyed him, and he was a much worse shot
with his right.
 
Still, he managed to
shoot two Goyl out of their saddles as they turned and headed toward Will.
 
The Milk-Eye leveled his gun at him, his
jasper face stiff with rage.
 
The anger
had made him forget which brother he was supposed to hunt, but his horse
stumbled in the high grass, and his bullet missed its mark.

Faster, Jacob.
 
He
barely managed to stay in the saddle.
 
Will had nearly reached the Unicorns.
 
Jacob prayed the Dwarf had told them the truth this time.
 
Ride
!
he
thought
desperately, but Will suddenly slowed down.
 
He brought his horse to a halt, and Jacob knew it wasn't out of concern
for him.
 
Will turned in the saddle and
stared at the Goyl, just as he had done at the farm.

Milk-Eye had
meanwhile remembered whom he was charged to capture.
 
Jacob took aim, but his shot just grazed the
jasper skin.
 
Damned right hand!

And Will
turned his horse.

Jacob screamed
his name.

One of the
Goyl had nearly reached Will.
 
It was a
female, amethyst on brown jasper.
 
She
drew her saber as Clara steered her horse protectively in front of Will's.
 
But Jacob's bullet was faster.
 
The Milk-Eye uttered a hoarse howl as the She-Goyl
fell, and drove his horse even harder toward Will.
 
Just a few more yards.
 
The Dwarf was staring, wide-eyed, toward the
Goyl.
 
But Clara had gotten hold of
Will's reins, and the horse she had ridden so many times yielded as she pulled
it toward the Unicorns.

The herd had
watched the hunt as indifferently as humans would watch a group of squabbling
sparrows.
 
Jacob forgot to breathe as
Clara rode toward them, but this time the Dwarf really had told the truth.
 
The Unicorns let Will and Clara pass.

It was only
when the Goyl rode toward them that they attacked.

The valley was
filled with shrill whistles, beating hooves, and rearing bodies.
 
Jacob heard shots.
 
Forget
the Goyl, Jacob.
 
Follow your brother!

His heart
pounding in his throat, he rode toward the agitated herd.
 
He imagined he could once more feel the
Unicorn horns tearing into his back, warm blood running down his skin.
 
Not
this time, Jacob
.
 
Do as the Dwarf told you.
 
"It's easy.
 
Close your eyes and keep them shut, or they
will skewer you."

A horn brushed
his thigh.
 
Nostrils snorted in his
ear.
 
The cold air carried the scent of
horse and deer.
 
Keep your eyes closed, Jacob
.
 
The sea of shaggy bodies seemed endless.
 
His left arm felt dead, and his right hand clutched the neck of the
gelding.
 
Then, suddenly, he no longer
heard snorting but the wind in a thousand leaves, the lapping of water, and the
rustling of reeds.

He opened his
eyes, and it was just as it had been back then.

Everything had
vanished.
 
The Goyl,
the Unicorns, the misty valley.
 
Instead, a lake glistened under the evening sky.
 
On it floated the lilies for which he had
ventured here three years earlier.
 
The
leaves on the willows by the shore were as fresh and green as newly emerged
shoots.
 
And in the distance, drifting on
the
waves,
lay the island from which there was no
return.
 
Except for you, Jacob.

The warm air
caressed his skin, and the pain in his shoulder ebbed away like the water on
the reed-lined shore.

He slid off
the exhausted gelding.

Clara and Fox
rushed toward him.
 
Will, however, was
standing by the shore, staring across at the island.
 
He seemed unhurt, but when he turned to face
Jacob, his eyes were still on fire, and the jade was speckled with just a few
last remnants of his human skin.

"Here we
are.
 
Happy?"
 
Valiant stood between the willows.
 
He was plucking Unicorn hairs from his
sleeve.

"Who took
off your chain?"
 
Jacob tried to
grab the Dwarf, but Valiant dodged him nimbly.

"Luckily
a female heart is much more compassionate than the piece of rock that's
rumbling around in your chest," he purred while Clara sheepishly returned
Jacob's glance.
 
"And?
 
What are you getting all huffy about?
 
We're even!
 
Except for the fact that the Unicorns trampled my
hat!"
 
Valiant accusingly
patted his graying curls.
 
"You
could at least pay for that!"

"Us?
 
Even?
 
Shall I show you the scars on my
back?"
 
Jacob rubbed his
shoulder.
 
It felt as if he had never
fought against the Tailor.
 
"Just
get out of here," he said to the Dwarf.
 
"Before I shoot you after all."

"Really?"
 
Valiant cast a contemptuous look at the island drifting in the
distance.
 
"I'm quite sure I'll live
to see your name chiseled onto a gravestone long before mine.
 
M’lady," he said, turning to Clara,
"you should come with me.
 
This will
not end well.
 
Have you ever heard of
Snow-White, the human girl who lived with some Dwarf brothers before falling
for one of the Empress's ancestors?
 
She
ended up very miserable and finally ran away from him — with a Dwarf!"

"Really?"
murmured Clara, but she didn't seem to have been listening.
 
She stepped toward the shore of the
blossom-covered lake as if she had forgotten everything around her, even Will,
who was standing just a few yards away.
 
Bluebells grew between the willows, their petals mirroring the dark blue
of the evening sky.
 
She picked one, and
it chimed softly, wiping all the fear and sadness from her face.
 
Valiant uttered an exasperated groan.

"Fairy
magic!' he muttered scornfully.
 
"I
think I'd better take my leave."

"Wait!"
said Jacob.
 
"There used to be a
boat by the shore.
 
Where is it?"

But when he
turned around, the Dwarf had already disappeared between the trees.

Will was
staring at his own reflection in the water.
 
Jacob skimmed a stone across the dark surface, but his brother's
reflection quickly returned, distorted and
even
 
more
threatening.

"I nearly
killed you back there, in the gorge."
 
Will's voice sounded barely distinct from that of a Goyl now.
 
Look at me.
 
No matter what you're hoping to find here, it's too late.
 
You need to face it."

Clara was
gazing at them.
 
The Fairy magic clung to
her like pollen.
 
Only
Will
seemed immune.
 
"Where's your brother, Jacob?
 
Where did you leave him?"
 
The rustling leaves sounded like their mother's voice.

Will
backed
away from Jacob, as though afraid he might strike him
again.

"Let me
go to them."

The sun was
setting behind the trees, and
its
 
dying
light spilled onto the lake like
molten gold.
 
The Fairy lilies opened
their pale blossoms, welcoming the night.

Jacob pulled
Will away from the water.

"You wait
here, by the shore," he said.
 
"Stay right here.
 
I promise
I'll be back soon."

The vixen
pressed against his legs, her fur bristling as she looked at the island.

"What are
you waiting for, Fox?" said Jacob.
 
"Find me that boat."

26

The Red Fairy

Fox found the
boat.
 
And this time she didn't ask Jacob
to take her along.
 
However, just as he
climbed in, she bit his hand so hard that the blood trickled down his fingers.

"That's
so you won't forget me!" she snapped, and her eyes brimmed with the fear
that she might lose him again.

Three years
ago the Fairies had chased Fox away after they'd found Jacob, half-dead, in
their forest, and she had nearly drowned trying to follow them to the
island.
 
And yet she had waited for him,
a whole year, while he forgot all about her and everything else.
 
Now she sat here again, her fur blackened by
the approaching night, even after he'd already rowed far out into the
lake.
 
Clara, too, stood among the
willows, and this time even Will watched him go.

"It's too late for me."
 
The waves lapping against the narrow boat
seemed to echo Will's words, but
who
better to break
the spell of the Dark Fairy than her sister?
 
Jacob reached for the medallion on his chest.
 
He had picked the petal inside on the day
he'd left Miranda.
 
It made him invisible
to her, as if he'd cast off not only his love but also the body that had loved
her.
 
A petal, nothing
more.
 
She herself had told him
that he could hide himself from her this way.
 
When Fairies were in love, they revealed all their secrets in their
sleep; you just had to ask the right questions.

Fortunately,
the petal also made him invisible to the other Fairies.
 
As he hid the boat in the reeds on the
island's shore, Jacob saw four of them standing in the water.
 
Their long hair floated on the surface as if
the night itself had spun it.
 
But
Miranda was not among them.
 
One of them
looked his way, and Jacob was grateful for the thick carpet of flowers that
made his steps as silent as Fox's paws.
 
He had seen how they turned men into thistles or fish.
 
The flowers were blue, like the bluebell
Clara had picked, and not even the medallion could shield Jacob from the
memories their scent evoked.
 
Careful, Jacob!
 
He dug his fingers into the bloody imprint
Fox's teeth had left on his hand.