Page 38 of First Light
Carys looked up and saw Azar scurry into the bushes. She breathed out a sigh of relief that the child at least had escaped. The kelpie screamed again and dragged Carys toward the water.
She rolled to her back and looked around, searching for anything she could use as a weapon. She reached for a fallen branch that had washed up from the lake, gripped it, and swung the driftwood like a bat as the kelpie reared over her, snorting and spraying her with cold, stinking water.
The water horse’s hooves stomped down right next to Carys’s head and she wriggled away, but the kelpie’s rope was wrapped firm around her ankle, tightening and pulling her ever closer to the loch. She felt her heavy boots slip underwater, and the stuffed wool around her feet grew cold and wet.
No, no, no!
This wasnothow she was going to die.
Carys swung the branch again, making contact with the burning eyes of the creature. She jabbed the branch upward, trying to hurt it enough that she could crawl away, but the kelpie shrieked with rageand bared its pointed teeth. Its black hooves stomped down next to her head again; then it reared up, and Carys realized her hair was caught in the cloven hooves of the devilish creature.
The wheeling hooves threw her forward, and she saw the loch looming in front of her face until the hair caught in the kelpie’s hoof ripped free and Carys fell back to the shore, scrambling away until the rope around her ankle pulled her back.
Fuck you!
She was so angry she could scream, but she didn’t want to waste her breath. There was a sharp pain on her scalp where her hair had torn away, and blood dripped into her eyes. She gritted her teeth and reached for the driftwood again.
She wasnotgoing to die like this.
The sound of hooves thundering in the distance reached Carys’s ears, and she felt ice curl in her chest.
More hooves. More kelpies. She wouldn’t escape if another attacked.
But the kelpie turned his head—his attention caught by something to the left—and whatever was wrapped around Carys’s ankle released. She rolled over, keeping the thick branch in her grasp as she wiped the blood and filthy water from her eyes, trying to wrap her mind around what she was seeing.
On the edge of the water, just yards away from her, a golden-brown unicorn reared up, its high whinny drowning out the fearsome shrieks of the kelpie. On its head, a silver-brown horn glowed with a lethal point, and it lowered its head as it charged the kelpie.
The two creatures battled on the edge of the water, the unicorn kicking at the grey water horse and beating it back. The massive animal attacked the kelpie from higher ground, lowering its head to impale the creature’s chest as the kelpie let out another rage-filled scream.
Carys was frozen in shock for a moment, and then she realized she was still halfway sitting in the water. She scrambled away from the loch on her hands and knees, into the safety of the long grass and theshelter of the trees. Azar was bouncing with excitement, sitting on a fallen log, smiling and pointing to the glowing creature that battled back the kelpie.
“I called my dad,” she said with a smile, patting Carys’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’re safe now.”
CHAPTER TEN
“You’re fortunate.” The healer leaned down and spread ointment over the scrapes along her ankles and the palms of her hands.
Carys was sitting on a fallen log in the middle of the forest, and birdsong was a riot around her. Her clothes were still soaked, but the air was shockingly warm, which was a good thing considering the woman who was healing her looked like she was dressed for desert heat and not a northern winter.
“I’m fortunate?”
“The kelpie is angry. He knows to stay away from our foals, but you startled him. And humans have no treaty with the creatures of the loch, even those who have magic.” Her long black curls were braided into multiple plaits that fell down her back and over her shoulders. Gold threaded her hair, and while she didn’t have the pointed ears of the fae, there was something obviously magic about her. “That could have ended very badly for you.”
“Are you a… unicorn?”
She smiled and pressed a woven bandage soaked with something green to Carys’s head. “Not at the moment.”
Carys felt her skin knit together under the bandage and the pain eased. “Tha—” She bit her tongue. “I mean?—”
“It’s fine. You are among the blessing.” The healer glanced up. “You may thank me without creating a debt.”
So unicorns didn’t bank favors like the fae did. Good to know.
In the oldest stories, the fae were almost always associated with trickery. They loved to bargain with humans but always seemed to come out with a better deal than the duped person who wanted a favor. Countless human superstitions revolved around not offending the fae and not drawing their attention.
In the folk literature she’d studied, there wasn’t nearly as much about unicorns and even less about unicorns who could turn human. Most of what Carys had read told her that these mythical creatures were mysterious, shy, and associated with purity and grace. Not tricks or traps for humans.
Carys felt the tightness in her chest relax a little bit when she realized that these creatures were probably the safest ones she’d meet in this strange world.