Page 70 of HeartTorn

I hit the ground, cushioned somewhat by the tall grass. I manage to keep my grip on the knife and yank it up, holding it before me. Gods, I hate how my hand trembles! Taar’s voice bursts in a wordless roar somewhere behind me, followed by renewed sounds of struggle. But my vision is wholly taken up in that towering form stepping toward me, bathed in the sickly pale light of the rising sun. That rotten hand reaches, slowly, inevitably, like the hand of death itself.

Then all the world seems to freeze as a cold, clear voice speaks somewhere behind me: “It is unbecoming for a man to pull a sword on his betrothed. Some would call it ungracious, particularly in a king.”

My stomach drops. That voice, though speaking out loud, carries in its every tone writhing and devouring un-song, which strips it of all that once may have been bright, even beautiful.

I twist around, push myself up, and throw hair out of my face. A figure appears through the morning mist. At first I cannot understand what I’m seeing, it’s so great, so large, so pulsing with devouring darkness. My mind tries to tell me it’s a demon, broken through the surging black from Ashtari to haunt this world.

Shutting my eyes, I force back the clamoring awareness of my gods-gift. Always such a useless gift, it’s certainly not helping right now! Mortal senses once more dominant, I look again, and this time, I am able to see that which approaches.

It’s a unicorn. Enormous, built like a bull rather than a horse, with mighty shoulders and massive hooves which send tremors to the core of the world at each step. It moves in a strange,unnatural gait, as though whatever animates its limbs doesn’t quite know what to do with them.

It’s dead. I know it the instant I set eyes on it. Not just by the rotten flesh hanging from exposed bones, not just by the hollowed-out eye sockets and the stench of decay. This deadness is so much worse. Whereas the unicorns I have seen up until now, whether whole or hearttorn, pulsed with living fire-song, thisthing, this hulking carcass, seethes with un-song. It ripples through and around it, like liquid black ribbons, passing through the empty eye socket, out through the gaping nostril, in through exposed ribs, out through the gaping hole in the abdomen.

A woman rides this monstrosity. Her crimson hood is thrown back to reveal her dead face. Whatever color her skin might once have been is long lost, leaving behind bloodless gray flesh. Death-filmed eyes gaze out from sunken sockets, and rot eats away at her mouth and down an old wound along her jaw.

And yet one cannot deny her beauty, still clinging to her even after death. Or more than beauty—herpower.The sheer force and energy which once simmered in her spirit and glowed out from the core of her being. It’s still there, still present enough that one can almost,almosthear the echo of what must have been a nearly overwhelming soul-song.

Now that song, like the song of the unicorn she rides, is unwound in coils, devoured and rendered nothing. Not broken—simply void.

Her dead eyes fix on Taar with such focus, I would almost believe she didn’t know I was present at all. Taar stares back, his face gone slack, his eyes wide with horror so absolute, it transforms his face into that of a stranger.

In that moment I know who this woman is. Shanaera. The one who was meant to be Taar’s wife. Looking at her now, even in death, I see how fate has robbed them both. She would have made a great queen. The force of her nature, the strength of herbody and will, is evident even now amid ruin and decay. What must she have been like in life, before her song was corrupted?

She reins in her hellish mount. Her rotten mouth twists in a half-smile. Though we are still surrounded by tall crimson cloaks, it’s almost as though they’ve faded away, whatever threat they posed simply unimportant in the face of this woman and her menace. She tips her head slightly to one side, strands of lusterless black hair falling across her sunken cheek. “Well, beloved?” she says, little spools of black un-song underscoring her words. “Have you nothing to say to me?”

Taar cannot speak. The muscles of his throat tighten, but I’m not sure he even draws breath. Elydark, however, utters a vicious roar, rearing and tearing at the air with his sharp hooves. Shanaera turns her head sharply, the movement not quite natural, and her smile grows, revealing blackened gums. “Ah! A pleasure to see you once more as well, dear Elydark. Have you no more kindly greeting for an old friend?”

Elydark roars again. Underneath that sound, his soul-song resonates deep sorrow and loss. But there’s aggression in that song as well. He will do anything to protect Taar from any foe, even one who was once dear to them both.

Shanaera lifts an eyebrow as though she’s been insulted. She turns to Taar once more. “You should keep your licorneir under better regulation, beloved. Such behavior is not a good reflection on you.”

“What are you doing here?” Taar’s voice is a painful rasp of sound, like the words are clawing up from his chest.

“What? Here in this valley?” Shanaera spreads an arm, gesturing around at the dead carcasses under nets, slowly becoming visible by the growing light of day. My stomach drops as I turn to take in the sight. There are so many dead unicorns pinned under those awful nets. Twenty, maybe more, all drained of blood, their manes and tails shorn. The wrongness of it rocksmy soul. I wish suddenly that I had died last night. I wish that Taar had never rescued me, that he’d left me to that priest and his knife. Then I would not have had to live to see such evil.

“I should think it would be obvious,” Shanaera continues mildly, un-song spooling from her tongue. “We’re harvesting.” In an ungraceful surge of limbs, she dismounts, strides over to the nearest netted carcass, and nudges it with her foot. “It’s not as though they’re good for much else anymore, thesevelrhoarbeasts.”

“Harvesting?” Taar echoes. “Harvesting what?”

“Their blood of course.” Shanaera lifts her dead gaze and smiles at Taar’s expression. “The blood of even avelrhoarlicorneir brims with heavenly purity and light. A potent magic source. The Miphates find it indispensable for survival in this land of Cruor they’ve created. How else did you think they powered their mage-paths?” She shrugs and looks down at the dead beast once more. “They used to struggle. Catching and killing unicorns for their blood is no easy task. That’s where my people come in.” She kicks at a bit of the rope netting, still tangled around the dead unicorn’s limbs. “We’ve got our ways, haven’t we? For subduing wild unicorns. Chaeora rope was a revelation to the Miphates.”

Taar curses softly. Then: “You aren’t Shanaera.”

She looks up at him sharply. “What?”

“You aren’t her,” he says again. “She would never work for the Miphates. Not in life, nor in death.”

Leaving the dead unicorn where it lies, she strides toward him. Crimson cloaks back away, making a path for her between them, and she walks right up and puts her face close to his. I can see now how they are well-matched in size. Though his breadth is nearly twice hers, she is muscular and strong, even in her partially decayed state. She is a creature of pure ferocity, not to be suppressed by a mere grave.

“Maybe,” she says, her lips pulled back from her flashing teeth and rotten gums, “you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

I wonder why Taar doesn’t lunge at her, fight her with his bare hands. He’s unarmed, but I’ve seen him face greater foes. For gods’ sake, he just took on ten Licornyn guards together last night, didn’t he? But he seems petrified, like his very core has been turned to stone.

Shanaera tosses back her head and laughs. “Don’t worry!” she says, patting his cheek with her lifeless fingers. “We don’t kill all of them. Not right away at least. Those who are not too far gone tovelrhoarcan be used for other purposes.”

She raises her hand and snaps her fingers. Immediately other dead unicorns appear, manifesting from the mist like they’re stepping out from another world. Three of them, all like the one she rode—songless beings, pulsing with un-song. Blackness ripples under their skin and drips from their empty eye sockets. It looks like the virulium madness I saw, first in the Noxaurians who attacked the temple, later in Taar, when he succumbed to that poisoned cut. I never would have believed such evil could take hold in unicorns. Surely their soulfire would simply burn it out! But these beasts have no souls, no fire.

Though I’ve managed to get to my feet, my knees buckle. The sight of such evil is almost more than I can bear, and the throb of un-song is louder by the moment. I want to scream and shout, want to tear myself out of this reality and escape to any other.

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