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C ora maintained her post as the sun set and dusk turned to night. The hunters returned but not a single drink of rum was taken. She watched. Waited. The mood within the camp was strained, the silence palpable. Hardly a word was exchanged as the men sat idly around the fire hour after hour. It was eerie. Enough to make Cora’s skin crawl.

Careful , came Valorre’s warning. He sounded quieter than normal, but she shouldn’t have been able to hear him at all.

What are you doing so close? she sent back, unsure if her words would make it through her dense shields. Not that she’d ever been so lucky to avoid him reading her thoughts before. Still, it was dangerous for Valorre to come anywhere near camp, even after the company had finished their day’s hunt. She and Valorre had made great efforts not to leave tracks where the hunters would likely follow. They kept Valorre well outside their scouting radius whenever they could.

Have a bad feeling , was his reply. Something isn’t right .

A knot formed in her stomach, but she wasn’t sure if it was his anxiety or her own. There was definitely something strange happening. If the silence and solemnity hadn’t already been enough, the hunters’ rigid postures and darting glances were.

A horn sounded in the distance.

Hammond, a man with yet another R brand, who Cora had learned was the leader of this crew, rose to his feet. “Harvest,” he said. “You know what to do.”

Cora’s throat went dry as she watched the men leap into action. Most formed a line in the middle of the camp, hands behind their backs, postures stiff, while Gringe retrieved a small chest. Cora leaned forward, bracing herself against the trunk of the tree as he opened it. Through the pine’s boughs, she caught a glimpse of what was inside—two thin, white, spiral-ridged bones.

Unicorn horns.

Cora frowned. She hadn’t seen these horns before, nor had she witnessed any of the hunters removing a single horn from the unicorns. So far, all they’d done was keep the creatures in iron cages, letting them grow weaker and weaker from lack of food and their close proximity to iron.

Gringe removed the horns from the chest and placed them on the ground. Hammond shot him a pointed look. “Only two? James said you’d caught three in the Ishvonn Woods.”

Gringe glared at James, who already stood in the line, then muttered, “James was mistaken.”

Hammond huffed a dark laugh. “If Duke Morkai finds out you left your region while another unicorn was out there?—”

“James was mistaken,” Gringe repeated, more forcefully this time.

Hammond shook his head and stood at the center of the line, hands behind his back like the rest of the men. Gringe took his place next to him, then barked at James, “Get to the cages.”

James’ eyes bulged but he made no argument as he unsheathed a knife and approached the cages.

Cora’s heart jumped into her throat. She expected him to hack open the nearest cage and slaughter the unicorn or—at best—cut off its horn. But James did no such thing. He simply stood, knife in his trembling hand.

Silence returned for several minutes, broken only by the arrival of Paul. His face was pale. “It’s here,” he said, then stood at the end of the line.

Anxiety swarmed through Cora. It wasn’t just her own. She felt it pouring off the hunters, building and building until it was so strong that her head began to spin. She swayed on the branch and gripped the tree trunk tighter. Then, with a deep breath, she strengthened her shields both ways. The outside emotions fell away, leaving her with the much softer hum of her own worry. A worry that increased with every breath. Especially when she noted what Paul had just said. It’s here . What did that mean?

Danger . Valorre’s warning was laced with panic.

She swayed again. This time, however, it wasn’t from an overwhelming surge of emotion. Her lack of foothold was aided by a rumbling in the earth below, one that sent the tree thudding. It was a rhythmic pounding that echoed the riotous pace of her heart.

Run, Cora, Valorre urged. Run. Beast. Abomination .

That was when she saw it. A dark form stalked from between the rattling trees a dozen feet away. It was an enormous creature, three times the width of a horse and twice as tall, resembling something between a boar and a wolf. Its head, which seemed too large for its shoulders, had a boar-like snout and tusks, but no visible ears. Its front legs bore hooves while its hind legs ended in enormous paws. It was a hairless thing with raw-looking flesh. Tiny spikes protruded from its body, lining the ridge of its back. It plodded toward the clearing, its immense hooves and paws leaving turned, loose ground in its wake.

Cora was frozen in place, unable to look anywhere but at the creature. She’d seen it before. It used to haunt her nightmares. It still did now and then, lingering just beyond that bloody room, taunting her, clashing in a place between memory and make-believe. In recent years, she’d begun waking before the Beast appeared. It had been her one solace. But seeing it now, outside the realm of slumber…

Run, Cora .

Valorre’s words echoed strains of memory, but the voice of the past belonged not to the unicorn. It belonged to her enemy. The man who’d smirked when she was labeled a murderer. A man who’d dragged her to the edge of the woods outside the castle walls, drew blood from her palm, and shoved her out into the night. After that, shadows had come to life, growing paws and hooves and teeth. “Better run,” he’d said?—

Run, Cora! Get away! Valorre’s warning roused her from the haze of memory, but she still couldn’t take her eyes from the creature. It plodded into the camp and went straight for the two horns, consuming them in a single bite. Gringe leapt back but Hammond flung out an arm and forced him to be still. Next, it swung its head toward the cages, where James was slicing loose the bindings with trembling hands.

The Beast let out a roar as he dove for the unicorn in the now-open cage. The creature moved too fast for Cora to realize what was happening. Not until she heard the halfhearted, terrified whinny, then a crunch like bones snapping, teeth gnashing. Saw a slash of blood spray the dirt at James’ feet.

That was all it took to send her half falling, half climbing down the tree. She had no awareness of whether she’d been seen, whether her shields were up or down, whether the sounds she heard now were her pounding steps, her racing heart, or the crash of another cage coming open.

She knew nothing. Saw nothing through her tears.

She simply ran.

Valorre found Cora hours later. She was crouched at the base of a birch tree, her shoulders heaving, legs burning from how fast and how far she’d run. He nudged her in the shoulder with his muzzle. When she wouldn’t look at him, he blew a warm breath in her face and nudged her cheek. Finally, she glanced up at him with eyes that burned in the wake of her tears.

“They’re dead, aren’t they? The unicorns?” Her voice came out small and tremulous. Weak. She hated it. Hated that she’d run.

The three older ones, yes. I no longer feel them near.

Cora’s stomach turned as she recalled the sound of bones snapping beneath the Beast’s jaws. The sight of blood. She shuddered as the vision played over and over in her mind’s eye. Followed by her moment of cowardice.

There was nothing you could have done , Valorre conveyed. His sorrow was equal to her own. She could feel it in her bones.

“I could have tried to shoot it.”

And get shot back by the hunters? She felt his emotions ripple with something like a disbelieving scoff.

“I could have done something,” she said, but even as the words left her lips, she knew they were folly. She’d done the only thing she could have through the haze of her terror.

The haze of memory.

Valorre studied her. You know the abomination .

“I’ve seen it before. When I was twelve. Although…” She swallowed hard as near-forgotten visions surged through her. It had been the middle of the night after the queen was found dead, and Cora was locked in a dungeon cell. She’d spent all evening crying, shouting at the guards to hear her out, begging them to listen to the truth. She wasn’t responsible for killing Queen Linette. Morkai was. She’d seen him standing over her dead body. She’d witnessed him doing… something with the blood. Something with his hands. Dark magic. It had to be dark magic.

But no one listened. No one came.

Only Morkai.

Cora shuddered and stared down at her palm, trying to see beyond the ink, seeking a thin pink line. A scar. But there wasn’t one. There hadn’t been when she’d received her first tattoo, and it had made her doubt how much of what she remembered from that night had been a fever dream. But now…

Now she knew better.

It had been real. All of it.

She remembered how the duke had pulled her from the dungeon. Bound her, gagged her, dragged her through the sleeping castle, across the lawn, through a secret gap in the castle wall, and out to the edge of the woods. There they paused in darkness, the moon nothing more than a sliver above them. “I’m doing this for you,” he’d said as he cut her bindings. “I could have let you rot in that cell. Remember that. The king would see you dead for what you’ve done.”

She bared her teeth and scrambled back from him. “I did nothing wrong. It was you . I know it.”

He ignored her. “You murdered Queen Linette.”

“You lie.”

“You killed Princess Aveline.”

She froze in place at the name. “What?”

Before she could say a word more, Morkai seized her hand and ran his knife over the center of her palm. Blood welled in a thin red line. She tried to snatch it away, tried to cover the wound, but he held her hand in place. With his other, he trailed a finger through the air. Ribbons of blood appeared out of nowhere, suspended in midair. With another wave of his finger, her own blood rose to meet it, weaving toward the other threads until they merged as one. It was over as quickly as it had begun. One moment, it was as if some gruesome tapestry was forming before her eyes, then the next, it fizzled into air.

That was when she heard the pounding. That was when she saw the dark shadow tearing alongside the castle wall as if it had sprung from shadow.

His lips flicked up then, stretching into a malicious grin. “Better run.”

Valorre nudged her in the shoulder, forcing her back to the present. She trembled from head to toe. Her eyes fell to her palms where her fingers had curled inward. Half moons from her nails had formed there, threaded through the ink.

“I…I’d convinced myself the Beast hadn’t been real,” she said. “After the Forest People found me…I didn’t know what to think. I knew what I’d seen, but…surely the Beast had been a nightmare.” Her dreams had been vivid back then. Constant. Worse than the new ones were. “Have you seen it before tonight?”

No. Never.

“So, you don’t know what it is? It isn’t a fae creature? A chimera, perhaps?”

His surge of indignation was answer enough. No fae creature. Nothing like me or my kind .

Cora frowned. The Beast was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. If it wasn’t fae…what was it?

Vile abomination , Valorre said with a derisive snort. Then, after a pause, he asked, Will you leave now?

Her eyes shot up to Valorre. “Leave?”

Because of the monster. Will you stop trying to help my brethren?

Cora considered her answer. She still felt shaken from what she’d witnessed, from the memories she’d unearthed. But she remembered what Valorre had said when she’d asked if the Beast had killed the unicorns.

“You said it only took the three older unicorns.”

Yes .

“Then one more is still alive. The newest one they captured.”

Yes .

It hadn’t eaten all of them. Only the oldest, hungriest, most fatigued unicorns. Would the Beast come back for the other once it reached a similar state? If so…why? And how did the duke tie into all of this?

The questions sharpened her mind, sent her fear scurrying. In its wake, she knew her work was not done. Yes, she was terrified to learn that the Beast was real. The thought of ever having to face it again sent her pulse racing. At least next time she’d be prepared.

Next time, she wouldn’t run.

She’d shoot.

She’d shoot it again and again until its blood drenched the earth.

“No, Valorre,” she said with a sigh. “I’m not going anywhere.” She rose to her feet and brushed her hands on her skirts. They’d come untucked sometime between running and sulking by the tree. “Let’s make camp by the stream. We can hide our tracks and I can refill my water skin.”

Valorre snorted. You could use a bath too .

She recognized the teasing in his words, understood his attempt to lighten her mood. It worked. Her lips curled up at the corners. “Fine, a bath too, first thing in the morning. By evening, I’m going back to the camp. Sooner or later, they’ll drink that rum.”