Ginger princess's Arc

Chapter 4 of 7

The third unicorn slept that night, but the ginger princess did not. She sat on the porch of the little cabin with a blanket on her knees and watched the tree line where Thomas had ridden the day before. Three unicorns in the meadow. Two ordinary horses in the stable. Fancy Pants's spotted mare drowsing by the gate. All of them hers to keep now. All of them known to the west, because word of the silver stag had spread through every village in five days of riding. Anything with teeth could find this valley now. She went inside before dawn and pulled Thomas's sleeve. "The wards," she said. "I want one around the whole valley. Not just the gate." He sat up. "That's a bigger weave." "I know." "It'll show." "Good. Let it show." He looked at her for a long moment. Then he got out of bed and pulled on his boots. They walked the ridge together in the grey light. Fancy Pants came behind them in her gold pants and sandals, carrying a basket of salt and a jar of something dark. She did not ask what they were doing. She had picked these two for each other before they had spoken. She knew the shape of a thing before it was named. Thomas worked from the north corner. He knelt in the grass and pressed his palm flat to the dirt and said words the ginger princess did not know. He would not say where he had learned them. She had stopped asking. Fancy Pants walked behind him with the salt and laid a thin white line where his hand had been. The ginger princess walked last and set a honeybun at every hundred paces, because the haven was built on feeding, and she would not break that rule now. By noon they had circled the valley. By dusk the ward lit. It rose in a slow curtain of green and pale rose, thin as smoke, tall as the pines. It moved like an aurora pulled down out of the sky and stood along the ridge. Every horse in the meadow lifted its head. The three unicorns spread their wings and did not fly. They only watched the light and stood quiet. "No wandering thing gets through that," Thomas said. "Not a wolf. Not a bear. Nothing hunting on four legs." The ginger princess went to her knees in the grass. Her hands shook. Fancy Pants sat down beside her without a word and put an arm across her back. The spotted mare walked over from the gate and pressed her nose to the ginger princess's chest and held it there. "It worked," the ginger princess said. "It worked," Fancy Pants said. On the far ridge, past the green light, a lantern moved between the trees. Then another. Then a third. They did not come closer. They stopped at the ward and stayed. Men, not beasts. The light had shown them exactly where the line was set and never to pass uninvited or the fog would collapse their lungs upon first breath with no chance decide to turn back only eminent death