Lyralei Rosethorne owned nothing but a promise she couldn't keep. She stood at the edge of the old fairgrounds in Sycamorefall, pink hair whipping in the wind, and counted the people behind her. Nine outcasts. Nine sons and daughters of broken bloodlines, all thrown out of their homes for the wrong last name. She had told each of them the same thing. Come with me, and I will give you a place to belong. But she had no land to put them on. The old landholder waited by his cart, arms folded. He held the deed to the last empty field in town. Lyralei needed that field. It was flat, watered, and far enough from the noble quarter to be left alone. "You have coin?" he asked. She emptied her purse into her palm. Twelve silver pieces. Not enough for a stable, let alone a field. The man laughed and turned toward his cart. "Come back when you're rich, elf." Behind Lyralei, a child began to cry. She heard the others shift and mutter. They were already deciding she had lied. Then the crowd went quiet. A purple unicorn stepped out from the tree line. Its coat shone deep violet. Its mane caught the light like water. The spiral horn rose sharp above its head. The animal walked straight to Lyralei and pressed its nose against her shoulder. The landholder froze. He dropped the deed. "That beast," he whispered. "It hasn't shown itself in forty years." Lyralei did not know the unicorn. But she understood what its arrival meant to the man staring at it. In Sycamorefall, the unicorn was a sign. The old stories said it only came to one who was meant to hold sacred ground. She made a choice. She stepped forward, one hand on the unicorn's neck, and looked the landholder in the eye. "You saw it come to me," she said. "Give me the field. If you refuse, every family in this town will hear that you turned away the one the unicorn chose." The man's hands shook. He glanced at the crowd, now watching him instead of her. He bent, picked up the deed, and held it out. "Take it," he said. "Take it and keep that thing away from my house." Lyralei closed her fingers around the deed. The paper felt thin and real. Behind her, the nine outcasts began to cheer. The crying child laughed instead. She had land now. She had ground of her own. But as the landholder hurried off, he called back over his shoulder. "You'll wish you hadn't. The nobles claim that field too. And they don't lose quietly." Lyralei looked at the deed in her hand, then at the unicorn beside her. She had won the ground. Now she would have to hold it.