Rowan Ash led the unicorn down a dusty road, hunting for any sign of a cure. Seven years of walking had hollowed him out. He wanted the curse lifted. He wanted to stop. A cloth tent stood ahead, draped in hanging herbs. A low fence marked the path, each post tied with bundles that listed her prices in silent code. A woman watched him from the workbench inside. She held up a small unicorn figurine, white and gold, twin to the creature at his side. "I know what rides with you," she said. "And I know what binds you. That beast can lead you to the one who breaks your curse." Rowan's breath caught. He read the fence again. Silver. Blood. A name given freely. He had none of these. "I cannot pay," he said flatly. "I have nothing left to trade." The witch lowered the figurine and closed her fist around it. "Then you leave with nothing." She turned her back. Rowan stood in the road, the unicorn breathing soft beside him, knowing now what it was — and knowing he could not afford to learn how to use it.

Rowan walked from the witch's tent with one word burning in him: blood. Silver he could not steal. A name he would not give. But blood ran in his arms, and dawn was still hours off. He turned the unicorn toward the nearest shape on the hill — a slumped cottage with boarded windows, and a cracked boulder squatting beside its door. He drew his knife and pressed the edge to his palm. The cut opened. The cut closed. He tried again on the boulder's rough face, dragging his wrist across the stone. Red bloomed and vanished. Streaks dried on the rock like old rain. He had been here before, in other shapes, in other towns. The curse would not let him bleed. Inside the cottage he tore through drawers, hunting anything sharper than himself. Glass. Rusted shears. Each wound sealed before a drop could fall. The sky outside the boards was graying. The unicorn watched from the doorway, calm and gold-marked, as if it had already decided how this ended. Under a rotted floorboard his fingers found a hilt. He pulled up a black dagger, etched with letters that shimmered when he breathed on them. He did not know the words. He knew the weight. He pressed the point to his forearm and drew it down slow. The wound stayed open. Blood ran hot over his wrist and pattered on the floor. Rowan caught it in a clay cup with shaking hands. He had a price now. He had something to carry back. The cut still had not closed when the first gray light touched the boards, and for the first time in seven years, something in him had been allowed to break.