Chapter 1: Kiara

Chapter 1: Kiara

I’d been running for days. The search for my mother had led me all the way from Montana to the forests of Colorado, and I was so close to finding her that some nights, I swore I heard her voice coming out of the darkness. She was waiting for me, and from wherever she was, whoever had taken her, I was going to rescue her.

The last time I’d seen her was months ago when she helped me escape. My beautiful mother, with her wavy silver hair hanging off her shoulders, looking exhausted and disheveled after we ran from the warehouse we were kept in—that was the image that drove me forward. “Kiara,” she said desperately as the dragons searched for us with flashlights, “run, hide, don’t ever look back. Don’t come for me. I’ll make my way back to you, I promise.”

If I were younger, it would have been easier for me to run, hide, and wait. But not now, eighteen years old and brave. Fleeing while allowing my mother to fall into the light of the searching dragons was cowardly enough. I should have stayed by her side, but I was going to make up for leaving her behind.

The dragons were already on my trail. They must have caught wind of me when I brushed against the northernmost wolf territory in the Gunnison National Forest. I thought I would be safe by traversing these borders, but the moment I recognized the scent of the Inkscale dragons’ leader, Lothair Javier, I knew that here, I would find no respite. The silver lining was that here was where I suspected my mother would be, whether, in the clutches of the dragons or hiding, I didn’t know, but I would find out. It wasn’t easy to track a unicorn shifter. They left behind no scent and could disappear the moment you took your eyes off them. But there were other ways to detect one—an unusual sense of calm, a magnetic allure. I was sensitive to the presence of unicorns, being one myself. Well… half.

I was half unicorn, half wolf. And while I was blessed with the gifts of both shifters—a keen sense of smell, healing magic, and absence of an identifying unicorn scent—I was also cursed with the weaknesses of both. My allergy to silver made me vulnerable to some metals, and I could not touch fresh blood, despite my perpetual carnivorous hunger. I still carried the scent of a wolf. The Moon Goddess, Luna, influenced me just as much as the Sky Goddess, Welkin, and at times, I suffered from conflicting visions from both. Even if I tried, I couldn’t live the life of a normal human. My hybrid beast was at war with itself. The only sense of peace I had ever known was instilled in me by my mother, and ever since she was taken from me, my heart and mind have been in turmoil. I had to find her before the precarious balance of my grace, hunger, and anger erupted into a chaotic storm, and I tore myself apart.

Under the clarity of the stars, I ran northeast. The stench of burning oil stung my nose while the shadows churned ominously around me. Snapping branches betrayed the physicality of those shadows, dragons lunging after me in pursuit. I had made the mistake of spending too much time on the edge of this territory, and now the dragons were aware I was here. In the body of my beast, I looked over my shoulder and saw them crashing between the trees, vivid yellow eyes trained on me. Panting, I pushed harder, leaping over a fallen log. My paws beat the ground in swift silence while the dragons scrambled noisily over the tree. Where one staggered and stalled, the others chasing me climbed over the one that was stuck, rolling over one another like vicious ocean waves. A couple of them started gaining on me. I heard them rasping behind me. But I wasn’t afraid—this wasn’t the first time I had come into close contact with the dragons. I’d been fleeing from them for months. No, all I felt was determination.

A shadow eclipsed the starlight, and weight crashed into my backside. With a snarling yelp, I hit the ground and immediately twisted around to face my attacker. The dragon’s chest loomed over me, and its arms stretched around me and curved black claws poised to grip my flanks. I bared my teeth and snapped at the reptile. That didn’t dissuade it. Soon, the other dragons in pursuit would be upon me. I couldn’t waste any time. As the dragon reared back, jaws parted to grab me, I twisted my neck and bowed my head—the impact was immediate. I felt the weight against my neck as the dragon plunged its gaping jaws toward me.

Then, a squeal of pain. A torrent of steaming hot blood.

With all the strength I could muster, I tossed my head aside, alleviating the weight from my brow. A dark hole glistened in the dragon’s throat. The blood streaming down my face sizzled, staining my fur. The pain was enough to bring tears to my eyes, but I didn’t care. The dragon had impaled itself on the only physical aspect I had inherited from my mother—my spiraling, opalescent unicorn horn, now glistening a violent red.

As the dragon gurgled and choked on its blood, I scrambled to my feet. The other dragons were just seconds away from crashing down on me. I broke into a run, but my slow start had given them the advantage. Teeth clasped over my haunch and raked right down to my ankle. I gritted my teeth and ran harder despite the pain. Looking over my shoulder, I sweltered with a flash of worry at how close they were. Then to my surprise, they skidded to a halt, tearing up grass and tripping over each other.

It should have occurred to me why they stopped, but I only felt relief.

Relief until the ground vanished under my feet.

Suddenly, I was hurtling through the air, my heart leaping into my lungs as I sought an explanation for the weightlessness in my body. Wide-eyed, I watched the ground drop into grassy ridges below, the forest teetering on a mountainside that I hadn’t realized I was approaching. Then in the span of my next heartbeat, my body hit the slope, agony exploded through me, and I rolled down the incline, bouncing off the grass and rocks. Everything around me blurred together as I made my descent. It felt like it took minutes for me to descend the mountainside, each thump another firework of worsening pain when in reality, it must have only taken about thirty seconds for me to come to a stop in a patch of leafy brambles. I lay there on a ledge, dizzy, as I stared up at where I had fallen from. The faint moonlight illuminated the dragons looking over the ledge, searching for me. They flared their wings and took off, flying overhead. But they must not have seen me because they proceeded further down the mountainside while I lay still, stunned by the fall.

The longer I lay there, the greater the chance of them finding me. They would be able to smell my blood. I had to move.

With a sharp inhale through my teeth, I got to my stomach and tried to stand. My legs trembled, my ribs screaming in pain. I wouldn’t be able to go far, and for a moment, I thought I was absolutely screwed. I hadn’t been paying attention to where I was running, and it would be the death of me. Just a moment’s ignorance would end my life and rip away any chance I had of finding and rescuing my mother until I recognized the dark crevice beside me.

There was a hole among a tangle of roots beneath a tree firmly anchored in the mountainside. I staggered into the hole, cramming myself as tightly as I could into the darkness before turning around and staring out into the night.

The dragons soared up and down the mountainside, searching. They screeched and hissed to one another, uttering draconic noises of frustration while distantly, I thought I heard a couple of lupine barks. Maybe it was my imagination. For all the dragons knew, I could have broken my bones and died somewhere further down the mountain. But they couldn’t see me. They hovered above the brambles saturated with my scent but couldn’t land without injuring themselves in the thorns and dense undergrowth. Most likely, they would wait until sunrise, when the light of their Sun God would allow them to pick me out of the vegetation. I wasn’t going to wait that long.

With a deep breath in, I closed my eyes and focused on all the injuries I had accrued in the minutes spanning my flight. My magic wasn’t strong enough to heal me entirely. The blood smeared across my body—the dragon’s blood on my face, my own blood seeping out of my shorn haunch—was slowly poisoning me. I couldn’t even groom myself clean, or else I’d suffer even worse effects from ingesting blood. But I could at least mend the worst of my injuries so I could flee from here while it was still dark.

A gentle tingling flushed through my body. The ribs I had landed on, surely fractured by the impact, throbbed and warmed. My magic was summoned from the well of my unicorn horn, rushing through my veins and creeping into my muscles. The bones fused back together. And while I knew I still had manual healing to do, at least now I wouldn’t be suffering from sharp, stabbing pains any time I tried to walk. My ankle, which had been twisted sharply, cracked back into place. The gash on my temple bridged the flesh until it was closed and no longer bleeding.

For long minutes, I lay there and allowed my magic to repair what it could. The heavy wingbeats of the dragons slowly faded, their claws scrabbling up the mountainside. They would be back before long. I had to move quickly if I wanted to avoid being trapped here.

I swallowed my agony and extracted myself from the hole. Limbs still shaking, I shrank underneath the brambles, enduring their prickly tangle until I came out on the other side adorned in leaves and twigs. Then, with careful steps, I continued to climb down the ridge back to the even ground. I was forced to look up and around me, like a mouse ever vigilant for the talons of raptors. Every now and then, a draconic shadow passed across the stars.

Finally, I made it into the valley and dragged myself through the trees. The sound of a creek was music to my ears. Its gentle babbling ushered me forth until, at long last, I saw the starlight glinting off the surface of ambling water. With a sigh, I stopped at its bank, bent my head, and drank, soothing my dry throat. But thirst wasn’t my main concern. I had to clean the blood off of me.

The ice-cold water was a reprieve against my sore feet. I had been running for so long that I didn’t even realize how tired my feet were and how nice the numbing sensation would be.

In the water, I rinsed all the sick, sticky crimson out of my fur, bathing under the starlight. I wasn’t safe. There were always eyes on me. But for that moment, at least, I felt like I could wash away the evil and corruption of the dragons that sought to kill me. My anger was soothed.

Then on the other side of the creek, the shadows took shape again.

I could never truly be alone.