Skandar and the Unicorn Thief: Chapters 16–22

If that wasn’t enough to think about, soon all the Hatchlings were flying—though Skandar, Flo, Bobby, and Mitchell still felt pretty smug that they’d flown before their first lesson.

From the stables a querying pulse nudged on the bond—Scoundrel’s way of asking him what was wrong.

The unicorns weren’t confined to one of the four elemental training grounds like usual.

Skandar was completely taken aback. He’d been expecting Amber to use air—her allied element—but she’d chosen earth instead.

Amber had followed her missiles upward, but as Scoundrel dodged them, all the anger Skandar had been suppressing bubbled to the surface.

For a fleeting moment he didn’t care if they were seen; he didn’t think about Joby’s warnings.

“All I’m hearing are excuses,” the voice boomed. “In my first sky battle I was over the line in ten seconds.” Then, very quietly: “Maybe there’s more of that revolting spirit wielder father in you than I thought.”

Flo turned Blade sharply in the air, her palm glowing green, and before Briar’s back feet had even left the ground, a mound of thick mud smashed into her, accompanied by a thick flurry of sand.

Unfortunately, Mitchell seemed to be finding it harder than he’d anticipated to miss the Qualifiers. When the Eyrie bells rang for the start of the day, he was already awake in his hammock, looking wistfully up at the treehouse ceiling.

Skandar got down on his knees and sifted his fingers through the spring grass, mainly finding soil and the occasional earthworm.

As Skandar tried to think how the entrance might work, he absentmindedly traced the circular grooves of the symbol, as though he was sketching.

Just in time, the quartet bunched in a tight circle on top of the grass-covered base, and it plunged down into the dark. All four of them screamed at the top of their lungs, like they were on a roller coaster. Skandar’s stomach swooped and his cheeks wobbled at the sheer speed of the drop into the abyss.

Messy scrawls in white paint—words, diagrams, and crossings-out—covered every surface: the walls, the floors, even the trophy cabinet.

In places the writing became so spiky and illegible that it looked like it’d been done by a toddler with a piece of chalk.

It didn’t help that the Hatchlings started splintering off into elemental groups before and after training sessions.

“I need to go over my tactics. Can’t we have an Eyrie tour another time? Like, after the most important race of our lives?”

The Eyrie was still in complete disarray when the quartet snuck off for the graveyard before sunset.

The graveyard where his mum was buried on the Mainland had an elaborate wrought-iron gate. One of his first memories was Kenna showing him the metal roses and birds twisted into the bars.

Some had trunks blanketed with algae that looked like it belonged in a pond rather than on a tree, with seaweed for leaves, and pink and orange flowers like sea anemones swishing eerily in the breeze.

A large globule of unicorn saliva hit his cheek, and Skandar became dimly aware of Scoundrel’s Luck chewing on a clump of his hair—mercifully, still attached to his head.

“Oh. No. I guess not, then…,” Skandar rambled.

“Are you really going to battle me, Mitchster?” she jeered, and raised a palm to attack.

In a split second Mitchell switched to the earth element and threw a barrage of rocks downward.

He vaulted off Scoundrel, discarded his helmet, and ran toward Flo crouching beyond the finishing line; she was trying to make herself heard over the cheering of the oblivious crowd.

Where Fourpoint and the Eyrie were lush and healthy, the Wilderness was barren and desolate. Clusters of leafless trees punctured a plain scorched with elemental magic.

Joby’s hair was out of its ponytail, hanging long and lank around his face.

“How fortuitous that you brought the rest of your quartet with you, spirit wielder. An air wielder”—Bobby growled so low she sounded like Falcon—“and a fire wielder too. Along with Silver Blade and New-Age Frost, I’ve gathered a full elemental set.”

“What does your name matter to me?” the Weaver rasped. “In a few minutes you’ll be dead and your name will be of no consequence.”

“You are my blood, my kin, my son. Join me, Skandar. Together we can promise everyone a unicorn, destiny be damned.”

He saw the suffering of the wild unicorns etched across human faces—mortality and immortality weaved together to live in desolate disharmony.

“You’re never going to replace her,” Skandar said. “However many bonded unicorns you steal. However many wild unicorns you shackle to people desperate to be riders. However powerful you become. The truth is, Erika, you can’t ever get Blood-Moon back. You can’t. And your unicorn would never have wanted this life for you. She would have been so disappointed—and so am I.”

You’ve been indoctrinated by the Eyrie, the Council, the Silver Circle. Look how quick they were to enlist my sister as the Executioner, to turn on the spirit wielders, to keep them out of the Hatchery like all the others they consider unworthy of a unicorn.

Once the light had wrapped round the unstable bond, Skandar’s fingers danced through the air as though he was playing an invisible instrument. And when the bond snagged, he moved his wrist this way and that as though he was sketching.

Their riders blinked in surprise, looking up as though they were waking from a long and fitful sleep.

The earth shook and the air filled with raw magic—not the refined elemental magic of the bonded unicorns, not the unfocused blasts wild unicorns normally made, but all five elements combined in pulses of primal power, explosions of color and smells and forms that Skandar had never seen.

The Weaver had been bonded to more than one unicorn—even New-Age Frost had been expendable.

“I’m assuming you’ll want something in return,” Aspen said shrewdly, moving toward Scoundrel and crossing her arms.

“We’re agreed, then? The spirit wielders go free and I’m allowed to train openly in the spirit element, as well as the other four.”
Aspen nodded grudgingly. “Only if you manage to fix our bond. If you can’t, the deal’s off.”

He turned his attention to the link between the human and unicorn souls—frayed, damaged, but fundamentally intact.

Instead, they took off from the tree-covered hill and flew Scoundrel, Falcon, Blade, and Red over the cracked earth of the Wilderness, relieved to leave it behind as the ground beneath them became lush and green once again.