wildflowers blooming everywhere. Another flash captures my attention, and I gasp as a vividly colored pixie hovers in front of me, staring back at me with equal curiosity until four silvery males with pale wings swam her, humming until she flutters away with her strange swarm around her.
“Pixies,” Beforal says, answering my unspoken question. “Male hives are jealously protective of their queens. The well is just through here,” he says as he steps into a cavern that opens into a wall of pale gray rock.
I slip in after him, hoping like hell that I’m not going to have to descend deep into some dark confines below ground.
To my surprise, it’s nothing like that. Rather than a brutally inhospitable cave, steps are carved into the white stone leading down the side of the wall along a torchlit path. I hear Beforal’s voice echo back to me as he urges me to not lag behind and slowly set out down the stairs until I arrive at another, narrower fissure in a wall of rock. I pass through this too, since I’m already too far down to just give up and crawl back up the steep staircase, but rather than stairs I enter a large, curved room dominated by a giant pool.
“That’s one hell of a well,” I whisper.
“Well, it is a fairly flexible term for what these magical reservoirs actually are, but it works well enough,” Beforal replies behind me, his voice so close that I jump and spin around to face him.
And Eliph. My heart hammers with pleasure at the sight of him, and yet there’s a sinking dread at the solemn expression on his face as he stares back at me. This is no greeting of a lover happy to see me. He is almost distant and there is something wrong with his appearance. His horn doesn’t glow, but there are tiny drops of sparkling water beading all over him.
“What’s going on?” I ask slowly.
Beforal casts a casual look over at my mate. “Eliph is preparing to rejoin the Heart of Wells from which all unicorns come.”
Rejoin the… what?
“Excuse me?” I demand. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? I thought there was no well joining unless his magic withered away before the bond could either be sealed or broken?”
The elder unicorn sighs, and I feel a prickle of anxiety fall over me.
“What is it?”
“Eliph was only partially truthful, it seems. Only a sealed mating would prevent a bonded unicorn from returning to the well. In this case, he will merely return sooner, painlessly rather than suffering as he might in his own grotto. This is the cost of severing the bond.”
I stare at Beforal and then at my mate as the true horror of the situation dawns. Eliph was going to die no matter what happened if I decided not to stay.
“You lied to me? Why?” I demand, my heart fracturing with grief as I watch a drop bead away from his body and drift into the air.
It sparkles like a tiny star before sinking into the glowing pool of water. A sob breaks from me then with the full scope of just how horrible this is, my tears dribbling down my face before they too are drawn to the well with the sparks of magic they contain.
“Because,” Eliph whispers, his voice thin as an echo, “I wanted a real chance to win your heart. I would rather die knowing that I had some time with my mate than die alone and knowing nothing but my solitude. So I tricked you for that chance. Then when the fairies attacked, I had hoped that sealing the bond would protect you from them. But that was selfish and I see that now. I’m sorry, Ahandral.”
I wipe the tears away, my jaw wobbling with unspent grief that I just won’t allow to flow. I know if I break down and really start crying that it will be a while before I stop. And I need to save my mate just as he saved me in so many ways.
“What changed, then? If you thought the bond would be enough to keep me safe why do all of this? I don’t want this. You wanted a chance to win my heart… Mission accomplished. I love you.”
His eyes close as grief strains his expression, making my heart break wider.
“Please don’t tell me that this is where this ends,” I demand, my voice cracking.
“Please don’t cry, my love,” Eliph begs, his ghostly hands reaching out