I have no idea what lurks on the other side, I’ll be happy to leave the nagas’ forests behind me. I take a deep breath of the perfumed air and smile at the sight of the towering stone. Grimsal catches my expression and grins up at me as he jogs at a casual pace beside us.
“Relieved to be leaving the naga lands, are you?” he teases.
“As pretty as it is, it’s not exactly where I would want to make my vacation home,” I reply tartly. “I’m just thankful that we haven’t run into any others. One naga is more than enough to last me for a lifetime.”
For me as well, Eliph mutters, his ears twisting back and to the side, listening. I will be happy when we finally cross into the mountains.
I stretch a little to ease the tightness in my lower back and frown at the mountain in front of us.
“Do you think we’ll be there tomorrow?”
His nostrils expand, scenting the air as he does every so often, and he gives a jerky nod of his head, his silky mane fluttering over my hands.
Yes. I suspect we will be in the mountains sometime tomorrow afternoon or early evening at the latest.
I pass that information to the goblin, and he just grimaces and nods his head in agreement.
“We might even arrive a bit earlier—barring any sort of disaster, that is,” he adds.
“Don’t go saying shit like that! What’s wrong with you?” I demand. “For fuck’s sake, does no one know the rules around here?”
He scratches his jaw and glances over at Eliph. “I didn’t know that there were all that many rules for speaking, aside from the grammatical ones that we just leave and take as we like. And, of course, for the use of names because that can be some powerful magic, there.”
“Saying bad things and sending out that intention into the universe will bring that bad shit right on you,” I explain.
How can magical beings not know this? Worse, he’s looking at me like I’ve just spouted nonsense compared to all the shit that he spews regularly.
He snorts and shakes his head, his eyes dancing with amusement as he shakes a finger at me.
“Not unless you put some power behind it. Words can do all that if you bespeak it. I did not, so there’s nothing to worry about,” he replies helpfully. “If you are interested in learning a bit about magic, this is a fine time to start, what with the unicorn magic flowing through you. After this bond is done away with, you might retain enough glimmer to be able to use it.”
I draw up short. Do magic? Me? Sure, my sister has her tarot cards, but I always considered myself the practical one who didn’t need magic and fantasy to get by when hard work just does fine. But it speaks to something within me that remembers that yearning for the magical and impossible before my father got sick, when I realized that there was no magic that would keep him with me. He was no longer at my side as we walked on the park trails searching for signs of unicorns. He’d been the one to read to me of the legends and nurtured my belief in magic.
After he died, he took my belief with him. There was no more magic, just the part-time job after school that I took to help Mama pay the bills. The only magic I believed in was the love Mama and Daddy shared, and Darrel did a fine job of stealing that.
I know that kind of miraculous, all-powerful magic is just a dream. Even Eliph admitted that he couldn’t outright heal someone like that. But I can’t deny that I still want it. I can feel something restless within me that’s eager to burst free, a powerful spark deep within me that’s so alien it scares me as much as it entices. It may be a silly thing to waste time on when we are clearly in a hurry with something far more important. But if that kind of magic is real, perhaps the sort of love I hoped to have is real too?
There is no shame in wishing for magic, Eliph murmurs.
As usual he knows exactly what’s going on in my head when he’s in this form due to what he calls the telepathic links that the fetch form manifests with other unicorns. Since I’m his mate, that means me too. Unlike other times, however, this time