The Unicorn Legacy: Tangled Magic by Kamilla Benko

Author:Kamilla Benko
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781547608836
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2024-01-08T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Unkempt Woods had been properly named. Unlike the Endless, with its ancient oaks and clearings, the Unkempt Woods was a knot of brush and thorns. But Olivia knew how to read a forest floor, and Tourmaline’s path was as clear to her as any sentence. She followed the Gemmer’s trail of snapped twigs and crushed sorrel, bleeding hearts, and alum-root until she arrived at the foot of an old stone wall. Though it was three times Olivia’s height, she didn’t spot it until she stood only a few feet away. Ivy hung heavy on its stones, and the wood of a single arched door had silvered with age.

It was the perfect place to hide, and without another thought, Olivia pushed her way into the walled garden. Except it wasn’t a garden at all.

It was a graveyard.

Goose bumps prickled down her arms as Olivia took in the moss-covered tombstones and cracked mausoleums. The air here felt ancient, like time had gone soft around the edges. Like maybe things buried in the ground might not always stay in the ground.

Olivia pulled her sling from her Spinner’s kit. Just in case. She began to explore, pausing occasionally to read the names. The farther in she went, the older the dates, until she reached a section where the grave markers were so old, wind and time had wiped them clean. Still, there was no sign of Tourmaline.

The closest thing she saw to another living human was a statue of a lady and a bridled unicorn. The lady’s braids and curls tumbled down her back. Her garb was that of long ago, the founding days, when draped togas were in style, and the sculptor had carved a thousand pleats into the stone. The unicorn’s neck arched over the lady’s shoulder, protecting his rider from the skeleton creature at its hooves. Intrigued, Olivia crouched to take a closer look, wondering what it was supposed to be. It was about the height of a tall goose, with arms absurdly long for its body. The sculptor had given it a thin, serpentine neck. A neck that now twisted toward Olivia.

It wasn’t a statue, after all.

Olivia screamed as bone scraped against rock and the monster leaped onto the marble unicorn. Balancing on the unicorn’s head, it spread its arms wide, each one six feet in length and ending in sharp points. Its skull, though small, protruded forward into a hooked beak. Its neck swiveled again, and without soft tissue, vertebrae clattered against each other as the creature fixed empty eye sockets on Olivia.

Olivia trembled at the macabre sight, but she managed to fit her thimble into her sling and whirl it around her head.

Any second, the skeleton would leap.

Any second, those claws would tear into her, shredding flesh into ribbons.

Any second . . .

But now several seconds had passed, and the skeleton stayed where it was. Staring at her. Olivia knew she should let the thimble fly and run, but she couldn’t. So far, the skeleton had done nothing but look at her.

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