Casey Byrne felt too inadequate to ever see a unicorn. Unicorns didn’t visit bakers’ apprentices like him. His life had been full of surprises since he began his journey with the knights. Now he had to reevaluate everything.

The elder of the two knights, Sir Colm, said, “Take a look there, quietly.” The evening sun set in the distance, casting long, sanguine light between the trees of the forest.

Casey stopped walking to keep himself from making noise. He stopped breathing, even, and looked into the clearing. Polychromatic light shimmered on the fringes of the unicorn’s coat. Several nobles stood around the mythical being, and behind them waited the wagons, trailers, and horses of a long caravan.

“That caravan,” Colm whispered, “it belongs to the Guarantors. They deliver sacrifices to the dragon Rey Polilla to keep the world safe, to guarantee it. Rey Polilla has terrorized many people into paying him tribute this way.”

“What are they doing with a unicorn?” Casey asked.

“Imagine being the sole nobleman to brag about giving Rey Polilla a unicorn. This nobleman who captured it is about to acquire serious clout among his peers.”

“That’s—” Casey stopped himself from saying more. In his heart, he knew that giving a unicorn to Rey Polilla was an inappropriate thing to do. Unicorns deserved and needed their freedom. Only an upside-down world possessed the perverse incentives to make a nobleman do this. “Rey Polilla must be very powerful,” Casey said.

Colm looked down from his horse and nodded. The three men said no more and bore silent witness to the scene unfolding in the clearing.

[https://i.imgur.com/xtTkGId.jpg]

“It just isn’t fair,” a young girl said as she gripped the head of the animal. She held it close with affection, and the unicorn tilted its head toward her to accept her love. She stood out from the nobles, being the only girl, and possessing coppery hair and porcelain skin.

“It’s the most splendid catch I’ve ever made,” another noble said. He held his helmet in his arm, and his red hair took the light of the setting sun. He reached out to pet the unicorn, but it leaned away from him. From the authority in his voice and his closeness to the girl, Casey assumed the nobleman to be her father.

“You didn’t catch him; he came to me, like he always does, and you surprised him. Now he has a harness and reins like some draft horse for the grubby people who work in our yard. You’re going to sacrifice him to Rey Polilla, aren’t you? Like all your best hunts.”

“Now, now, there’s no reason to be dour about it,” he consoled her. “Everything in the world serves a purpose. The peasants tend crops in their fields, the men-at-arms battle in theirs, and the finest things in the world we give to our lord, Rey Polilla, to keep us humble.”

He took the unicorn by the reins and led it away from his daughter. Even from a distance, Casey could see the distress building in her. She clenched her teeth, and a subtle tremble in her arms betrayed her agitation.

“You’re the most beautiful thing in the world,” the nobleman said to the unicorn, “and you’re going to the highest good in the land, to Rey Polilla.”

“Rey Polilla doesn’t deserve a unicorn,” she said in spite.

“Mind your tongue and don’t be a brat.” The man looked over his shoulders to see if anyone heard her blasphemy. “What a dangerous age to have a teenage daughter! Rey Polilla has eyes and ears across the country, and if anyone catches you being insufficiently reverent of him, they could take you away. We could lose our guarantee of safety in a moment of blasphemy. We live in his service now, even if he is a dragon.”

Casey could tell by the sadness on the girl’s lower lip that she remembered an age before Rey Polilla, before worshipping a dragon in fear. Casey had come from a distant town where the dragon’s influence was not so strong. He’d joined two knights in their quest to slay the dragon, and as they traveled eastward, the power of Rey Polilla became more evident.

The red-haired nobleman placed his helmet on his head and guided the unicorn toward the caravan. His daughter crossed her arms and watched for a moment, until her upset grew too large to contain. “You’re a monster! You’re a monster for what you’re doing to that poor unicorn!” As soon as she screamed, another nobleman seized her by the arms and gave her a stern glare. No violence had to happen; everyone understood the power dynamic that Rey Polilla established in this land. The sacrifices had to be made, and her words had to be reverent of the process. She swallowed back her emotions and called out bitterly, “Hail Rey Polilla! Power and glory to the one who grants us life, this day.” The nobleman released her from his grip and joined the caravan. She wiped tears from her eyes, being powerless to this culture—for now.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The other nobles left the scene to tend the caravan, leaving her behind with her thoughts. She looked up and made eye contact with Casey. The sight of her upset made him stare, but she caught him. Their eyes locked, and he understood something primitive that transcended caste.

“Come on,” Colm said as he turned his horse away from the scene. “We’re going to get roped into this if we don’t move.”

Casey followed behind Sir Colm and Sir Ryan, but he couldn’t help looking over his shoulder to see if the girl watched him still. She looked at him from the clearing, surely memorizing the colors of their horses and other details about them.

“Too many maidens, too many maidens,” the younger knight, Ryan, said. He petted his horse on the back of its head and neck. “So few heroes.”

“Then it’s as desperate as you say, the kingdom really is gripped by Rey Polilla?” Casey asked.

“The closer we get to castle town Cronine, where the dragon has made its nest, the greater the sacrifices are. The king is powerless. The wealthiest nobles live there and make the largest sacrifices. A single unicorn is trivial, but that girl had eyes to drag us in. If we’re to stand a chance against Rey Polilla, we can’t be seen approaching. We can’t meddle. We can’t be known.”

“Why do you care so much?” Casey asked innocently.

“Because I’m a wealthy noble and I want to keep my wealth,” Colm said without hesitation.

“What about virtue? Chivalry? Don’t you see how Rey Polilla is perverting everything that’s good?”

Colm held his peace for a moment as he thought of a response. “Forgive me for being brash. I thought I’d answer in a material way that a bakers’ apprentice such as yourself might understand.”

Ryan said, “If we’re going to give him any meaningful instruction, we have to teach him virtues, too.” He paused his horse and dismounted. “For the time being, I’m sure your feet are tired. I’d be honored if you’d ride instead of me for now.”

With a breath of relief, Casey mounted Ryan’s horse. “Thank you.” Ryan walked beside his horse, and the men journeyed on.

“And yes,” Colm finally added, “Rey Polilla has polluted the soul of the land, as you intuited. We’re trying to fix that. There were kinder, nobler days in our youth. We want them back, but that means reorienting everyone in the land to the real good. That can’t happen as long as Rey Polilla lives.”

The sun continued its descent until its red beams across the forest floor extinguished themselves. A nearly-full moon illuminated the path now. The two knights and their bakers’ apprentice arrived at a gatehouse in the crossroads. Beyond this point lay the town Hairbryn, which the river had turned into a hub of fishing and transporting goods. Torches illuminated the gatehouse, and several men-at-arms stood on each side of its iron gate. Before Casey and the knights could reach the gatehouse, the caravan of Guarantors rolled in from a converging road.

Inconvenienced, Casey muttered, “The Cult of Rey Polilla has cut us off.”

“Mind what you say out loud,” Colm reminded him. Even as they despised the Guarantors, Colm always insisted on remaining safe and discrete by respecting them verbally.

The caravan of vehicles rolled through the forest, crushing twigs and weeds along the way. The noise became too loud to speak over until the caravan came to a stop at the gatehouse. Seven wagons, three trailers, and two carts comprised the bulk of it. Horses pulled the wagons and trailers, and several mules pulled carts.

Noblemen in fine tunics—embroidered and custom fitted—descended from their steering seats to pee, stretch, and speak to the guards at the gateway. The red-haired noble emerged from the first wagon and unfolded a letter in front of a guard. Casey thought nothing of it until the guards and the red-haired noble pointed in his direction.

“We’re just going to have to investigate them, Reamonn,” the first guard said to the red-haired noble.

“That’s the man who caught the unicorn,” Casey said to the knights at his side.

“It looks like they might want to capture more than that,” Ryan said. Both Ryan and Colm remained on their horses.

“You there!” the guard yelled as he approached. His armor clinked and clanked as he walked closer. “I’ll need to know your identities to let you pass!”

Colm produced several papers and handed them down to the approaching guard, who read them with a heavy brow.

“Says here that the king sent you on a quest to find the legendary Casey Byrne,” the guard said. He cast a glance at Casey. Several more guards left the gatehouse and stood behind the first one. They stood in the light of a torch, their armor gleaming orange from the fire.

“He is indeed the legend,” Colm said. “The only Casey Byrne.”

“He can answer to the king after he’s answered to our law,” the guard said as he passed the papers back to Colm.

“What?” Colm asked as he swiped back the papers. “What for?”

The guard laughed as if Colm should know, as if everyone in Hairbryn knew. “Casey Byrne is a wanted man. I have several Guarantors claiming that he stole two horses in one swipe from the caravan. Now you’ve shown up with Casey Byrne and two handsome horses that fit the description. This is only his latest crime. He ate at The Hog and Apple without paying, and there must have been a hundred witnesses to that. Not a day goes by that something doesn’t go missing and the owner says he saw Casey Byrne take it.” The guards stared down Casey and his fellow knights with hard eyes. They hovered their hands near their hips, where the hilts of their short swords waited. One guard leaned upon his halberd, the late hour fatiguing him.

“There must be a mistake.”

“No mistake,” the guard yelled this time, “Casey Byrne has to answer for stealing, especially for stealing horses designated for Lord Rey Polilla. His crimes are legendary. Hairbryn has a thousand stories about his heists; he can’t be trusted to roam loose.”

Casey’s heart sank with dread and discouragement. Stories of his antics had spread before, but they had never been unkind stories. Not yet. He’d lived the life of an epicurean in his local pub, and his antics had become legendary, but he’d never been called a thief. Only here, in Hairbryn, did the stories of him metamorphose into something this wicked. For every step the story of Casey Byrne had traveled, it had grown into the monster it was meant to become.

“It’s time to step aside,” the first guard insisted.

“I’ll do no such thing!” Colm yelled as he maneuvered his horse between the guards and Casey. The guard with the halberd lunged it over Colm, hooked it on his shoulder, and pulled him down from his horse. “Get out of here, Casey! You have to make it to Cronine!”