A girl Claire’s age stood at a white marble crypt, her mother’s name freshly engraved across it. Her little brother stood beside her, eyes solemn beneath his crop of curls. When the unicorn took a step toward them, the girl turned fierce gray eyes on him. “Go away,” she shouted. “You didn’t save her!” The unicorn did as she requested, knowing grieving hearts needed time to heal and that one day she might come to understand not everyone needed saving.

Death was in Arden. Another graveyard, another funeral: the girl-turned-woman grieved as they now laid her father the king to rest in his grave. That night, the woman stormed at her younger brother, telling him it had to be done. It was the only way. If they didn’t, they would keep losing family. Keep losing friends. The Gemmers were losing too much.

The brother refused and instead called the unicorn with the crystal flute, and together, both creatures fled into the night.

The next time he saw her, she wore the Crown of Arden and led a hunt. She was happy. The legends had been right: anyone who killed a unicorn did live forever. Her armies were undefeated. Her most loyal soldiers now immortal and incapable of leaving her like her parents had done. The unicorn sorrowed. The humans did not yet know the cost.

The unicorn watched as the rumors began to spread: of Gemmer soldiers disappearing overnight. Of whole regiments retreating from the sun. And at the same time, of new and terrible creatures appearing in Arden, monsters as twisted and terrible as the crime they had committed.

The unicorn watched the queen rage fearfully in the night, scrubbing at shadowed spots on her hands that would not come off, no matter how many elixirs and antidotes she tried. The potions and vast amount of unicorn artifacts she wore only slowed down her transformation, but they would not stop it. Each week, she had to add a new ring to her finger, to hide the skin that seemed to have turned into melted shadow.

The unicorn watched from the Needles as Estelle traveled to the Spydens, and one told her how she could stop from turning into a wraith: she needed an exchange of hearts. So the queen decided that she would change out her heart for the most powerful one of all: a unicorn’s heart.

She would live forever. Rule forever. She would walk in sunlight again.

The unicorn watched as the Spyden shared another truth with Estelle: “When the last unicorn with crystal horn is extinguished, the wraiths will no longer have anything to fear, not even the sun.” They would be able to step into the daylight.