Free The Paladin Caper by Patrick Weekes Page B

until something absolutely terrible happens and then get the full story,” Desidora asked, “or could you save time and fill me in right now?”
    Ululenia’s wings flapped once, tightly, as they slid between the branches of the tallest trees in the canyon. A moment later, they were coming up on the ground. Ululenia flapped again, slowing their descent, and Desidora let go as Ululenia’s talons loosened, landing in a crouch with no more impact than if she’d jumped from a table. Ululenia herself landed in her natural form, a snowy-white unicorn whose horn shone in all the colors of the rainbow. The black mark still rode her flank, a black mask from which rose a pair of antlers.
    My people are the leftover energy of the ancients’ magic, she said to Desidora as she looked around the little clearing where they had landed. We are alive. We eat and we sleep, as other living creatures do.
    The clearing was near the river, and Desidora could hear the gentle rush of the water not far away. The ground was bare, and the trees overhead stretched and spread in their fight for what little natural light the canyon offered. “Yes,” said Desidora, when it became clear that Ululenia needed prodding. “I remember the first time we met. We ate in that restaurant owned by Loch’s old friend. You had catfish. I had expected a unicorn to avoid eating meat.”
    The wolf and the jaguar are creatures of this world, as are men, Ululenia said, and most eat meat, as is their nature. There is nothing strange in me doing the same. She paused, then started forward, horn shining gently on a trail leading away from the river. There is but one thing our kind cannot consume without changing who and what we are.
    “Each other,” Desidora guessed, following behind Ululenia.
    We can grow stronger by taking in the power of another, as the creature I fought did, and as I did when I killed him. They . . . we . . . are known as the dark fey. Ululenia paused, and then added, We do not mean it as a racial judgment.
    Desidora laughed, and Ululenia looked back over her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” Desidora said, “but you’re telling me that you’ve consumed the essence of another fairy creature and that doing so has changed you, and your major concern is that I might think the name has troubling racial implications?”
    Ululenia’s ears flicked back in annoyance. I am not judging you being a death priestess again.
    “I will try to avoid judging you as well,” Desidora said with a smile, and in a softer voice, added, “and I am sorry. That must be very difficult.”
    Ululenia shook her mane. It is not what I would have chosen.
    “I felt much the same when I was chosen as a death priestess,” Desidora said, and remembered the tears, the prayers. “However it came to pass, you cannot be something you hate.”
    You have learned to stop hating your power?
    Desidora smiled at the unicorn before her. “It is a tool. I don’t love it, but I can use it when I need it, then put it away when I don’t.” She let it slide away from her completely, and for a moment, in her thoughts, she was a love priestess again, feeling the countless auras of people and things everywhere searching for companionship and acceptance. “I know who I am.”
    As do I. I will survive. Ululenia looked ahead again, then whickered. Light played around her, and when it cleared, she was a woman in a pale-white gown, horn sparkling on her forehead. “We will need to move quietly.”
    Desidora followed behind her. They kept to the trail for a few minutes—and trail was a generous term for what was more likely just an animal track leading to the river, a patch of lighter pink in the faint red light of the walls—and then came out of the trees into a more open area.
    “I can feel it more clearly,” Ululenia whispered, frowning. “Oh dear.”
    “Share.” Desidora stretched out her own senses. The air went chilly around her, and the scrubby little bushes by her feet curled into