Shifter by Kailin Gow Page B

gruesome it was. She set to work with the knife even while tears fell from her eyes, the compulsion that had made her strike holding her there until the golden shaft of the horn sat in her hand, as smeared with blood as the rest of her.
                The unicorn had paid its price. It had given up its life, just like that. Just for her. Briony knelt there, staring at the horn as though seeing it for the first time. She knelt there trying to hold back her tears, trembling violently with the enormity of what she had just done, while Archer and Fallon dragged away the body of the first creature of Palisor. She stared at the horn while they buried it, trying to work out how what she held could possibly be worth what she’d just had to do.
                As a strange but warm sensation flow over her from the unicorn’s goodness and powers, she knew how she had to use it. It was a stake. The stake. One that would give her a chance against Pietre and his vampires without having to call up a threat that would kill all of their kind. She forced herself to stand and looked at Archer. She didn’t know how her face looked right then, but even the dragon seemed nervous.
                “Change back into your dragon form,” Briony commanded. “We have a gate home to find.”
     

 
Chapter 10
     
     
    T hey rose up over the clearing again, clinging tightly to Archer’s back. The dragon’s wings lifted him sharply, leaving the spot where Briony had slain the unicorn behind in a matter of seconds. It couldn’t happen quickly enough for her then, though with the golden horn of the beast pushed into her belt and the creature’s blood still staining her clothing, some parts of the last few minutes weren’t so easy to leave behind.
                “Get us to the gate, Archer,” Briony ordered and the dragon swooped around, heading in the direction that he had been going before they had found the unicorn. That didn’t last for more than a few seconds though because then Archer wheeled around.
                “What is it?” Briony asked him, but flying there, with the head of the scepter around her neck, she knew. She could feel it the same way that she’d been able to feel the gate through to here before. The gate that Archer had found was gone, vanished from the face of Palisor in whatever cycle of appearances and disappearances governed them.
                “No,” Briony said. “No. It can’t be.”
                Archer made a huffing sound, and Briony knew that she’d guessed correctly.
                “What is it?” Fallon asked her.
                “The gate is gone,” Briony said. She wasn’t going to give up that easily though. “Archer, can you find another?”
                The dragon’s head looked around at her and the answer was obvious even to Briony, but she couldn’t give up that easily. Not when Pietre was on the other side, making more vampires. Not when Kevin was on the other side with… with her.
                “Try, Archer,” she insisted, knowing that because it was her asking, the dragon wouldn’t be able to refuse. He was her dragon, and he could no more ignore an order from her than give up breathing.
                Archer roared his displeasure, but he did as Briony commanded, flying out over fields and streams, broken land and marsh, trying to find a way through into Wicked. Into anywhere in the real world. As far as Briony was concerned, even a portal through into Alaska would work, because at least that would be on the right plane of existence. They could deal with getting back to Wicked from there.
                Archer flew on, and on. Behind her, Briony could feel Fallon getting restless.
                “How long are we going to keep going?” he asked. “If the gate’s gone, then…”
                “There will be another gate,” Briony