Again she crests the white hillocks and traipses the winding pathway, treacherous and hidden. Through the crack they had meandered, a seemingly useless split in the stone effacements of the mountain that was truly a covert path upwards into their clandestine hold, a large portion of the admiration she already felt for the coven of unicorns; had Oblivion known of such a fortress, he too would have descended upon it, his knives gleaming and his teeth gnashing and sundering flesh with each grasping reach.

She had loved them, such agents of chaos, and she might love these ones too, but for their odd laws on what flesh was to be claimed and which was to be spared and offered benevolence. Beloved found it wasteful, for she had seen great prowess in beasts bred with mute animals of the wild, such as the wolf-horse or men who were both dragon and pegasus. She did not judge, she only appraised – and she had not the manual that these unicorns were reading.

It was no matter. Beloved could hunt elsewhere, and they truly had only shortened her targets by few withholding only one type of prey. Either way, they could not know what she did outside their watchful gaze, and she did not care if they defended her or not were she caught. Beloved had lived and fought alone before. She almost was better that way.

A disgusted glance is cast behind her to today’s catch, a taste left in her mouth that was so like blood it was difficult to discern if it was truth or merely desire. Would they kill her? Somehow, Beloved doubts this.

She has seen so little death since she has come here, only glimpses that promise their dark fingers to come reaching. She can only pray, she can only wait and hope like a child eager for Christmas morn, spying from afar the gifts that gleam and tease beneath the boughs.

The valley opens broad before them, the shadow of the Sentinel tall and oppressive and beautiful, his brother forming and half shelled nearby. She thinks she sees a figure there, a dark one with markings that match the standing guard, but one can never be sure with her eyes.

They have lied before.

Gently, a lulling call ushers from her lips, a summons to the Lord and Lady within, to those who served their lofty crowns.

Whatever decided who was worthy, anyway? Beloved would outshine them, Beloved could be glorious, too. It was only a matter of the falling bones, the tepid path of fate.

"New blood," she calls, a simple statement, not elegant or played out as that which she had procured for Crown of Blood – but she had liked him, even if he was equally stupid. He’d had enough sense to not threaten her with much more than masculine words.

@[Naira], @[Ulrik]