Deep within the ancient bulk of the castle, a strange, misshapen figure crouched by the scullery hearth, tracing runes in the ashes. No one drew near to hear her whispered chants. The cook and all his assistants circled wide as they rushed to prepare hot drinks and a meager breakfast for the fighting men.

At the first stirring of the single uneaten cock, the fay lifted her head and turned eyes like milky opals toward the east. The delicately pointed ears which protruded through her matted amethyst hair quivered. Ember-light reflected dully from the loop of iron around her neck, no thicker than a wire and joined by only a twist of rawhide that even a child could have pulled loose. Purplish discoloration spread across the moony skin from under the wire, leaving cracked, oozing scars. As the fay bent over the ashes once more, the movement shifted her tattered cloak to reveal the wings which hung, crippled, down her back.

With one finger, she traced over the runes, coaxing them from luck to dread and from dread to cowardice and from cowardice to mortal terror. The King had commanded her to work a charm of victory for the morning's battle and so she would, but he had not said whose victory.

The fay did not look up at the sound of boots on the stone stairs. She did not need to, for she could hear in those footsteps the echo of another's tread, the grandsire dead but not forgotten. The door flung open, the cook bowed and drew back as a young woman in half-armor strode it. Her dark hair had been braided tightly against her head and she carried a short sword as if she knew how to use it. Her surcoat bore the King's own arms, with a unicorn as her own insignia. As a child, she had loved unicorns; the fay had seen her watch for them by moonlight and creep out of bed to hear a traveling minstrel sing of them.

"King's-blood," the fay hissed, her purple lips drawing back to reveal needle fangs. "King's-kin, King's-daughter-who-would-be-a-son. What petty errand has he sent you on now?"

Valry King's-daughter lifted her face, pale and resolute. The fay could sense the sadness in her and had tried many times over the years to nurture it into something more, into resentment and bitterness, a canker of malice that would poison everything the princess touched. She had tried without success, as if a unicorn truly stood guardian over the young girl's heart.