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eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: All Esmeralda ever wanted to was to be a priestess of the spring and live in peace with the unicorn. But the men of her world had other ideas of what was right for both of them...

eBook Publisher: Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust, Published: Sword & Sorceress 11, 1994
Fictionwise Release Date: August 2007

14 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [166 KB], eReader (PDB) [15 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [10 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [10 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [63 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [81 KB], hiebook (KML) [55 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [44 KB], iSilo (PDB) [8 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [10 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [43 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [18 KB]
Words: 2967
Reading time: 8-11 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

"Three of all the many unicorn stories I've read in my whole lifetime were memorable. This is one of them."--Marion Zimmer Bradley

Years ago, Esmeralda had lost her heart in a moment of magic, lost it so completely that nothing and no one could lay claim to it again. Even now, her longing burned as strongly as it had when she first saw the unicorn while she was bathing at the Goddess' sacred Virgin Spring. From that moment on, nothing would satisfy her but to have him. But to bind a unicorn took a bridle of gold; then, and now, she had no money to purchase such a thing.

Still, she'd worked hard in those intervening years, hoarding every penny like a treasure, spurred on by repeated glimpses of the beast. He would glide ghostlike through the trees that surrounded the glade of the spring, or stand just out of reach to watch her as she explored the ruins of the Goddess house nearby. Altura had told her that it had once housed the virgin priestesses of the spring. She'd also told her tales of how every year the maidens would come to the spring in hopes of proving themselves worthy of claiming one of the three-year positions as guardians of the shrine.

With a sigh, Esmeralda resigned herself once more to the fact that she would never see her dream fulfilled. She was seventeen, hardly a maidenly age. With her mother gone, everyone urged her to find a young man and marry, but she stubbornly insisted that she would continue her own life, as Altura had lived hers, alone in the forest she loved. After all, she had a perfectly nice stone hut hidden safely away from prying eyes. Furthermore, she would tell those who persisted, she was young and strong, and schooled in a reasonable trade. Why should she shackle herself to a man and be another's servant? And, of course, as long as she stayed in the forest, there was always a chance that she might see the unicorn.