cover art by omar rayyan

THE SILVER THREAD

  Heart shivered on a high ridge.

   The sun was rising over Lord Dunraven's forest.

  She couldn't see the village of Ash Grove or the Blue River. But she knew where they were-a long day's walk, straight east on the Derrytown road.  Heart stretched, shaking off her dream.

  Every night in the woods, she'd had the same one. In it, she was always running; something was chasing her. She woke every morning to the sound of forest birds singing.  Her pulse would slow and her fear would fade.

  Heart sighed, looking down the slope. The trees spread out in every direction. Lord Dunraven's forests really were endless. Heart wondered, as she did every morning, if Tin Blackaby's men were searching for her.
 

  They had seen her running away from Ash Grove. 
 
  But how important was a ragged girl with a scarred mare and a spindly colt?
 
  Would they care where she went?

  Heart had stayed away from the Derrytown road.  Both Avamir and Moonsilver were white, after all.  Any sharp-eyed traveler might spot them.
 

  Heart glanced at them.  From a distance, they did look like any mare and colt.   They weren't, of course.

  As strange as it still seemed to Heart, they were unicorns. 
  Unicorns!
 

  Heart smiled.
 

  No one back in Ash Grove believed in unicorns even though they all knew the legend about the town's name.
 

  It was an odd story. 

 Storytellers said a unicorn had touched the Blue River with her horn.  The water had exploded into steam so hot that the grove of ancient oaks on the bank had fallen in piles of ash.

  Simon Pratt thought the story was foolishness.
 

  Ruth Oakes had said no one believed it any more.
 

  Heart had thought it sounded like someone's fancy.
   
  Now, she wasn't so sure.

	art by omar rayyan

 She glanced at the unicorns. 

 Avamir had lost her horn somehow. Her

face was scarred.  Moonsilver was

beautiful now,  But he had been born small

and skinny.

  He'd had an odd-looking bulge on his
forehead when they'd run away from Ash
Grove. 

  Heart had been worried the first time
she'd noticed the small, bloody split in
Moonsilver's skin-until she realized it was
his horn pushing through.

  It was growing fast now. The colt
rubbed his forehead on trees constantly,
trying to ease the itching and stinging.

 Heart blinked as the sun edged above the distant mountains.
She missed Ruth Oakes so much.

  Ruth had started teaching her about herbs and healing. She had even paid
Heart to help her with her work.

  "Not that the coins do us any good here," Heart said aloud.

  Heart missed Simon in an odd way, too.

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  Simon had not loved her.

  But maybe he had never loved anyone.  He had fed her and taught her, and for that she was grateful. 

  But he was cruel. If he had gotten his way, the unicorns would have been
slaughtered for a few pennies.

  If Simon had known Avamir and Moonsilver were unicorns, though, he'd
have sold them to Tin Blackaby instead. 

  Heart shivered.  If Blackaby learned the truth, he'd send a hundred men
into the forest.  He'd try to capture the unicorns so he could sell them to
Lord Dunraven.

  "And if Lord Dunraven ever finds out that you're unicorns, he'll have a
thousand men searching," Heart said aloud.

  The only way to stay safe was to stay hidden.

  She changed camps every night.  She kept her cook fires small.

  Avamir shook her mane and made a low, whickering sound. Moonsilver
cantered to stand close beside his mother.

  He was wilder every day, more independent.  

  He had rubbed off the braided-rag halter and lost it on their first day in
the woods. Now, he wouldn't let Heart touch him very often.

  Heart's stomach growled and she sighed.

  The barley she had brought from Simon's house was more than half gone. 
She was trying to make it last.

  She saw rabbits and squirrels, but had no way to hunt them. 

  And winter was coming.

  Soon it would snow and the grass would be buried.  And they had no
shelter from the cold.

  Heart kicked at a loose rock and listened to it rattle its way down the
slope. 

 The mare looked up, then went on with her grazing.

  "What should I do?" Heart asked the sky.
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