Page 42 of Unicorn Shifter Academy
“Sir,” a student with blue eyes said before scampering off.
I supplied orders to the others, mostly because I needed them busy and distracted while I dealt with the Elders.
If only the Elders believed in me like my students did.
Their eagerness reminded me of my brother—when he’d once respected me.
We’d only been children back then. Innocent and blissfully unaware of the weight of responsibility that would be on our shoulders.
Sebastian resented me for many reasons and because I’d walled myself off from him long ago.
I had my secrets, secrets that could never be revealed.
That was the burden I bore to ensure he and the others of my kind were safe.
The appearance of the female threatened everything—but it also provided an opportunity.
I had my suspicions that Unicorn Shifters could mate without losing our powers. Our kind would be unstoppable if we didn’t have to rip out our souls and live half-lives just for the sake of our Purity magic.
There had to be a better way.
And the female could be the key to everything I had been trying to achieve for over a century.
Raze was ten times my senior, and he wasn’t Master of the Academy—or even something greater—because he preferred working on his own.
He rejected recognition of any sort.
Even after his involvement with Calamity.
But he was still the most ancient and powerful Unicorn Shifter among us, aside from the Elders, meaning he was the perfect candidate to test my theory.
Yet I wasn’t the only one interested in the female’s power. The forest had come alive when Raze brought her to our realm. I’d felt the shift in the forest’s magic like a shockwave, and I felt the change still going on.
She disrupted the balance by merely existing.
Which meant that Calamity would want her.
Calamity—a force dealt with long ago, could never be truly extinguished.
That’s why it had once been contained in the Ruins.
Calamity was chaos, death, and darkness.
It thrived on imbalance, and it had left a little gift for us that kept on giving.
Corruption.
That female had brought it into my home, but that was precisely how I would keep her a secret.
I did love my secrets, after all.
Stepping onto the communication platform, I activated the crystals with a single thought.
While in human form, I didn’t have a horn. Still, I felt the phantom surge of power across the scar on my forehead as Purity magic from all the Unicorn Houses ran through my veins.
I stood at the top Command Spire where windows on all sides allowed me to see through to the training grounds.
Each held a Containment Crystal continually fueled by the students of each House. It made the Academy vital for our continued survival because it wasn’t just a place where our youngest among us were trained.
