When they arrived at Coral Wing the two young
unicorns were crowned King and Queen of the open
sea. The very next day they led an expedition of soldiers
to the western reaches of their realm to see what could
be set right. The coast had always been a place that fish
feared to go—the tower of the magician had long cast a
dark shadow over the shoals. The only inhabitants
among the shipwrecks that lined the rocky seafloor were
criminals and outcasts, fish who had nowhere else to go
and nothing to lose.
The outcasts fled or hid from the unicorns, for a
guilty heart cannot abide true beauty. One haggard
creature alone remained to see the King and Queen, his
eyes bloodshot, his face hollow and emaciated. The
soldiers offered him an apple but the outcast withdrew
from the gift as though it was a poisonous serpent.
The creature ranted incoherently about visions of
winged carnivores dragging him from the water to tear
his body limb from limb, and of the magician and his
endless apple orchards, and of two children in a boat. In
one breath he accused the King and Queen themselves
of dooming him to his madness; in the next breath he
begged that they put him out of his misery.
The creature was escorted back to Coral Wing. The
King and Queen ordered that he be sequestered in a
secure room—he was too deranged to set free, yet too
sick of mind to mercilessly confine to a prison cell. He
was given all the apples a fish could have hoped for, but
he never ate a single one. Day and night the creature lay
awake, wide-eyed, and cried to those outside his locked
