Page 149 of First Light
“What did you do?” Dread snaked through Carys’s stomach, and a horrified realization dawned in her mind. “She was your best friend.”
Aisling bared her teeth. “I threw that journal in the loch, weighed it down with stones! Younevershould have looked for it, you stupid woman!”
Nêrys, where are you?
“Cadell?” Her neck whipped around the clearing, searching for his voice. “Cadell!”
The shadows were darker and deeper. The air was silent, and the space between the trees seemed to shrink until there was no way between them.
She looked back at Aisling. “What’s happening? What are you doing?”
“I didn’t know what she might have written.” Aisling’s knuckles were bloodless as she gripped her blade. “It was in Cymric, and I couldn’t read it. I couldn’t take the chance.”
There was a dull roar like beating wings in the distance and a growing thunder as lightning cracked overhead.
“Take what chance?” Silent tears fell from Carys’s eyes. “Chance what, Aisling? Please don’t say?—”
“Oh gods!” Aisling’s face flickered between fear, guilt, and pure rage. “What did you do, Carys? What did you?—”
“Shut up, you idiot.” Regan stormed out from behind a standing stone, crossed the meadow, and struck Aisling across the cheek, sending the young woman to the ground where she lay still.
“You.” Carys turned in circles as Regan raised a hand to her. “You were in Anglia when she died.”
Regan smiled. “You think I killed her?” She whispered something under her breath.
Carys tried to run, but her feet felt rooted to the ground. The air around her grew foggy and dull, and the roaring in the distance fell silent.
Regan sighed and walked to Carys. “You’re more like your sister than I realized, you persistent, annoying bitch.” She raised her hand again, and Carys braced for a physical blow, but instead, everything went black.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
When Carys woke, she was in a stone chamber with no windows and only a few candles lit. There was a fire burning in a corner fireplace, and a dark figure hunched over it.
She wasn’t bound, but she was sitting in a chair and her legs felt heavy, as if weights had been tied around her feet. “Where am I?”
The dark figure in the corner moved, but it didn’t speak.
There was a scuttling along the wall beside her, a clicking sound somewhere behind, and Carys turned her head to see what was there, but nothing permeated the relentless darkness of the cave. There was a faint blue light coming from somewhere, but nothing in her line of sight was clear. It was as if a filter had been cast over her eyes.
“Where did you bring me?” Her vision wasn’t the only thing that was foggy. Her limbs were heavy, and her reflexes were dull. Her own voice sounded like it was coming from a great distance.
“Did you… drug me?”
“No.” It was nearly a whisper. “This will help you.”
Carys blinked and saw a sturdy wooden table in the middle of the room. On it was a candlestick, an open book, and a basket.
Aisling’s basket.
“Aisling?” Carys looked up and saw that the blue lights were wisps caught along the low ceiling of the cave, dancing and flying around the room, blinking in no particular pattern.
Souls. Little souls of the lost. Wild twins lost to the fae, consumed to feed their magic. Carys felt tears come to her eyes.
“If you’re going to kill me, just do it.” She’d be with her mother. Her father. Maybe with the sister she’d never known.
Would Lachlan and Duncan know what had happened to her, or would she just disappear? Laura and Kiersten would go crazy, but who else would care? She had no family. No job. No students. The college would hire someone to fill her position. They’d forget about her eventually.
The heavy weight of despair made her head slump to the side.