Page 166 of First Light

“There is a way.” She closed her eyes. “Enough.”

“Aisling?”

Naida shook her head. “She’s dying.”

Aisling’s eyes flickered open again, but there was a blankness behind them. “Lachlan?”

He ran over and dropped to his knees to take her hand. “Stop this. Stop this now, Aisling.” He looked at Naida. “Is it too late?”

Naida said nothing, but she took her hands from Aisling’s body.

The dying woman blinked, staring into the sky. “I’m so sorry, my love.” Tears dripped from the corner of her eyes. “I loved you. Please believe me.”

“I know. I…” Lachlan swallowed back whatever he’d been about to say. “My friend, what would you have me do?”

Aisling smiled a little. “Take me to the loch. Don’t let me die on the earth.”

“But the kelpie.”

Her voice was barely a breath on her lips. “I do not fear him.”

Lachlan fixed his expression into a mask of resolve, reached down, and lifted Aisling in his arms. He walked with long strides through thetrees, past the unicorns, and toward the water. Carys, Duncan, and his men walked behind him.

She heard the soft sound of hooves padding through the forest as they broke through the trees and the dull, heavy beat of wings overhead.

Cadell flew down over the loch, breathing a stream of fire that touched the surface of the water, turning it to steam.

“What’s happening?” Carys reached for Duncan’s hand. “Why does she want to go to the loch?”

Duncan said nothing but folded her cold hand in his warm palm and held it to his chest as he watched his brother carry the girl who had grown up at his side and the woman who had loved him all her life.

When Lachlan reached the edge of the water, the surface stirred in a great whirlpool along the edge. A moment later, the kelpie rose out of the water, screaming in rage at the humans and unicorns violating his territory.

“No.” Lachlan stepped back. “Not like this.”

“Hold.” Aisling held out her hand and spoke in a soft voice. “I see you.”

The kelpie stopped screaming and dropped to its black hooves, the water still swirling around it. He stared at Aisling, snorting out steam.

“Iseeyou,” she said again.

A second later, the otherworldly horse disappeared and a darkly beautiful man rose from the loch. He wore grey clothes drawn from the water itself, and his coal-black hair was woven with long grass and weeds. His eyes were storm grey, the color of a mirror reflecting the winter sky, and his skin was as pale as the dead.

“Aisling?” Lachlan held her to his chest even as her blood started dripping down the front of his clothes. He backed away from the kelpie. “Please don’t?—”

“Leave me.” Her voice was clear and strong. “Let me go.”

“I’ve seen him.” Carys pulled away from Duncan’s hand and walked forward, drawn to the water’s edge. “I’ve seen you.”

He was the pale man she’d seen on the shoreline talking with the woman. He turned to Carys, and his lips curled back; she saw the fearsome pointed teeth that filled his mouth. Dread curled in Carys’s stomach as the air along the edge of the loch seemed to still.

The dark man stepped from the water and onto the rocky shore.

Time froze. There was no sound. No birdsong. No whinnying of worried unicorns or creak of leather armor and bronze blade. The world around her slowed to a crawl, and even Cadell’s voice felt murky and distant as the man walked across the smooth grey rocks toward Aisling.

Carys breathed in and out, caught in the liminal space between water and sky, life and death.

“I see you, son of Lir.” Aisling’s voice was a clear bell in the preternaturally still air. “If you take me back to Éire, I will grant you a favor.”