Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
Dawson stood on the beach where this had all begun, the sand silver-gray beneath a sky boiling with storm clouds. Wind tore at his plaid and linen shirt, carrying the smell of salt and ozone—the electric taste of lightning waiting to strike.
He knew, somehow, that he was dreaming. But the knowledge didn’t make it feel any less real.
“Dawson Carrington.”
He turned.
The Cailleach stood at the water’s edge, the waves parting around her feet as if they knew better than to touch her.
Her hair was white as fresh snow, her face ageless and sharp, beautiful in the way winter itself was beautiful—cold and clear and utterly unforgiving.
Her eyes held the blue-black depths of frozen lochs.
“You’ve been busy,” she said, and her voice was the wind through the mountain passes. “Earning your place among the clan. Winning the healer’s wounded heart.” Her smile was knowing. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
“I thought you might have other things to do,” Dawson replied. “Being a goddess and all.”
She laughed—a sound like ice cracking on a frozen lake. “I like you, mortal. You have spirit. So few of your kind do anymore.”
“Is this the part where you tell me there’s a catch? Some cosmic price for falling through time?”
“This is the part where I give you a choice.” The Cailleach moved closer, and the temperature dropped with each step.
Frost spread beneath her feet, crackling across the sand.
“The door between worlds opens tomorrow. As the sun sets and rises anew, you may pass through it—return to your time, your wealth, your empire of achievements. Or you may stay bound to this age forever.”
The words hit him like a physical blow.
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.” Her eyes held no mercy. “You cannot walk both paths. The choice must be made, and once made, cannot be unmade.”
Dawson’s mind reeled. He had known, on some level, that this moment would come. The Cailleach had said as much when she first sent him through—the door only opens once. But knowing and facing were different things entirely.
“What happens if I go back?”
“You wake in your own time on the beach where you found my sword. Your penthouse, your company, your mother’s birthday celebration—all waiting for you, as if you had never left.
Only minutes will have passed. In time, you will convince yourself this was a fever dream, a hallucination brought on by the lightning and the cold. And in time, you will forget.”
“Forget Elspeth?”
The Cailleach’s expression flickered—something that might have been compassion, if goddesses felt such things.
“The mind protects itself from unending grief. You will remember her as a dream—beautiful, haunting, but fading. Within a year, her face will blur. Within five years, you will struggle to recall her name.”
The horror of it washed over him. Forgetting Elspeth. The way she looked at him when she thought he wasn’t watching. Forgetting her laugh, rare and rusty and more precious than anything he had ever owned.
“And if I stay?”
“Then the door closes forever. Your wealth, your family, your world—all lost to you. You will live and die in this time, by the rules that govern it. No medicine to save you from fever. No machines to ease your labor. No going back, ever, no matter how much you might wish it.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” The Cailleach’s voice sharpened.
“You’ve been here weeks, mortal. Weeks of novelty and romance and the thrill of the unfamiliar.
But novelty fades. The woman you love may never fully trust you.
The winters are brutal, the work is endless, and there will come a day—many days—when you wake wondering what madness possessed you to give up everything for this. ”
She circled him slowly, her presence pressing against him like the cold itself.
“In your world, you were extraordinary. A conqueror. A name that opened doors and commanded respect. Here, you are no one. A stranger with no family, no history, no skills that matter. The clan tolerates you because Connor vouches for you, but tolerance is not belonging. You may spend the rest of your life trying to earn a place and never fully succeed.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Do you truly understand what you would be surrendering?” The Cailleach stopped before him, her ancient eyes boring into his.
“More than two billion dollars, an absolute fortune. The power to shape the world. A mother who loves you, who will spend the rest of her life wondering what became of her son. A foundation that provides clean water to thousands—work that matters, Dawson Carrington. Work that saves lives.”
The words landed like hammer blows. His mother. His foundation. The wells in Africa, the schools in Southeast Asia, the thousand small ways his wealth had been doing good in the world.
Could he really abandon all of that for one woman?
“The girl is beautiful,” the Cailleach continued, almost gently.
“And she has suffered much. But there are other women. In your time, with your resources, you could find someone equally worthy. Someone without the scars, without the walls, without the endless work of earning trust that may never fully be given.”
“Stop.”
“Someone who would love you freely, without—”
“I said stop.” Dawson’s voice came out rough, raw. “I know what you’re doing. You’re testing me. Making sure I understand the cost.”
“And do you?”
He closed his eyes. Behind them, images flickered like a film reel—
His mother at the breakfast table, asking when he was coming home for Christmas. The disappointment she tried to hide when he said he had another expedition planned.
Margaret, his assistant, who had been with him for eight years and knew his schedule better than he did. Who would coordinate the search when he didn’t return, who would comfort his mother, who would eventually have to accept that he was simply gone.
The children in the village outside Nairobi, drinking clean water for the first time. Water his money had provided. How many more villages could he help if he went back? How many lives could he save?
And against all of that—Elspeth. Gray eyes and scarred hands. A laugh like rusty bells. The way she had looked at him after the market, like he might be something worth believing in.
Was that enough? Was love enough to outweigh everything else?
“I need time,” he said. “To think.”
“You have until sunset tomorrow. When the storm comes, you must go to the beach and choose.” The Cailleach began to fade, her form dissolving into mist. “Choose wisely, Dawson Carrington. Once the door closes, it does not open again.”
Dawson woke gasping, his body drenched in cold sweat.
The chamber was dark, the fire burned down to embers. Outside, wind howled against the shutters—not the supernatural fury of his dream, but enough to set his nerves on edge.
He sat up, pressing his palms against his eyes. His heart was racing, his mind churning through everything the Cailleach had said.
The door opens tomorrow.
He had always known this moment would come. Had pushed it to the back of his mind, focused instead on the day-to-day work of earning his place, of winning Elspeth’s trust. But now the choice was here, unavoidable, demanding an answer.
Two paths. Two lives. And he could only walk one.
He rose and crossed to the window, pulling back the shutter to stare out at the night.
The moon was hidden behind clouds, but he could see the faint outline of the hills, the distant glimmer of the sea.
This landscape had become familiar to him over the past weeks.
The smell of peat smoke and salt air. The rhythm of the days, dictated by weather and work rather than meetings and markets.
He had been happy here. Genuinely happy, in a way he couldn’t remember being since childhood. The work was hard, yes. The cold was brutal. But there was a satisfaction in it that none of his achievements had ever provided.
And Elspeth...
He thought of her face at the market, fierce and fragile, standing up to Malcolm with her voice shaking but unbroken. He thought of the way she had looked at him afterward, like she was seeing him for the first time. One day at a time, she had said. That’s all I can offer.
It wasn’t much. It wasn’t a promise or a declaration or any of the certainties he was accustomed to demanding. But it was a beginning. A door cracking open after years of being sealed shut.
Could he walk away from that?
Walk away from everything else?
The question circled through his mind like a shark, relentless and hungry.
Sleep was futile after that.
Dawson dressed in the dark and made his way through the silent keep, his feet carrying him without conscious direction.
He found himself in the great hall, where the banked fire cast dancing shadows across the stone walls.
With the ancient sword strapped to his back, he made his way to the battlements, nodding to the man on guard.
When the man turned to make his rounds, Dawson freed the sword, holding it in his hands.
The sword that had brought him here. The sword that could take him back. Her sword.
He stood holding it a long time, feeling the weight in his hands, how the heat that had shot up his arm when he first touched it. The Cailleach’s voice. The heart that has done everything must learn to wish again.
What did he wish for?
A month ago, the answer would have been easy. The next adventure. The next achievement. The next peak to summit or ocean to cross. He had spent his entire adult life wishing for more—more excitement, more accomplishments, more proof that he was alive.
Now he stood on the battlements of a keep that was a ruin in his time, staring at a sword that belonged to a goddess, and the only thing he wished for was a woman who might never fully trust him.
“Couldn’t sleep?”