Chapter 49
Chapter
Forty-Nine
The area of the woods that Lachlan leads me to the next morning is not far from where I used to take my daily drawing walks.
We woke early—too early, in my humble opinion—to ensure we’re in place as soon as dawn arrives and this special tree (about which Lachlan is being very secretive, if I’m honest) reveals itself.
We turn down a dark, overgrown path, and I can barely see a foot in front of me. I’m yawning, as wobbly-legged as a fawn, so I don’t protest much when, after I trip over a root, Lachlan scoops me into his arms.
“Probably should have let me work on my hiking skills,” I murmur, resting my head on his bulging shoulder. “I’ll face greater dangers than exposed tree roots during the Wild Hunt.”
He tenses, but doesn’t respond.
Is he facing the end of our affair with the same persistent dread as I am?
He never specified what his next chapter would be, after the Wild Hunt when he leaves Desmond’s service. I suspect, but he’s never confirmed, that he’ll return to Campan’s Vale. Help Garred run the Eyrie.
Find himself a wife.
Something roars in the hidden spaces of my heart, those shadowed corners I don’t dare peek into.
I nuzzle into him. He’s still mine for a little while.
As a precaution, he’s kept up his glamour. Fortunately it’s done nothing to mask his scent—clean skin and woodsmoke and wild magic. God, I could eat him alive right this second. I am regretting not doing so last night.
Grey light creeps through the forest, illuminating bark patterns and the shapes of leaves.
“We’re not far now.” His voice rumbles down my limbs.
“How do you know what we’re looking for?”
Yet again, he doesn’t answer. He’s so quiet this morning, tense and withdrawn. Not the normal flavor of his confident silence.
We crest a small rise, and then—there. At the other side of the shallow valley is a large, flat rock above a hole so deep and dark it looks as if a primordial god stabbed a finger through the world.
And framing the black is a border of fluttering sage green.
Hundreds, even thousands of vanguard moths surround the cave entrance.
“What on earth?” I say, marveling as the ring warms on my finger.
“They’re waiting for the door to open.”
He settles me on my feet and I dart down to the rock, peering into the darkness. “What door?”
He pulls down a wisp of fading moonlight, but the resulting spark in his palm is much fainter on this side. He takes my hand in the other and guides me into the cave. “You’ll see.”
His answer ricochets off the damp walls, and it’s much warmer in here than it is outside. As if there’s a heat source up ahead. It’s unnerving; like we’re sliding down the gullet of the earth itself.
Vanguard moths dance in and out of his light, and time both slows and speeds, a different beat with each step.
It’s certainly not following any kind of natural flow, so it’s hard to tell how long we walk.
I measure our journey by steady footsteps and eerie plops of water. Fifty. One-hundred. Two-hundred.
Lachlan’s moonspark glows brighter and—
That’s not the moonspark.
My smile widens, and Lachlan flicks his chin toward the light, urging me to run ahead and explore. He’s good at that. Encouraging my excitement, no matter where it leads. And I’m not afraid to do it as long as he’s at my back.
The tunnel spills into a vast cavern, so high it fades up into blackness.
The floor is a jumble of large, round stones cut through with winding paths of dense grass, every inch of flora coated with luminescent gold.
More vanguard moths slice dizzying lines through the humid air, and in the very center is an impossibly large oak.
A colossus. The largest living thing I have ever seen.
Its gnarled branches twist up into the dark, and its roots form a tangled tapestry that radiates out toward the edges of the cavern.
Vanguard moths blanket the broad trunk like living bark.
“What is this place?” I ask, awe softening my voice.
“This is a beacon oak,” Lachlan answers, reverently.
“One of the first beings born in your world. Grown from an acorn planted by Danu herself. They allow any creature of the Otherworld to return, should they find themselves trapped in the human realm. If we get stuck here long enough, we’re overcome by the time compression and we begin aging unnaturally fast.” I shoot him a panicked look, but he just chuckles.
“Three days isn’t long enough to kill me, little queen.
Don’t worry. Three weeks might do the trick, though. ”
“Do Aowen and Sabre know about it? Why didn’t we use this pathway into the human world? Why did we wait until the equinox to open that door?”
Lachlan glances up at the tree. “Only Otherworld creatures can enter from this side and only humans can enter from the other.” He taps the silver band on my finger.
“Because of the ring, the tree recognizes you as an Otherworld creature. You wouldn’t have been let through on that side.
” He opens a palm into the air and a vanguard moth lands, tiptoeing across his fingers.
“These are the only beings who can enter through both sides; they’ve adapted over centuries to the time differential. ”
I cock an eyebrow. “How do you know so much about them? And how did you know where to find this place?”
He shrugs, inscrutable once more, and something shifts beneath us, a great rumbling groan. The ground trembles and the large stones clack together.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
“Dawn,” is all he says before a large section of root closest to the tree pushes upward, forming an archway. The void beneath it is just that, black and fathomless.
Until.
A pinprick of golden light appears in the center, then expands outward until the entire archway looks like a sparkling waterfall.
An eardrum-splitting whoosh overtakes the cavern as thousands of pairs of wings beat as one. The entire eclipse of moths launches off roots, branches, the cavern walls, and Lachlan’s finger. They spear through the opening like a jet of shaggy water.
Minutes later, the archway has sunk back into the dirt and the cavern is empty. Save for me and Lachlan and a few stragglers who aren’t in any rush to join their fellows in the Otherworld. Maybe they’ll wend their way back into the woods and someone else will draw them this morning.
“How has no one ever discovered this cavern?” I ask.
“It’s enchanted against human interference.”
“Then how—”
He taps my ring again. “Creature of the Otherworld right now, remember?”
I nod. “And Granny Maggie would have been wearing it as well. Sabre told me she asked him not to reject her. To let the ring fall off naturally. That would’ve given her nearly a week to hide the Bannrhorn fragment and create The Knight Departs.
But how would she have known that beacon oaks existed? ”
Lachlan blows out a long, weary breath. “Perhaps Sabre told her. Maybe he hoped she’d change her mind and come back to him.”
My eyes sting. “That’s an incredibly sad thought.”
“It is,” is all he says, morose.
Is it because we have so little time left to find the fragment? It’s probably more than that. But I cannot bear to hear him confirm it.
“Well,” I say, refocusing on the daunting task at hand, “I suppose we’d better start looking.”
In the end, it’s another clue from Granny Maggie and The Knight Departs that leads us to the Bannrhorn fragment. Tied around a thin root toward the moss-covered side of the tree is a crimson ribbon. Just like the one wrapped around the knight’s sword in the painting.
As soon as I find it, the ring sears another blister onto my poor finger.
I swipe a dirty hand across my sweat-soaked brow and shout for Lachlan.
The cavern seems to be growing hotter. I stripped off my jacket and shirt as soon as we began searching, and am now wearing nothing more than a thin chemise tucked into my trousers.
Lachlan strides over, similarly disrobed, and I take an indulgent moment to study his glistening torso.
He smirks, knows exactly what I’m up to, and I decide right then and there that if this ribbon reveals what I believe it will, then he will be my reward in the time we have left.
He drinks in my half-dressed body as if he’s perfectly on board with that plan.
Will this bottomless well of want between us ever cease? I hope it does—for both our sakes.
“Look,” I say, pointing to the ribbon.
He tugs a few of the weaker roots aside, making space to dig into the soft ground beneath. I’m cursing us for not having brought any tools—not even a shovel—but as it turns out, we don’t need one.
His fingers bump against something hard, buried only a few feet down. He pulls out a rusted metal box, the crossed arrows of Tír na Dubh scratched into the lid. He stands, wiping off the dirt, and hands the box to me. “You’re the quarry.” His voice hitches slightly. “You do the honors.”
The box is heavier than it looks, though it’s not much larger than a cake tin. A faint hum rises when my fingers touch the surface, similar to those ghostly whispers I heard when I found the ring box among Lizzie’s gifts what feels like years ago. I suppose it was years ago, in some sense.
Lachlan holds his breath as I open the box, revealing the bell of the Bannrhorn. The markings glow when I touch it, and the ring flares again.
I suck in a wince. “Why is it—”
“It knows you’ve found its siblings. And that it’s almost time to crown a new king.”
Now I am the one frowning. “How much time do we have left?”
He shuts the lid, placing his hand over mine atop the box, then pulls the obscura compass from his pocket. The eye is almost fully open, though there’s a thin expanse of lid visible on the top and bottom. “Less than an hour.”
I place the box on the ground, wipe the dirt from my hands, then cup Lachlan’s precious face in one hand as I run the fingers of my other over his pointed ear. He shudders, his eyes sliding closed. “If I’ve only got an hour left, let me spend it with you.”
I rise onto my tiptoes to kiss him, but he places his hands on my shoulders to stop me.
“Wait. There’s something I … I need to tell you something.” He swallows, glancing away from me. “Desmond did not send me back to resume my duties. I snuck off on my own. He has no idea I’m with you.”
My breath stalls. There he goes, breaking rules for me yet again.
“Is he … Will he be angry? Why would you do such a thing?”
I am not upset that Lachlan defied his duke; more afraid of what Desmond might do in retaliation.
“Because I had to see you again before the Hunt. I wanted you to know about my next chapter.”
His next chapter? What does that even matter now? What an odd thing to—
“You,” he says, and my heart seizes.
“You were supposed to be my next chapter, Charlotte.”