Chapter 17 #3
“And mine with you,” Noah whispered, barely able to push the words past the burn in his throat.
Paige looked at Austin, eyes glistening. “I still believe in you.”
His only response was the slight lift of his chin in a silent rebuttal.
“We must hurry,” Taran urged, turning to face the wall.
“The place?” Paige cried frantically. “What place do we hold in our hearts? Noah must know so he can join us.”
Taran shook his head, his mind clearly scrambling. “Aye. The place. I dinnae ken.” And then he smiled. “Beside the cairn at Culloden Moor.”
“We’ll meet you there, son,” she stated, turning to stand shoulder to shoulder with Taran. “I’m ready,” she said with fierce determination. “Hold on tight,” she whispered to Brody.
Noah’s breath stalled in his chest as his father and mother moved as one through the shimmering wall.
For one stunned moment, Noah couldn’t move as he stared at the shimmering stone. The space where Paige and Taran had been was suddenly empty. The wall dipped slightly inward like the surface of a disturbed pond, and then settled, rippling slightly as it had before.
He shoved his relief and his grief down hard. There was no time for either. Not yet.
“You’re next, Finn.” Noah motioned him toward the portal. “How do I thank you for all you’ve done for us?”
Finn rested a calloused hand on Noah’s shoulder. “If I don’t see you, or them again, take care of them.”
Noah nodded. “Godspeed.”
Finn moved toward the opening, his face full of emotion he couldn’t contain.
He opened his mouth to speak, but before a word left his lips, the young guard who’d explained the portal, broke from the far wall in a dead sprint.
Wild-eyed, choking on his terror, he slammed into Finn, taking them both through the shimmering surface.
A split second later, with a look of pure animal terror at the cracking, splitting ceiling, the second guard raced through, as well.
Noah spun to face those who remained. Austin. Two guards. Skye. Keir.
Austin grabbed Skye, pulling her against him, her back to his chest, like a shield.
Keir was already moving.
“Stay back!” Austin warned, tightening his grip on Skye.
“Let her go,” Noah’s voice held the promise of what would happen if he refused.
“Stop them!” Austin ordered the two remaining guards as he tried to drag Skye back toward the collapsed passage.
She fought him, twisting, pulling against his grip. “It’s blocked, Austin. It’s useless to try. Why can’t you see that? Let me go!”
“They’ll clear it,” he said, eyes wild. “I won’t lose everything I’ve worked for!”
One of the remaining guards looked at Austin, the cracking, crumbling ceiling, then at the shimmering portal. “I’m not going to die here,” he said to his companion.
Both guards ran for the portal.
“Come back!” Austin screamed as it swallowed them without a sound. “That’s an order!”
He gasped, eyes wild and darting around him as he realized he was standing alone.
His gaze ricocheted between Noah and Keir with something raw and cornered.
A far cry from the cunning calculation Noah was accustomed to seeing.
Arms still locked across Skye’s chest, he backed up a step at a time, dragging her with him.
A massive piece of ceiling crashed to the floor, not ten feet behind him. Austin cried out, hunching against the impact that shook the floor so violently they all staggered.
Noah quickly regained his footing and took a step closer, his voice low and controlled despite the turmoil raging inside him. “There’s no reason for you to die here today, either. Let Skye go. Go through the portal with us. You can return later if you want. It’s your only chance.”
Austin shook his head, his grip on Skye tightening until she gasped. “And let you win? I’ll die first.”
Another sharp crack split the air above them as the ceiling fractured in a jagged line directly over Austin’s head.
A slab of stone the width of a table shifted several inches.
Austin screamed and dropped to his knees, hunching over, dragging Skye down with him as bits of rock rained across his back.
Noah lunged, reaching for Skye to pull her free of Austin’s slackened grip with a force that sent them both stumbling backward. He caught his balance, steadied her, and pulled her into his arms. “Are you okay?”
“I…I am now.” She gripped the front of his shirt with both fists, her whole body shaking as she lifted her face to his. The terror in her eyes burned into his soul. Dust coated her skin. A thin line of blood from a cut at her hairline traced down her cheek.
“Do you trust me?” The words held everything they’d shared. Every stolen moment. The longing. The kisses. Every bit of yearning for a future that seemed impossible until this moment.
“Always.” No hesitation. Not the faintest tremor of doubt.
Noah looked back at Keir who had Austin by the collar, hauling him to his feet, half-dragging him toward the portal.
“Go!” Keir shouted over the roar of shattering stone. “We’re right behind you!”
Noah felt Skye’s heartbeat hammering against his own. Two rhythms, frantic and alive, beating as one.
“Hold on to me.” He reached down and lifted her into his arms as she slipped hers around his neck. “No matter what happens, I love you.”
Clutching her to him, he walked into the portal.
At that moment, he heard a sound that would stay with him forever. A rumble so terrible. A roar so shattering, so massive, it had to have wiped out everything that remained of the tunnel. The death cry of stone and dust and darkness collapsing into itself.
Keir!
Austin!
Noah tried to look back but all he could see was a grey, weightless emptiness that undulated around them like fog, pulsing and stretching out in every direction. No floor. No walls. No ceiling. Just the two of them, suspended in something that was neither darkness nor light.
Skye’s fingers dug into his shoulders.
He closed his eyes.
The cairn at Culloden Moor.
He repeated it over and over in his mind, like a litany.
Taran had spoken briefly of Culloden Moor, of Scotland’s bloody battle for freedom. His death on the battlefield. The long ghostly years tied to the moor, and the wee witch Soncerae who had freed him and led him to his love.
But that was it. A story from another lifetime. And now his family waited in that spot in a world where hospitals had medicines and machines that might save a dying child.
The cairn at Culloden Moor. The cairn at Culloden Moor!
And beneath the fierce clarity of that intent, another truth pulsed, just as strong, just as certain.
His love for the woman in his arms.
She’d sacrificed everything she knew and loved to help his family, placed her trust in him when it didn’t make sense to do so, defied everything she believed in to walk into darkness and choose love, choose him, when everything else she could possibly desire lay open to her.
He pressed his lips to her hair. “I love you.”
Take us to Culloden Moor. Take us home, to our family.