Chapter Twelve
áedán appeared at my cottage's back door just after sunset that night.
I'd been sitting on the bed, staring at my notes without reading them, when the knock came. I flinched, startled, and headed for the front door before a second knock came, directing me to the back. I peered out the window first and saw áedán standing there.
I opened the door. “Are you all right? Has something happened?”
“I'm fine. Come with me.” He didn't wait for an answer. “There's something I want to show you.”
I grabbed my jacket and followed him out into the evening air.
The sky was deepening from blue to indigo, the first stars appearing like pinpricks in fabric.
We went around to the front and down the street in silence.
Soon enough, we were on a now-familiar path through the village and over the bridge.
I didn't ask where we were going. I'd learned that áedán revealed things in his own time, on his own terms.
We came out into the field. The cottage looked different at night. Warmer somehow, with flickering light spilling from the windows and the sound of water lapping against the dock. áedán led me down to the narrow wooden dock that extended into the loch.
We sat at the edge of the dock, our legs dangling over the water. The surface was black glass, reflecting the stars. Mountains rose on all sides, dark shapes against the darkening sky.
“Water remembers.” áedán looked from the loch to me. “Every story ever spoken beside it. Every word, every song, every secret whispered to the current. If you know how to listen, you can hear it speak.”
I looked at him, wondering what was happening. His profile was sharp against the water, his eyes fixed on something I couldn't see.
“The loch has been here for thousands of years,” he continued. “It's heard languages that dinnae exist anymore. It's witnessed births and deaths, wars and peace. All of it is still here, in the water, waiting.”
“Can you hear it?” My voice came out quieter than I intended. “The stories?”
“Yes.” He turned to look at me. “I've always been able to. It's part of who I am. What kelpies are. We're connected to the water in ways humans cannae be. We hear what it remembers.”
The way he said it made something tighten in my chest. Not sadness exactly. Something closer to longing.
“There's a place beneath the surface.” áedán looked down into the water. “An ancient stone circle. It's been down there since before humans built villages on these shores. The oldest water magic still lingers there, where the memories are strongest.”
I waited. The water lapped against the dock pilings, a soft, rhythmic sound.
“I want to show it to you. But you'd need to come into the water with me. Deep water. And humans can't breathe there.”
“Oh.”
“I could share my ability with you.” He met my gaze at last. “Water-breathing. It requires physical contact. Skin to skin. If we're touching, I can send the magic into you, and you'll breathe as I do.”
It took me a moment to form words. “How long would it last?”
“As long as we're connected.” He held out his hand, palm up. “We'd need to hold hands the entire time.”
I looked at his hand and thought about diving into dark water, breathing underwater, and seeing the ancient stones and forgotten magic for myself. “All right.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You're not afraid?”
“Terrified. But I want to see what's down there, and I want to feel your magic.”
áedán grinned at me. Then he got up and pulled off his sweater in one smooth motion.
His boots and pants went next. Underneath them, he wore nothing.
I lifted my gaze, heat rising in my face, but then I noticed the patterns on his skin.
I'd thought they were scars before, but they were moving and shining like light reflecting off water.
Then áedán dove off the loch, his sleek body graceful as it arched through the air. For a moment, I wished I'd brought my camera. I would have loved a picture of him like that. Then he broke the surface, his dark hair slicked back, and his eyes catching starlight.
“You'll want to leave your clothes on the dock.” He grinned again, this time wickedly, as if looking forward to me undressing. “They'll make you too heavy. Pull you down. And you'll want dry clothes for the walk back to your cottage.”
I hesitated for only a moment. Then I stripped down to my underwear.
I was a scholar, not an athlete, so I expected a hint of disappointment in áedán's eyes.
I prepared myself for it. But when I met his gaze, I saw only admiration.
More confident, I folded my clothes and sat down on the edge of the dock.
The water looked very dark and very deep.
But áedán was in it, and I knew he wouldn't let anything bad happen to me.
So I shoved off the dock and fell in. I came up sputtering from the shock of the cold.
The loch didn't seem to know it was summer.
áedán swam closer and then held out his hand. “When we go under, don't panic. Trust the magic. Trust me and just breathe.”
Treading water, I took his hand. His skin was cool and his grip firm. The moment our palms touched, I felt something slide inside me—a tingling sensation that spread up my arm and into my chest, then settled in my lungs. My body even warmed until the water felt comfortable.
“Ready?” áedán asked.
I nodded.
We slipped beneath the surface together, and I panicked.
I thought I could handle it, but when faced with the prospect of breathing in water, my body rebelled.
áedán squeezed my hand, and I forced myself to relax and trust him.
I inhaled, fighting my survival instincts.
And breathed! I gasped in shock, and water rushed into my mouth and down my throat.
Somehow, my lungs accepted it. Processed it.
I was breathing water as if it were air.
áedán smiled, his hair billowing in the water. It's all right, his expression seemed to say. I have you.
I smiled back at him, and we descended slowly.
The loch was deeper than I'd imagined; the darkness absolute except for a faint glow that emanated from áedán.
His skin gave off a soft luminescence, just enough to see by.
I hadn't thought he could get any more beautiful, but this was where he belonged. This was where he was his truest self.
We swam deeper. My ears popped. The pressure increased. But áedán's hand in mine was steady, and the water in my lungs felt natural, almost comfortable. I could feel the current moving around us, could sense the vastness of the loch stretching in all directions.
Then I saw the stones.
They rose from the loch bed like blunt teeth, arranged in a perfect circle, taller than a man.
Light, more brilliant than áedán's glow, emanated from them.
As we approached, I saw that the light came from carvings in the stones.
They looked impossibly old, and the closer I got, the more my skin tingled. They had magic like áedán.
áedán led me slowly around the perimeter of the circle, our fingers still intertwined. I felt the water change. It grew thicker, heavier, charged with energy. The stones seemed to hum, sending out a vibration I felt in my bones rather than heard.
We completed a full circuit. Then another. On the third pass, áedán stopped us between two stones. He looked at me, his expression serious, then reached out with his free hand and placed his palm flat against the stone on his left.
The water shimmered. It started as a ripple, spreading outward from where áedán's hand touched the stone and then ripples came from all the stones.
The light emanating from the stones shot through the ripples and merged in the center of the circle.
The light grew, expanding to fill the space.
Within the light, a vision emerged. Not flat like a movie but fully dimensional, as if a portal had opened for us to peer through.
Human children, maybe six or seven years old, sat on Loch Lomond's shore.
They wore simple clothes of rough fabric and were weaving flowers into crowns.
They laughed as they worked, their small hands quick and sure.
When they finished, they waded into the water and held the crowns up like offerings upon their palms.
Shapes rose from the depths. Horse heads broke the surface, and then they moved closer to shore, revealing slick black coats, eyes that flashed, and manes that shone like moonlight on water.
The children placed the flower crowns on the horses' heads, and the horses—the kelpies—bowed, accepting the gifts with what looked like genuine pleasure.
The vision shifted. A village appeared—primitive stone buildings clustered near the loch's shore.
The water was rising, flooding the lower fields, and people ran about, shouting, trying to save what they could.
Then the kelpies came. They moved through the water like living dams, redirecting the current, creating channels that led the water away from the village and onto land a safe distance away.
When the flood receded, the villagers came to the shore with offerings, and the kelpies accepted the gifts with the same grave courtesy I'd seen in the previous memory with the children.
It was proof of what I already knew—kelpies were guardians.
The vision shifted again, and this time I saw two men walking along a shore.
One was tall and broad-shouldered, with dark auburn hair that fell past his shoulders.
The other was smaller, dressed in simple robes and carrying a leather satchel.
They laughed together, their heads bent close, and there was an ease between them that spoke of years of companionship.
I recognized Caelum immediately and then recognized Velas from his portrait. They'd been to this loch, and the water remembered.