Chapter Thirty-One
Edan
As they reached Edan’s clachan, Catrina and Roger were waiting outside for them. Edan heard his sister’s scream of joy from a distance. Arne handed Milo down to his mother, a laddie who was clearly excited to be home again. “Mama. I home.”
Only Ailith, Edan, Arne, Lia, and Dyna accompanied them to Edan’s home, the others anxious to return to their own cottage. Ailith, Edan, and Dyna would continue their journey shortly.
Alasdair had suggested Edan return on the morrow, but Edan declared his right to be part of any decision. “You’re going back in, are you not?” he pressed.
Lia replied, “Of course they are. I cannot go myself, but we will make another journey to the underworld to free your daughter and the others. We will return on the morrow. We will take this time to reflect on what happened and see if anyone can ascertain what opened Milo’s cage, since Ailith doesn’t know exactly how it happened. ”
Once she’d hugged Milo and kissed both his cheeks, Catrina handed him over to his father. “Heilyn, Edan?” she asked.
Edan whispered, “Ailith couldn’t find Heilyn.”
“You didn’t go in with her?” Catrina pressed.
“I couldn’t. Gruin wouldn’t allow me inside,” Edan replied.
Dyna dismounted and pointed to a group of chairs outside the homes. “Come, sit for a moment.”
Ailith followed, her shoulders slumped, a sight that pained Edan deeply. He knew it wasn’t her fault she couldn’t find Heilyn.
Once they were all seated, Dyna said, “I’ll let Ailith explain.”
Arne joined them. “Milo is with Roger,” he stated. “I need to know who did this.”
Lia patted a chair, and Arne settled into it, giving Ailith his full attention.
“John and I went inside the hill after Gruin took the three banshee hairs,” Ailith began. “But he refused to allow Edan inside.”
“I heard that, but why?” Arne asked. “I didn’t understand.”
Lia said, “I think there’s something in his blood.
Edan stepped close to Gruin after he sliced his palm, blood running down his arm, but Gruin reacted as if he’d been burned.
He couldn’t get away fast enough. This is something we have to determine.
We don’t understand why yet, but when Edan stepped close to the faery hill, the ground shuddered under our feet, and we feared the hill might collapse. ”
Catrina gasped at the thought.
Arne took his wife’s hand. “I felt the ground shake,” he said. “There was something about Edan and his blood.”
Ailith continued, “John and I went in because John carried his sapphire sword, a weapon more powerful than the usual Highlander blade. There were many steps leading down into a land totally strange to us, with purple trees and silver roots. The oddest part was that after we followed the path, we came to an area with various cages on either side. Warriors were held in translucent green cages, and the bairns in clear ones. I found Milo after seeing a couple of lasses I didn’t know, but I didn’t know how to open the cages.
I tried with the first girl’s cage, running my hand over the entire crystal structure, looking for any seam or latch.
There was naught. There were no edges, latches, keys, or anything unusual.
I tried everything. I threw a rock at it, tried to carry it to the stairs, I punched it but to no avail.
” She rubbed her raw knuckles. “But then I spoke to him, and the cage kind of melted away. Milo spoke to me right away, saying he wanted his father and mother.”
Edan let out a deep sigh. “Ailith ran up and down the line of cages,” he said, “but she didn’t see Heilyn.”
Ailith shook her head. “And I didn’t get to search them all.
The first warrior’s cage opened, and he attacked John as soon as we stepped off the staircase.
John fought him long enough for me to study the cages.
But when John knocked that warrior down, it seemed to unlock another.
Once I had Milo in my hands, I turned around to see five cages unlocking at once, and there were so many more down the line.
John couldn’t fight a score of warriors alone, so we decided it was safest to leave and return with more warriors of our own.
I held Milo tight and ran up the staircase. ”
Milo came out of a hut and ran to Ailith, jumping onto her lap and sticking his thumb in his mouth. He popped it out long enough to say, “Ail.”
Dyna leaned toward Milo and whispered, “Did you see Heilyn?”
He nodded, then popped his thumb out again. “Heilyn over dare,” he mumbled.
Dyna squeezed Edan’s hand. “We have to go back on the morrow,” she said. “But first, we’re going to try to figure out how Ailith got Milo out. If we can do that, she can set many of them free. We’re sending more warriors down the staircase this time too. Gruin doesn’t need to know about that.”
Ailith reached for Edan’s hand. “We’ll find her, Edan. I’ll not leave until I do.”
His hand was cold under hers, and for a long moment he didn’t move. Then his fingers closed around hers, not a squeeze, just a hold.
He didn’t look at her. Seeing her come out without Heilyn was not even a knife in his gut.
It ripped his insides out and left them on the ground.
A small part of him wanted to be angry at her for finding Milo but not his own daughter.
Couldn’t she have run to the end first and worked backward?
Could she have yelled Heilyn’s name and sensed his sweet lass with her seer abilities?
“There were so many cages, more than I could see, and just as many warriors trapped within them.”
He held himself perfectly still, as though any movement would cause him to shatter. Unable to meet anyone’s eyes, he looked down at his trembling hands. All the hope drained from his body. Something sharp buried deep in his heart, cracking it in two.
He couldn’t imagine anything worse. His sweet daughter was not there.
Arne asked Dyna, “You’ve dealt with the underworld before?”
“Nay,” Dyna answered.
Ailith started. “Oh, I just recalled something,” she said. “As soon as we stepped inside and the door closed, Gruin said, ‘Welcome to Dark Hollow.’ That’s the name of his world.”
“The Dark Hollow?” Arne repeated.
“Nay,” Milo shook his head.
Edan kissed the top of his nephew’s head, then moved into his cottage, empty inside.