Chapter 13
We decided our best bet was to get the rope around the crystal and use the horses to pull it from the water. But the hard part came in finding our way from the water’s edge to the mountain cave.
We traveled most of the way by the light of the full moon. But as we reach the thick of the forest, the heavy canopy of leaves blocks most of the moonlight. Lachlan hopped off his horse to carry a torch.
“We should ha’ just waited until morning, woman,” he grumbles from his leading position.
“Why? You’re doing an excellent job, Captain.”
An owl hoots in the distance, and the crystal makes a sliding screeching sound when it scrapes against rocks that protrude from the otherwise smooth dirt path.
“We canna hardly see anything because it’s so dark and I’m hungry,” he grinds out.
I snicker. “Want me to ask the tiny eyes for another apple? Because I feel great.”
Lachlan freezes and the horses flick their ears. “They’re still out here?”
I glance around from my saddle, looking for the tiny pricks of light. I don’t see them, but I can still feel them somehow. “Yes.”
He whips his head around, scanning the forest just past the illumination of the torch. “Where?”
“I can’t see them, but I know they’re there.”
Lachlan sighs heavily, his shoulders moving with his breathing. “I’m beginning to think your near-death experience made ye hallucinate and ye accidentally ingested an expired healing tonic when ye found that apple.”
I glare at him and he cracks a smile before turning back around. But before he can take another step, an apple rolls from the shadows in front of him. He stands completely still, not even daring to move his shoulders this time as he takes a steadying breath.
My smile stretches ear to ear and I call into the forest, “Thank you!”
Lachlan stoops to pick up the apple, wipes the dirt off onto his pants, and takes a bite.
“Gods,” he murmurs. “That is incredible.”
“Say thank you,” I order.
He swallows forcibly. “Thank ye!” He calls into the night, and we continue on.
The forest seems alive as we meander through it.
A flap of wings, chirping crickets, and rustling leaves as small nocturnal animals scurry by.
I inhale deeply. It smells of cedar and earth here, and there’s a slight nip to the air.
I wrap my arms around myself, sinking into the pelts Lachlan threw over me.
“Have you ever been here before?”
“Once. We dinna get to do a lot of exploring in the guard. And our wilderness training was on the other side of the island.”
“How about when Odessa traveled here?”
“We had to stick right beside her and she never went anywhere. Besides Ishtar.”
“Then how do you know where to go?” I peer around the darkness outside of his torchlight.
Lachlan lifts his hand up, showing me a small bit of parchment.
“Boudicca left me a map. But it’s a straight shot. There aren’t too many trails in this area.”
Silence stretches between us for a moment.
“What do you think the little eyes are?” I ask, no longer feeling their presence.
“Probably the little folk,” Lachlan whispers.
“The fairies?” I ask, surprised.
“Aye, like the ones your mum told us to leave offerings for at the old fairy tree.”
I smile fondly, remembering my mom’s stories and how not too long ago I left them an offering before appearing here. I guess my wish came true after all. I found my way, and the little folk found me.
“Before I came here, I went to the fairy tree—” The vibrant nighttime noise of the forest ceases and Lachlan eases us to a stop. His head moves side to side as he scans our surroundings.
“What is it?” I ask, not bothering to finish telling him about my offering.
“Shhhh.” He waves his torch back and forth, trying to see something.
“Lach…” Anxiety churns in my gut. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end.
“Lena, quiet. There’s something—”
A howl rents the air behind us, and I stiffen. My horse jitters, clomping its hooves in preparation to flee. There could be more than just mythical creatures wandering these woods at night, like wolves. When the howl tapers to an end, I shiver, wrapping my arms even tighter around myself.
“It dinna sound too close, but I’m beginning to think Boudicca was right after all. We’ll make camp at the cave. We should nae be out here too late.”
I want to argue with him that we need to hurry back, but the goosebumps still on my arms keep me quiet.
We continue on the path to the cave but now in silence, keeping an ear out for anything that goes bump in the night.
When the dirt turns completely to rock, the level path rises and I know we’ve made it to the mountain’s slope.
Lachlan halts us and peers down at the map and then up towards the North Star, twinkling straight ahead.
“The opening should be right here,” he whispers, holding the torch near the stone.
I ease off my mount and walk to his side to check out the map.
“Should we split up?” I ask, gnawing on my bottom lip.
“Are ye mad?” He asks gaping at me. Moonlight casts his face half in light and half in shadow.
“No, but that would be—”
“If ye say the word ‘quickest’ one more time.”
“Alright, alright.” Feeling the fair folk somewhere close by, I squat down and hold a hand out. “Could you help us?”
Lachlan turns in the direction I’m speaking and the light of his torch reflects off several pairs of tiny eyes.
“Haud yer wheesht,” he whispers.
Two blinks from the eyes that are closest.
A small flicker of blue flame winks into existence in front of me, followed by three more beyond it, lighting our way.
“Wisps,” Lachlan says in awe.
We follow them through a cluster of juniper trees. Just on the other side of their branches, the wisps stop at a dark gash in the stone.
He raises his torch up higher, illuminating the stone in front of us so we can see that it’s actually a door carved into the mountain, cracked open. On either side of it, carved into the stone, are the upward arrow-shaped runes for Tyr.
“Thank you, friends,” I whisper to the fair folk.
The eyes blink slowly before they vanish again.
I turn to Lachlan and his mouth parts.
“What?” I hiss, worried there’s a monster behind me.
“You’re so—so extraordinary. Like a fairy princess,” he breathes, his gaze lingers on my lips.
My heart stalls in my chest before rapidly galloping. A blush crawls its way up my neck and floods my cheeks. I’m thankful for the poor light, so he can’t see just how much his words have affected me. How his everything affects me all the time.
Even with so much going on, I just…
I launch myself into his arms. The torch clatters against the stone but keeps on burning.
“What is it?” he asks, wrapping an arm low around my back to hold me to him while reaching for the sword at his side.
“I—need to feel you sometimes. To know that this is all real.”
He squeezes me tighter to his chest. “Any time ye need this, ye let me know. I’ll do anything ye need, Key.” But his words have heat pooling low in my belly.
“Anything?” I ask from beneath lowered lashes.
“Whatever you’ll allow me.”
Such dangerous words from such a beautiful mouth.
And in that moment, I’m tempted. My restraint slips and I give in to my baser instincts. The yearning that I have felt towards him, like a thread that’s tied us together, pulls tighter.
I want to allow him everything and so much more.
But a flash of Mathilda holding Tane’s not-injured hand as tears stream down her face has me stiffening. Lachlan feels my body’s reaction and lets go immediately, stepping away from me.
His face twists with agony. “I’m so sorry I dinna mean—”
“No. No—it’s not you,” I choke out. “I’m so sorry.
I’m not trying to be hot and cold all the time.
I just can’t. Not right now, not until I know that the world isn’t crumbling around us.
And it’s so hard because I’ve wanted this, for so long, but then I feel like if I give into that right now—that selfishness—I’ll be letting everyone else down. ”
Lachlan nods, but his eyes drop to the ground. I feel terrible. Guilt burrows itself deep into my bones. I tell him we can’t and then my actions say otherwise.
“It’s not that I don’t want to or that I don’t want you,” I whisper, wrapping my arms back around him. “I do. I promise.”
Lachlan runs his palms up my arms to my shoulders, where he squeezes them lightly.
“Ye do want me?” He cocks an eyebrow, and I realize his humor is back in place as he repeats my words from long ago in Olundy. I toss my head back and laugh.
“Of course I do.”
He grins fiendishly and pulls me against his chest while placing a kiss on the top of my head.
“Then that’s good enough for me.”
Lachlan heaves the stone door open to allow us entry into the cave while I tie the horses up to a tree right outside the entrance. He stoops to grab the torch in one hand and grips my hand in his other as he leads us into the large onyx cave.
“Woah,” he says, and his words echo into the emptiness.
“Let’s make sure the cave is entirely raven stone and then we’ll drag the crystal in here,” I say, taking a step more into the cave.
“Aye, take this,”—Lachlan rips the torch down the middle. The wood separates easily under his ministration and the single flame becomes two—“and go that way, I’ll go this way.”
Firmly gripping the torch, I walk the perimeter of the cave.
Light reflects from all around me as the torchlight bounces from the floor, walls, and ceiling.
In its entirety, it seems to be the mythical raven stone.
Chips of it crunch underneath my booted foot, and I see carvings etched into the walls. Most in languages I don’t know.
“Do you have carvings on your side?” I ask across the cavernous room to Lachlan.
“Aye,” he chuckles.
“What do they say?”
“You dinna want to know—”
“Is it a warning?” I ask, expecting the worst.
“Nae, more like poor jokes,” he laughs.