Chapter 25

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

T hey'd agreed to leave the journals at Duncan's house. It was only a thirty-minute walk from the castle, and now that Carys knew the route, she felt comfortable taking it on her own even when Cadell was sleeping in dragon form like he was that morning.

The day was as bright as the Shadowlands ever were, and the sky was a pale blue washed with drifting white clouds. Overhead, birds warbled in a riot of song.

It was one of the first things she'd noticed about this alternate realm. Birds were everywhere, filling the trees and swooping across the sky in massive flocks of starlings and songbirds. Raptors perched at the edge of meadows, watching for field prey to hunt.

Had the birds in her world once been like this? How many birds was she supposed to see in the forest?

She'd been reading that morning about Seren's training in Caernarfon, when she'd started keeping her journal in earnest.

Cadell and I flew through a flock of geese this morning, and one nearly bit my leg she was so angry. They were flying south to the warmer lands. Father says next year he and Mared will take me there. Anything to escape Eamer's nitpicking and angry glares. I hate her. I don't understand why Father ever married her. She's not even pretty.

Eleven-year-old Seren was full of bravado and excitement, the complete opposite of the shy bookworm that Carys had been at that age. She relished her training with Cadell and took quickly to the martial drills that all the young dragon lords had to participate in.

There had been only two other nêr ddraig born the same year as Seren, so there were three children her age training in Caernarfon. Their days consisted of schooling, drills, and flights with their dragons.

Seren swooned over Cadell, marveling at his wisdom and his strength. The way she spoke about him made Cadell seem like a cross between a big brother, a superhero, and a best friend. She reveled in flying, her small coracle clutched in his claw, or even sitting in the safety of his claws as he swooped over the mountains of Cymru.

She wrote about smearing lanolin over her cheeks to keep them from burning in the wind and tying her hair under a heavy wool cap. She wrote about the mundane and the thrilling with equal fervor, her childish delight in the world pricking Carys's heart.

She should have had a life.

A life with Lachlan.

She needed to talk with him. She needed to explain how confused she felt. If none of this had ever happened—if Lachlan had remained in the Brightlands—Carys would have happily grown old with him, sharing a life and building memories in Baywood, oblivious to the life he'd had here.

Now? She couldn't pretend she didn't know that he was her sister's husband. That he'd loved his wife so much that he'd crossed a world to search for Seren's Brightkin. And when he'd found Carys, he'd made her fall in love with him, pretending to be someone he wasn't. Pretending he was a normal human man and not a magical prince.

What should he have said? Would you have believed him ?

Carys was lost in thought when she tripped over a root sticking up in the path. She looked down at her stubbed toe. A root?

Only then did she notice that the path she'd been walking through the edge of the forest had diverged and she was at the top of the ridge, looking down across the silver loch.

"Shit." How could she be so careless? Her mind was everywhere, but there was no excuse not to watch where she was going, especially when Cadell wasn't with her.

Carys looked around and sighed in relief when she realized she wasn't far off the cobbled path and she recognized the way back to the castle. She was about to turn when a movement on the edge of the loch caught her attention.

A woman sat on a log, her long dark hair flowing down her back and trailing on the ground. She was dressed in deep green, wearing a gown that looked as if it had been plucked from a medieval tapestry. Something about the woman was familiar.

Had she seen her in a dream?

Carys walked off the path and through the trees to the edge of the forest.

A dark man stood over the strange woman, his tall figure looming. His hair was long and hanging in his face, and his clothes looked like black rags. Was he a vagrant? A fae? Something about him felt otherworldly too, but nothing about the woman's posture spoke of alarm or fear.

The two figures were talking—Carys could tell that much—but they were too far from her to hear what they were saying.

She stepped closer.

The dark figure looked up, and she could see silver eyes glowing from behind his dark, stringy hair. The woman turned and her head angled when she saw Carys.

Without a word, the dark man drew a hood over his head and turned, stepping away from the woman and walking straight into the loch .

"Wait! The kelpie!" Carys started to run toward them, but her foot caught on a rock and she tripped, catching herself with her hands.

She scrambled to her feet, only to find herself alone on the edge of the forest, the woman gone, the loch clear and peaceful as glass. Carys looked around in confusion.

Nothing. The two figures were gone, as if they'd never existed, and Carys was alone.

By the time she got back to the castle, she had resolved in her mind that the two figures must have been fae and she'd be better off forgetting she'd ever seen them. The last thing she needed to do was eavesdrop on the fair folk, especially when she now knew a massive secret that could get Duncan, Cadell, and maybe even Angus killed.

It was lucky for her that she'd tripped in the first place.

"Lady Carys!" The guard snapped to attention at the gate and nodded. "How was your walk this morning?"

"Excellent." She hesitated before she asked the next question, but she pushed on. "Is Lord Lachlan in the castle this morning?"

"He is training with the Northern Guard in the inner courtyard, my lady." The man gestured toward the large gate that separated the outer courtyard from the inner. "Through the gate and you'll see them."

She walked across the muddy stones where wagons bumped, sheep wandered, and a pair of donkeys laughed at the busy humans around them. The Castle of Sgàin was a bustling place, more like a small city inside the walls than any kind of home. There were soldiers from Cymru still camped along the south wall, their tents set up with banners flying over them. On the north side was the constant traffic of merchants selling wares from the village and other regions of the Shadowlands.

Women walked by with baskets on their heads, men bartered in various languages, and animals brayed. Through it all was the occasional flash of the familiar. A man wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt under his worn woolen cape. A woman wearing a belt with bright beading and sequins. One teenage boy wore a New York Yankees baseball cap with fur-trimmed earflaps added along the edge.

Carys walked through the outer courtyard and entered the gate, where her fine clothing marked her as a resident of the castle. The guards eyed her with interest but said nothing as she walked into the inner courtyard to see Lachlan standing in the center of a group of men. Carys leaned against a wall in an inconspicuous corner so she didn't interrupt.

As Carys watched Lachlan, Seren's journals flickered in the back of her mind, coloring her own observations with her sister's childish ones.

I like Lachlan, but he's too quiet. He's not like the other boys who are rough with the girls. Harold is positively beastly! He tugs at Aisling's braids every day. It's not nice. Lachlan would never do that, but he doesn't stand up for Aisling either, and it's his own house. He should. The next time Harold bothers Aisling, I'm going to punch his big nose. Elanor will not approve, but it has to be done.

Lachlan was speaking to his men in Gaelic, so she couldn't understand him, but she could see the soldiers watching him with rapt attention as he demonstrated something with a bronze sword in his hand. He was stripped down to his sleeves, his shirt open at the neck, and he'd clearly been working, because sweat glistened on his face. He wore a leather vest with no decoration and a tall pair of boots with guards over the knees.

Another man stood across from Lachlan, his own sword in hand. He was dressed in a dark leather vest, his jacket also removed. The man had short dark hair and dark eyes. His skin was medium brown, and his posture was relaxed and confident.

The ranks of the Northern Guard were elite fighters who guarded the inner castle, the royal family, and the children of the Queens' Pact. They consisted of the best fighters from all the clans in Alba who were sent to Sgàin to serve the king. The men were a mix of complexions and hair colors. Pale skin and bright red hair, dark brown skin and black curling hair. There were a few women sprinkled in, but not many. They were kids that Carys would have seen on her own college campus save for the serious expressions on their very young faces.

Lachlan shouted something, and the man in the dark vest faced him. They parried with their swords, moving slowly so the soldiers watching them could follow what they were doing.

It was clearly a lesson, and Carys watched with rapt attention as Lachlan commanded the men and women. His movements were sure and smooth, clearly those of a master of whatever technique he was teaching.

So the musician is a warrior as well.

He was happy when he was singing, but Carys could see that he also reveled in this. He loved the attention on him, the admiration of the soldiers and the shouts of encouragement. It was a different kind of stage, but a stage nonetheless.

After they'd demonstrated the technique, the man in the dark vest stepped forward and spoke quietly to Lachlan. He looked over his shoulder, spotted her, and turned back to the man. He nodded and Lachlan said something to the soldiers before he walked away, striding toward Carys, whose mind suddenly went blank.

The last time she'd seen him, two nights before, he'd been lying naked beside her in bed. It felt like two years, but time had always been strange with Lachlan. The moment she met him, she'd felt like she'd known him forever. Their four months together felt like four years.

"Carys." He reached her and stood at a respectful distance. "How are you this morning?"

His expression was distant, and Carys remembered the last thing he'd written in her journal.

"I know you didn't kill her," she whispered.

A flicker of anger danced in his eyes. "My name was in your book. "

"Because I had to?—"

"Did you have a reason for seeking me out today?" He cut her off, his voice clipped and cold.

She felt his rejection like a stone in her chest. "I know you didn't kill her. Dafydd told me more about your plan to?—"

"Shhh." Lachlan grabbed her by the arm, looked over his shoulder, and dragged her behind a stone pillar to hide them from view. "Whatever Dafydd may have told you, forget it."

"But that's how I know?—"

"It doesn't matter, Carys." His eyes pressed closed. His jaw was tight. He opened his eyes slowly and took a deep breath. "Whatever Seren and I might have planned before she died doesn't matter now."

"How can you say that?" She kept her voice low to match his. "Lachlan, whatever is going on between the two of us, I can't ignore that my sister was murdered. Here." She put a hand on his chest. "In this place, her home, where she was supposed to be safe. It wasn't an illness. It wasn't a random fever. She was poisoned."

"How do you know?" He leaned on the wall, bracing his arm over her head. "Hmm? How do you really know?" He lowered his voice to barely a whisper. "There is nothing any of us can prove. People die here. We don't have penicillin and hospitals and modern medicine. We have magic and herbs and sometimes those do nothing, even when you beg the gods on your hands and knees to save the person you love most in the world."

She could see the pain of his grief again, and she wanted to hug him. She wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and press her lips to his skin and hold him until he didn't hurt anymore.

"Don't look at me like that." His voice was rough.

"I can't look at you any other way." She blinked back tears. "I can hear in your voice how much you loved her."

His chest was hard and warm beneath her palm. "I hate it when you cry. It makes me want to break something," he whispered.

"I'm trying to do the right thing here. This grief is poisoning both of us. Don't you see? This is why I was so depressed. This is why I couldn't escape that… pit. And if you don't resolve it, then nothing?— "

"If someone really killed her, you're digging up secrets that are better left buried." Lachlan swallowed hard. "And it's only going to hurt you and the people who knew Seren and loved her most."

Carys blinked. "You don't want me to find out who did it?"

Lachlan leaned down and whispered, "I don't want you to die . This is reckless, Carys."

"I'm reckless? I'm not the one who crossed a fae gate and went in search of my dead wife's twin."

His eyes went wide.

"I'm sorry." She dropped her hand from his chest. "You did it because you loved her and?—"

"I love you ." Lachlan's jaw was clenched. "And I know you think I'm a liar." He closed his eyes and opened them slowly. "I know you don't believe my feelings, but they are real, and I don't want you hurt. You should return to Scotland with Duncan. I will find you when I can."

"That's it?"

"When I can leave the castle, I will come to you." He reached out and put a hand on her cheek. "Carys, this is what's best. It's dangerous here, and your having this magic with Cadell is… It's not natural. I'll speak to my father; I can make him see that it's for the best, and he'll understand that I need to come and see you."

She narrowed her eyes. "Come and see me?"

He let out a breath. "Come and be with you, Carys. It's not?—"

"What do you think is going to happen? Do you think you're going to just pop in and out of my life when it works for you?"

"It won't be like that." He smoothed his thumb over her skin. "I haven't worked it out in detail, but if you moved to Scotland?—"

She laughed a little and pulled her face away. " Scotland? I should move to Scotland? Just uproot my life to move across the world so you can… What? Come visit me when you get a break in your kingly duties?"

He stepped back and leaned on his sword. "I don't want this," he said softly. "You know I don't. "

"Don't you? Because you looked really comfortable at that banquet the other night. Chatting with the fae and the unicorns, drinking in that applause." She tasted bitterness on the back of her tongue. "Here, you're… you . When you sing, everyone turns to listen." She smiled a little. "Life in Baywood must have seemed really small, huh?"

"No." He shook his head. "It was wonderful. Everything I wanted. You must know that."

Carys closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "You know, ever since I found out about my sister, I have wondered how the same man could fall in love with two completely different women. Just absolute opposites, you know?" She smiled a little. "I guess that's the point, right? My shadow self."

"Not as unlike as you think," he murmured.

"And I'm starting to understand it." She nodded slowly. "The life we had in Baywood? That was like your little dream, right? The quiet, simple life versus the big important life here with so many responsibilities and duties."

"Yes." He lifted one shoulder. "You're not wrong. They're different lives, but that doesn't mean one is better or?—"

"The thing about dreams is that we wake up." Carys swallowed hard, forcing her words past the lump in her throat. "And I wonder if you would have woken up—because you would have woken up—and realized that you were tired of that simple life." She looked up and met his brilliant green eyes. "Because there is nothing simple about you, Lachlan, son of Robb, future chief of the Moray clan."

"None of that means that I don't love you." Lachlan lifted his chin. "Maybe all that means is the life you have in Baywood is smaller than you deserve. Maybe you do belong here with me."

"So you don't want me to leave after all?"

"I don't know what I want!" he whispered. "Except you. I want you. And I want you to be alive and safe, and I can't lose another woman I love. Do you understand how hard it is for me to not lock you in a damn tower so no one can touch a hair on your head?"

God, why couldn't it be simple? Carys shook her head and pushed back the tears that wanted to fall. "I believe you want me safe."

"I want you alive ." He looked over his shoulder at the soldiers gathered in the courtyard. "And in this place, that is never a guarantee. That is why I want you gone."

She met his eyes and didn't waver. "I know you didn't hurt her, Lachlan. I know that in my bones. But I'm not leaving without finding out who did. If you don't want to help me, I understand."

He lifted his eyes to the sky and shook his head. His smile, when he managed it, was bitter. "You're more like your sister than you realize."

Lachlan didn't look at her again; he turned and walked away.