Chapter 9

The bed was empty when Elayne opened her eyes. She had expected to find Dunn next to her as she always did when she woke up in the middle of the night, his presence a comfort like no other, but this time, he wasn’t there. The room was almost entirely dark, but she was certain she was alone, feeling no other presence there.

Confused, Elayne pulled herself out of bed and opened the door, looking around as if she could find Dunn there, in the hallway. Naturally, though, he was nowhere to be seen and so Elayne grabbed her shoes and her coat before heading out of the room.

It was cold at that time of the night, the sky outside like ink. Elayne gripped the lapels of her coat tightly, holding it around her shoulders as she walked through the empty corridors of the castle, her feet loud in the general silence of the building. She rarely ever left her rooms at night and she wasn’t used to this kind of quiet, the castle hallways appearing deserted, as though no one was there and no one would ever be.

Elayne checked the library, the great hall, even the kitchens, but Dunn was nowhere to be found. In the end, she exited the castle through the back door of the kitchen, thinking that perhaps he had gone outside. The darkness seemed to thicken there, away from the torches that illuminated the walls, and she treaded carefully as she made her way through the gardens, searching for any sign on him.

In the quiet, there was the sudden sound of voices, accompanied by giggles. It seemed to Elayne that they were quite far from where she stood, though the echoes carried the voices towards her, piquing her curiosity.

Neither sounded like Dunn. He had a low, baritone voice and this sounded nothing like him. If she had to guess, Elayne would say one of them was a girl or a young woman, the other a boy.

Following the sound, it didn’t take her long to realize where it was coming from.

The loch. Foolish bairns.

What were they doing there in the middle of the night? Didn’t they know how dangerous it was, going there without anyone to help them, without anything to light their way?

Her feet carried her quickly to the lake that stretched behind the castle. Though she loathed to visit it, its location was clear in her mind, etched into it from all the times she had gone there as a little girl, swimming with her mother. She hadn’t even made it to its bank yet when she heard a scream, followed by the splash of water.

Nay, nay, it cannae be.

For a moment, Elayne came to a halt, every muscle in her body seizing with terror. She didn’t need to see what had happened to know. In her mind was an image from long ago: herself, falling in the loch, her mother jumping in after her to save her.

Her mother drowning.

Without a second thought, Elayne crossed the rest of the distance and jumped into the water. The chill of it was a shock to her body and she almost gasped before she remembered to keep her mouth shut, letting no water inside. With only the moonlight as her guide, all she could truly see were shadows, dark and looming in the deep blue-black of the lake, but thankfully, the boy hadn’t sunk too deep. For she had seen the girl standing on the shore calling desperately after him.

Elayne saw him, his strength leaving him as he struggled to swim upwards. His clothes were weighing him down, and so were Elayne’s, soaked as she was to the bone. He was fighting to stay afloat, and as he gave into the exhaustion, there was little he could do. It was up to Elayne to grab him and bring him back to the surface, and so she dived deeper and deeper, until her hand could finally close around the boy’s arm.

Dragging him closer, Elayne began to kick her feet, trying to rise back up to the surface. The boy tried to help her, but his movements were sluggish, providing little assistance as she dragged him up and up through the water. All she could do was push through the burn of her lungs, through the ache in her joints, refusing to let the boy meet the same fate as her mother.

He couldn’t have been more than twelve, thirteen. He was too young. He had all his life ahead of him.

With that thought, Elayne finally broke the surface, drawing in a gasping breath. The girl was right there, at the edge of the bank, and she reached for them both, but Elayne passed the boy to her. She pushed him with all her might as the girl pulled, and thanks to the two of them working together, he was finally out of the water.

He was breathing, Elayne could hear. His breaths were wheezing, strangled, but he was breathing.

Her limbs felt so heavy—her clothes even heavier. The girl reached for her, grabbing Elayne’s arm, but she was too little, too frail to pull someone twice her size out of the water. She was even smaller than the boy, and even though Elayne herself was a short, lithe woman, she was just that: a woman, too big for the little girl’s strength.

It didn’t take long for Elayne’s arm to slip through the girl’s fingers, slick with water as it was. Panic gripped Elayne, its talons tearing through her stomach as she began to thrash in the lake, desperately trying to hold on. It was as though she were in one of her nightmares, the cold water drawing her in its depths, the weight of it crushing her. Everything around her was dark, her sight either blinded by the night or her fear. Everything inside her told her to get out of there no matter what it took. In that moment, even though she had just saved the boy, she was certain she would have stepped on another to get out of there. There were no thoughts in her mind; only instinct.

What hope did she have? There was no one there to save her and she couldn’t save herself. Perhaps it was her fate, after all, to die like this. Perhaps in the end, she couldn’t escape it.

The children’s voices were muffled by the water as Elayne sank into the depths of the lake, her body finally losing all its strength and giving up. In her panic, one thought made it through to the forefront of her mind.

I wonder what me faither will say.

The voices drifting in from the windows were loud as Dunn walked back to the chambers, he shared with Elayne. He frowned to himself, alarmed, as he rushed to the closest window and looked outside, searching for the source of the screams.

They seemed to be coming from the lake, odd as it was that anyone would be there at that time of the night. Though he couldn’t tell what was happening, he was certain it couldn’t be anything good. Why would they be there in the middle of the night, shouting like that?

At first, Dunn feared they might be under attack, but when his initial shock subsided, he realized how unlikely that would be. It didn’t sound like it at all, the voices panicked and few, not like there were troops nearby. Perhaps the guards were handling the situation.

Something told him, though, that he should run to the lake and see for himself. What if someone was in danger? What if the guards reached the lake too late? What if they didn’t bother at all?

Running through the castle, Dunn spilled out onto the courtyard. He had a vague idea of where the lake was, having seen it through the castle windows, and so he headed in that direction, breath catching in his throat as he rushed to get to the source of the sound, the treacherous darkness around him making it difficult to see the way.

When he made it to the lake, he saw a boy and a girl, the boy soaked from head to toe, the girl alternating between tending to him and looking fearfully into the lake. Dunn crouched down next to her, grabbing her gently by the shoulders to pull his attention to him.

“What happened?” he asked.

Panic washed over the girl’s features, her eyes wide, her entire body trembling with terror. She seemed unable to speak even as her lips parted, her words dying in her mouth before she could ever utter them. Instead, she pointed to the lake with a shaky hand, the only sound she could make a whimper.

It was all Dunn needed, though, to understand there was still someone in the lake. He didn’t bother removing his clothes or his boots before he jumped in, fearing that whoever was in there had been in the water for too long and that he was too late.

The darkness of the water was even thicker, impenetrable by the moonlight. Dunn could hardly see ahead of him as he swam deeper and deeper, searching for any signs of another person—of a body. He hardly even registered the cold on his skin, though his hands soon went numb from the chill of the water, making his search more difficult the more time he spent looking.

He had begun to despair, his lungs starting to burn with the lack of air, when he finally felt what he had been looking for. It seemed like a body, surrounded by layers and layers of floating fabric in a way that made it resemble a giant jellyfish. A woman, Dunn thought.

Wasting no time, he grabbed her and began to swim back up to the surface. With her in his arms, it was harder to move, the extra weight of her body and her soaked clothes dragging him back down to the lake’s depths. He swam wildly, with every ounce of strength left in his body, and when he finally resurfaced, he did so with a painful, gasping breath.

Dunn pulled the woman to the shore, and only when she was lying on her back on the dirt did he finally realize who it was. His heart stopped, the blood in his veins freezing solid. His hands reached for her, shaking her, his voice cracking with fear when he spoke.

“Elayne… Elayne, wake up!” he cried. One of his hands came up to cradle her cheek, the other hovering over her, not knowing what to do.

She cannae be gone. I cannae lose her.

For the first time since they had met, it dawned on Dunn just how important Elayne had become to him. The thought of not having her by his side was unbearable, worse than anything he had ever felt. It paralyzed him, siphoned all the strength out of his body until there was nothing left of him but the husk of a man and the terror that had gripped him in its clutches.

Without Elayne, there would be no life for him.

“Come, lass,” he said, giving her another shake. “Open yer eyes.”

The two children had huddled above him, staring at him and Elayne quietly. Water clung to Dunn’s skin, to his hair, his lashes, mingling with the tears he couldn’t hold back.

And then Elayne started with a gasp, sitting up as if pulled by strings as she coughed up water.

The relief that washed over Dunn drew a surprised, delighted laugh out of him. Elayne was alive. She was right there, breathing through the coughs, drawing air in her lungs. Dunn was quick to help her, pulling her to the side so she could spit out the water easily, rubbing her back soothingly to calm her as she stopped sputtering and instead began to heave.

“Ye’re alright,” Dunn told her softly, whispering against her temple. He rocked her back and forth slowly, giving her the time, she needed to realize she was safe. “Everythin’ will be alright.”

Elayne clung to him, fingers digging into his clothes and his arms. She held on so tightly that Dunn was certain her hands would leave bruises behind, but he didn’t care.

The two of them stayed like that for a couple of minutes, sitting there in the mud in silence, until Dunn realized that all four of them were shivering. He hadn’t noticed how cold he was, his own body shaking as it tried to bring back some warmth to his limbs, but now he became painfully aware of it, the chill seeping all the way to his bones.

“Come,” he said, as he pushed himself to his feet and helped Elayne up, letting her put most of her weight on his shoulders. “The two o’ ye,” he told the children, “follow me. Be careful.”

The two children only nodded, heads down as they followed Dunn to the healer’s quarters. Though Elayne had said nothing in all that time, she now turned to look at Dunn, eyes pleading.

“I cannae go tae Isobel,” she said. “Me faither, he cannae hear about this.”

“What are ye sayin’?” Dunn asked. Perhaps it was the shock, he thought, confusing her. “We have tae go.”

“Nay,” Elayne insisted firmly, and this time, she pulled back from Dunn, standing on her own two feet. “I’ll explain everythin’ once we’re in me chambers, but me faither cannae find out. Promise me.”

There was such fire in Elayne’s eyes, such certainty, that Dunn could hardly refuse. Perhaps he could get through to Elayne but he couldn’t do it in the middle of the courtyard, when they were all shivering like this. They had to get inside first, get rid of the soaking clothes, and warm up.

He nodded just as Elayne turned to the children, making them promise they would keep her presence a secret, too. She looked over the boy quickly, making sure he was alright, and once she was satisfied, she said, “Go now an’ warm up. If ye dinnae feel well, though, go see Isobel.”

With that, the children rushed off, their feet pattering against the ground. Once Dunn and Elayne were alone, she turned to him and fell into his arms, and Dunn held her tightly as he kissed the top of her head.

“We should go,” he said, and Elayne nodded against his shoulder, pulling back reluctantly. As they walked, Dunn once again supporting her, he couldn’t help but wonder what it was she didn’t want her father to know.