Ailith did.
“You see what was,” Avelina said softly. “Tora sees what is. Sylvi hears what cannot be spoken. And your mother sees what is to come and weaves us all together. The Woven Circle is whole.”
The words settled deep within Ailith, not as something new, but as something remembered.
“I’ve heard of such groupings. Someday I’ll tell you what I’ve heard, but I’ll save it for another day. We need your help now, Ailith. You must go deep and see if you can find where that hill is and how we can free them.”
Ailith did as Avelina suggested and the older woman began to hum. Dyna said, “Close your eyes and see what appears to you, Ailith.”
The lasses all closed their eyes.
Sylvi spoke first, her voice low. “I feel a sadness from a wee bairn. She’s calling for her father. She misses him so, but she doesn’t understand why he hasn’t come, and she’s too young to put it into words.”
Tora drew in a breath. “The laddie carries a piece of plaid. The wee one in front. The lass with the red curls. The laddie next to her, he’s small and quiet.”
Ailith spoke without opening her eyes. “Heilyn. Her name is Heilyn. Edan said it in the hall. The laddie is Milo.” A pause. “They were the last to be taken. The hill opened wider for them. The spirit wanted them.”
Avelina stilled. “Wanted them, lass?”
“Aye. Not the others. Them.”
Dyna’s voice came low. “And it will want them again. I see what comes if we delay. The hill is closing soon. We have until the next moon.”
Tora’s eyes opened. “Mama. Oh! Guess who I see.” She sat up and grabbed her mother’s hand. “Lia’s on the water. She’ll be here this eve.”
Sylvi held her hands up and settled them on her chin, her gaze going to each one of them. “What does all this mean?”
Dyna declared, “It means we’re going to Islay. Avelina will stay here but we’re going. Ailith, will you come?”
She nodded, unable to speak because of the thoughts clamoring in her mind. Edan’s face rose again, his quiet strength, the way his voice had steadied when speaking of his daughter despite the grief beneath it. The pull returned, faint but undeniable, as though the same unseen thread had tightened once more.
“Good. Because you complete our circle. We need you.” Dyna hugged her and smiled.
Ailith nodded, though a strange certainty settled within her. Not only that she must go, but that her path and Edan’shad already begun to weave together in ways she did not yet understand.
Avelina squeezed Dyna’s hand. “And I have news for you.”
“What?”
“Erena is coming too. She wishes to speak with the four of you.”
Dyna tried not to show any emotion over that. Erena was a queen of the faeries.
So what exactly did this all mean?
Chapter Ten
Ailith
Ailith and Dyna had spent a long time speaking with her parents. Her father resisted the journey. Her mother did not.
Alasdair rose from his chair in the solar and began to pace. “Emmalin, I’m not interested in sending our daughter into some strange land where we have no allies. We’re asking for trouble. Ailith, forgive me, but your mother and I must speak this through.”
Ailith sat with her hands folded in her lap. She’d always been the quiet one in her family, more like her mother than the others of the clan. Emmalin MacLintock held strength without ever needing to prove it, strength that did not shout, yet bent others to listen without a bow strapped to her back.
She thought of the others in her clan who didn’t use a bow. Aunt Kyla, Aunt Gracie, Aunt Maeve, and the only one she would ever call quiet and reserved was Aunt Maeve, until she’d had her son Grant. Then everything had changed. Maeve was now more like a wolf who’d just borne ten cubs, daring anyone to get near them.
Was her father acting like that over her? If so, she had to say something.
