Sandor chimed in, “They said they’ll be there to help you the next time you go in. And they all said to bring more warriors.”
Morgan, hearing this, declared, “And we’re going in this time. Do you not agree, John?”
“I agree. We’ll take six. I didn’t like being the only one in there to fight those warriors. They weren’t that strong, but when the sword disappears, it’s hard to swing against them.”
Edan crossed his arms and offered, “I’d be glad to help.”
Ailith looked at Dyna wide-eyed, shaking her head, but it was Lia who stepped up. “Nay, you cannot go in, Edan. You are both the weapon and the weakness. The hill will destroy you. I think I understand what is happening.”
“Please tell me, because I don’t understand.”
“You saw how Gruin recoiled from just the sight of your blood.”
“I did, but many people are afraid of the sight of blood.”
“It wasn’t the sight of blood. Gruin ran fromyourblood. I’ve never seen Gruin run from anything or anyone. He called it iron blood once. You must have developed iron in your blood, but I don’t understand why.”
Ailith fell to her knees and held her head. “Oh my.”
Edan rushed over to her, catching her before she collapsed completely. “Ailith, what’s wrong? What is it?”
“I see you as a bairn, Edan.”
She closed her eyes, and Lia’s arm touched his. “Let her see what she needs to see. It could help us find your daughter.”
He moved to Ailith’s side, and she leaned her head on his shoulder. “Go ahead, lass. Let it come to you.”
Ailith cried at what she saw.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Ailith
The vision hit before she could brace for it.
Not the slow unfolding she was accustomed to, but the way Islay’s past usually came to her like tide-water rising, gradual, inevitable, cool. This was a crack of light behind her eyes, a sound like iron striking stone, and then she was there.
The scene came to her the way it always did, drifting before it landed, but a certainty settled in her bones. She knew exactly what she was about to see.
The year Edan was born.
The man running was not Edan. She understood that from his unsteady gait. The build was different, the stride heavier, and the bundle against his chest was too small, wrapped tight in wool the color of peat smoke. He ran low to the ground across the grassland, the salt wind flat and mean off the water, the sea below a dark, indifferent thing.
He clutched the infant as if a thousand boars chased him.
Behind him, the night moved.
Not the way wind moves, not the way shadow moves when clouds cross the moon. The dark at the tree line folded and unfolded like something breathing, and shapes emerged from it that had no business existing near daylight, let alone under an ordinary moon on the isle of Islay.
They were beautiful. That was the worst of it. She had expected ugliness, and they gave her something worse, a terrible elegance, cold and amused, a swaying in the wind meant to disguise what they were truly about.
They moved faster than a man could run.
He stumbled. She saw it exactly as it happened. His foot caught on something hidden in the grass, and he went down hard on one knee, the infant jarred enough to cry out. Not awail. A single sound, high and sharp, a call to the bairn’s mother perhaps.
The Unseelie stopped.
She felt the change before she understood it. One moment the shapes at Reginald’s back were moving, chasing the poor man as a group. One against many, and the next they had drawn up short. Not cautious but confused. And then something uglier than confusion crossed those pale, terrible faces.
