Page 15 of The Last Kelpie

He didn't stop. Didn't look back. He walked straight into the loch, and the water accepted him as if it had been waiting for his return. It closed over his head, and then those ripples appeared. Moving away from me.

I ran to the edge of the loch. “Áedán!”

I stood there for an hour, waiting for him to surface. Waiting for some sign that he was still there. But the water gave me nothing. So, I walked back to the village. My hands were numb, and my chest felt hollow.

I'd found the last kelpie. And I'd lost him in the same night.

Chapter Seven

I returned at dawn.

The sky was the color of slate, clouds hanging low over the mountains. Everything felt colder, more remote, as if the loch had retreated from me just as Áedán had. I'd barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him walking into the water, disappearing as if he'd never existed at all. And I knew that would be his fate if I didn't help him. He'd disappear as if he'd never been.

I sat on the same flat rock where I'd stood the night before. It was quickly becoming my rock. I felt like a lighthouse placed upon it, watching the water. Not to save ships, but what lay beneath. I wasn't going to leave until I spoke to Áedán. If it took all day, so be it. If I had to wait all night, fine. Determined, I sat there and tried not to think about the fact that I'd ruined everything before it had even begun.

The water was dark, almost black in the early light. It moved in those strange patterns I'd noticed before—ripples spreading from invisible sources. I watched them for a long time, trying to see into the water beneath them. Was it Áedán swimming there, watching me? Or was it just a large fish? Every ripple couldn't be him. That was akin to hearing hoofbeats and expecting zebras. Or kelpies, in this case.

An hour passed, then two. The sun rose behind the mountains but didn't break through the clouds. It turned the light gray instead of gold. A few birds called from the trees behind me. Otherwise, it was silent.

I was about to pull a sandwich from my pack when the water changed. Not exactly a ripple or a wave. Just a shift in the way the surface caught the light. Like something massive had moved underneath, displacing the water without breaking through.

I stood up, my heart racing. The water near the shore began to glow. Not bright. Just a faint silver luminescence, like moonlight trapped beneath the surface. It spread outward in patterns that looked almost deliberate, like veins of light branching through darkness. It formed a shape.

Then he rose. Not the man I'd met, with dark hair and dangerous eyes, but a horse.

Black as the water itself, massive and impossibly beautiful. His wet coat gleamed, catching what little light there was and reflecting it wrong. Not like an animal. Like water given shape. As if the loch itself had decided to take form and walk.

His mane flowed like river currents. Silver and white and translucent, moving even though there was no wind. It looked like reflections off water, light caught in rapids, something that shouldn't be solid but was. The mane fell past his neck, trailing into the water behind him, and I couldn't tell where the horse ended and the loch began.

He came to the shallows, his chest emerging from the water, and looked at me with deep green eyes. Cocking his head, the light caught in his eye, flashing emerald. There was intelligence there. Recognition.

I couldn't move, couldn't breathe properly. He was beautiful. Not in the way horses are beautiful. Not in any way I had words for. He was beautiful the way storms are beautiful. The way the ocean is beautiful. Dangerous, wild, and utterly beyond human understanding.

He stepped forward. The water parted around him without a sound. His hooves touched the shore, and I heard the scrape of them on stone. He was real. Solid. Not a dream or a trick of light. This was Áedán's original form.

He stopped about ten feet away. Close enough that I could see a patch of silvery-gray on his forehead, shaped like a diamond. Water dripped from his mane, running down his neck in rivulets that caught the light. It destroyed the illusion that he was formed of water and showed me the truth. It was camouflage. When he was underwater, he'd vanish. I might have been staring at him the entire time without realizing it.

We looked at each other for a long moment. I didn't know what to say. Didn't know if I should say anything. I should have been afraid. But standing there, looking at this creature that shouldn't exist, I felt something else entirely. Awe. Wonder. Gratitude. The same feelings I'd had the first time I saw the ocean as a child, standing on the shore and realizing how small I was, how vast the world was, how much existed beyond my understanding, and how grateful I was to be a part of it.

Then the horse began to change. It wasn't sudden. Not a flash of light or a dramatic transformation. It was slow. Deliberate. Like watching water freeze or ice melt, a gradual shift from one state to another.

The horse's form began to dissolve. Not disappearing, but reshaping. His massive body contracted, legs lengthening and narrowing, and neck shortening. The pale mane pulled back, darkening, and became human hair. His green eyes remained the same for a moment, then shifted to human, the oval slit pupils shrinking to circles. Their color remained the same, and so did the look in those eyes.

The transformation took about thirty seconds. Long enough for me to watch every stage. Long enough for my brain to process what was happening and understand that this wasn't magic in the fairy tale sense. This magic was primal, like the magic of the world spinning on its axis through space. The magic of a caterpillar liquefying only to emerge from the sludge with wings. Real magic.

When it finished, Áedán stood where the horse had been. Naked. Water ran down his skin in streams that caught the light. His wet hair was plastered to his neck and shoulders, darker than it had been the night before. His body was lean and muscular. Sleek. Scars crossed his chest and arms—thin white lines that were so old, they'd lost their texture, leaving only ghosts of themselves.

I stared. It was impossible not to. My mind had stopped working in any useful capacity. I had never seen such a beautiful man in person, much less naked. It was an unprecedented occurrence, and as such, I had no previous experience to fall back on. In short, I stood there like a daft sod.

Áedán's expression changed as he looked at me. Something cold moved across his face. Something bitter. “There. That's what you came to see, right? The monster. The creature. The thing that drowns children and eats travelers.” He took a step forward, and I saw the tension in his shoulders, the way he clenched his hands at his sides. “Go ahead. Document it. Write it down. Tell your Velasca friends you saw the last kelpie in his true form. Tell them he's exactly as monstrous as the stories say.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. My throat was tight.

“What's wrong?” Áedán's smile was sharp. “Cannae find the words? Too frightened to speak? That's what usually happens. Humans see what I really am, and they run. Or they try to kill me. Or they—” He stopped and looked away. “They always prefer the monster to the truth.”

The silence stretched between us. The wind picked up, carrying the smell of the loch. Áedán stood there, naked, furious, and heartbreakingly vulnerable, waiting for me to confirm what he already believed about himself.

I found my voice. It came out quieter than I'd intended. “I think you're beautiful.”