Page 183 of A Courage of the Chosen

The footsteps echo behind us, and the tall blond I’ve become familiar with enters the cavern, covered in dirt and sweat. And just like last time, my heart breaks alongside hers as she discovers the people she cared for.

“She has the Craobh, Elsie. And your sword. Look.” Rach points to the blade the woman throws to the side as she rushes forward. I hadn’t noticed it was Lumiathar last time.

The scene plays out as it always has. The woman takes her time unbinding the Seelie, murmuring the same words with tears tracking down her face. When she’s done, she drops to her knees and her power builds. It explodes out, surrounding us in the warmth of her light, and Rach tugs me away.

“Where is Dhia? We need to get out of here,” she asks, panicked.

“It won’t hurt you, it’s just a vision.”

Rach bristles next to me. “When this is over, I’ve got so many questions.”

“Get in line,” I shoot back.

The air around us quivers at the edges, melting away until we’re back at the Lagan Naomh, but not like we were before.

Another vision. Another I’ve already seen.

The same woman kneels before the tree we stepped through moments before, her body slumped in a way that speaks to complete defeat.

She greets the small child again, and hands her the Craobh as she speaks in a language that I at least recognize now. I still don’t know what they’re saying, but I can feel the agony lancing through each of them, their emotions transcending words.

When the girl is gone, and the woman has made peace within, she carves her hand open and paints runes onto the grass as she begins the chant that will take her life.

“As long as the light remains, the wicked darkness shall never reign,” I say at the same time as her.

Rach’s gaze burns a hole into the side of my head, and together we watch as light and dark, shadow and mist, sweep over the Lagan Naomh and beyond. We watch as the brave woman slumps over until she’s prone on the ground, and listen as her heart gives out one last shuddering beat.

Unseeing eyes stare back, and it hits me squarely in the chest. Last time I saw this, everything faded away as she slipped into death’s embrace, but we’re left here to look at her corpse.

I fight the swell of nausea in the back of my throat. I’ve seen too many bodies, too many women lying broken and defeated in my short life.

“Els,” Rach says in a low voice. “Look.”

Ten orbs gather around the woman, with a presence not like anything I’ve ever felt. They’re magical, that much is obvious, but there’s something other about them. They flit between every color imaginable, as green as the grass under summer sun, as dark as the night just before dawn, as red as the blood staining the hands of the Seelie they congregate over.

The power in them is old, as though their essence is what makes up the fabric of the universe.

Rach digs her fingers into my forearm as will-o-the-wisps hover. Only a handful at first, then hundreds of them dance around to a noiseless rhythm only they know.

Just like they did with Granny, they dart into the woman. Shooting beneath her skin one by one until her entire body is glowing a brilliant blue.

Not unlike the figure that’s presented herself to me twice now.

“Is that . . .?” Rach trails off.

A twitch of a hand.

The stirring of a leg.

Slowly, the Seelie who just gave her life in sacrifice, for reasons unknown to us, begins to show signs of life, until she sits with her arms draped over her knees, head dipped low.

After a moment, the blue figure rises from the ground, and she bows deeply at the orbs still hovering nearby. “Tapadh leat,” she murmurs.

She nods as they speak to her, mind to mind, and responds aloud in the old tongue, the only indicator that they’re communicating with her somehow.

She uses brief, clipped syllables, making it appear to be a fairly one-sided conversation, as she falls quiet for longer periods before replying. She bends at the waist again and the orbs vanish, taking their energy with them. Then, she turns back to us.

“Elsie, that’s Dhia.”