In the ancient days, so one of her teachers had told her, the Celtic peoples believed in a land far to the west called Tír na nÓg where their fallen heroes went after death.
Could what she saw be that land? Nay, surely not.
There were people on the shore, but they all stood aside from her, watching—still watching. Even when she stepped onto a higher rock where the spray broke at her very feet.
“Darlei,” Orle, who’d remained behind her, called. “Is it safe?”
“Surely. Step up here with me.”
“I do not believe we should.”
They spoke in their own tongue, and the people on the shore began to mutter.
“Darlei, do not fall.”
“I will not.”
She teetered a bit, but it was only at the impetus of the wind.
“She is going to jump!” cried one of the men on the shore.
Suddenly, someone leaped onto the rock beside her. She turned with a smile, thinking Orle had found her courage. “It is magnifi—”
Not Orle. Deathan MacMurtray stood there, alarm filling his eyes.
“Princess! Careful, I pray.”
He seized her elbow, and they stood that way for several heartbeats, gazing into one another’s face while the waves broke over their feet. She felt…
But there were no words for what she felt, no words in all the world.
In the clear light, his eyes were blue, aye, dark blue like the water out beyond the rocks, but with green specks in them. Like the flecks on a gemstone.
She had never seen such eyes.
“I am not going to jump,” she told him.
“I never thought so. But the rocks are wet. Ye could slip.”
“I but wanted to feel the power of it all. It is magnificent.”
“Aye so.” He did not look away from her at the water. “’Tis.”
They stood close, likely far too close. She could feel the heat of his body. She could catch the scent of him even over the salt spray.
She had never smelled anything so good.
But people were watching, and she supposed she had already earned a reputation as the wild Caledonian princess.
“You may—” she began.
A wave broke over them, wetting them both to the waist.
She smiled at him in delight, unable to help it. And it became immediately intimate, even though they stood out here in the open, the focus of so many eyes.
“—help me down,” she concluded.
She thought he would lead her by the hand. Lend the strength of his arm, mayhap. Instead he released his grip on her elbow and swept her up off the flooded rock.
