Her stomach tightened with apprehension. She didn’twantto go back down. She didn’t want to go back to her life where everything was so difficult, every day a struggle to stay afloat.
Irene had been right about one thing: shedidcome up here to forget, to find peace, if only for a short time. Perhaps the old woman had been right about the choice she had to make too, but shehadbeen wrong about one thing: Caitlin didn’t need help. She didn’t need someone else to lead her to her destiny or to tell her what to do. She’d find her own way, and make her own choices, just as she’d always done.
Stubborn,a voice whispered in her head.
She ignored it and turned back towards the cliff edge. But she’d only gone three paces when she stopped abruptly.
Ahead of her lay a tangle of branches and trunks where one of the oaks had fallen against its brethren after a lightning strike. The fallen tree was blackened and scorched, its skeletal branches like fingers gripping its neighbor. Where the trunks touched, a kind of archway had formed and through this Caitlin could see the cliff and the lowlands beyond stretching out.
Or, at least, that’s what sheshouldbe able to see.
But right now, her vision was obscured by something that was swirling in the gap beneath that archway. The air moved and rippled like the waters of a pond stirred by unseen hands.
Caitlin goggled. What the hell was that? She walked carefully nearer, straining to make it out.
As she approached, the swirling substance began to take shape. It looked like a thick mist, but it was unlike any mist she had ever seen before. Caitlin stopped short, unsure. Was it some sort of weather phenomena? She took a step forward, then another, until she was standing before the strange mist.
It was like staring into the heart of a storm, although she felt no wind, no rain, only a strange pull as if some unseen force had a hold on her.
Ye can choose to stay on this path or ye can choose another. If ye choose the harder, darker path, it will be fraught with hardship. But the destination will make the journey worth it.
For some unaccountable reason, Irene’s words echoed in her head. And, for an even more unaccountable reason, she felt herself stepping forward and reaching out to brush her fingers against the shimmering mist. A tingle like electricity hummed all the way up her arm, raising the skin on the back of her neck.
Idiot, she thought.Turn around and leave.But she didn’t. She stepped closer.
It will lead ye to where ye are meant to be and the person ye are meant to be.
Caitlin stepped through the arch.
Chapter 2
Kai Stewart crept noiselesslythrough the undergrowth, moving between bushes, ducking under branches, making no more sound than a ghost. His eyes were fixed ahead, his ears straining for the slightest noise.
There was only the whisper of the wind through the trees and the chirp of birds high up in the branches. He glanced to his left and spotted Magnus slipping through the foliage. For such a huge man, he was surprisingly quiet, and Kai wouldn’t have known he was there if he didn’t know to look for him. Kai glanced right, and after a moment saw the rustle of a bush that indicated Oskar was in position. Finally, he peered up at the tall branches of an oak across the way and spotted Emeric’s lithe form high up amongst the leaves. The archer had an arrow nocked already, pointing down at the path ahead.
Kai nodded in satisfaction. So far, so good. He raised his hand to the others with his fist clenched—the signal to stop—then hunkered down behind the thick tangle of a gorse bush to wait.
