“I never should have convinced her to come to Scotland.We should’ve ignored that fucking app!”
He understood the woman’s pain.Her regret.But she couldn’t blame herself for anything that had happened.“The Weavers would have still found a way to coax ye into coming here.Trust me.I know their relentlessness firsthand.”When she didn’t answer, he sidled closer and leaned in to force her to look him in the eyes.“This is not yer fault, Emily, and Jessa would be the first to tell ye that.”
She made a hard nod at the swirling darkness below.“What are you going to do?How are you going to save her when you don’t even know what’s down in there?Where she might be?Or, God forbid, if she is even?—”
He caught her by the arm and jerked her around to fully face him.“Ye will not say it!My Jessa is alive, and I will find her.”He gently shook her, baring his teeth.“Ye must believe.Has Mairwen taught ye nothing?Beliefis often the strongest weaponry we mere mortals possess.When we believe, we see it in our minds, and it becomes so.Hold her in yer mind.See her healthy.Laughing.Happy.See her back among us.Do ye ken what I am saying?”
She flinched as though losing the battle with her own demons.“I’ll try,” she said in a hitching whisper.“I’m just…afraid.”
He couldn’t allay her fears, nor did he have the time or the inclination to try.His spirit burned to save Jessa.“Go back to the keep or join Mairwen and those from Seven Cairns.I canna bear to delay any longer.”
“Save her.”After a hard squeeze of his arm, she caught up her skirts and ran back to the keep.
Lachie joined him at the edge of the eerie pit.“Orders?”
Grant tossed a hard look back at the keep.“If I dinna survive, take care of them, aye?”
The brawny Highlander agreed with a single nod.“How long afore we join ye in the abyss?I assume ye wish to go alone at first.”
“Dinna follow at all.That could be her plot.Destroy the Defenders and Weavers both to clear a path to the Veil.And if I canna save my Jessa—no one can.I feel it to the marrow of my bones.Even the old witch hinted at such.”
Lachie stared at him long and hard, then thumped his fist to his chest in their age-old salute.“God be with ye, brother.”
“If I dinna see ye again in this life, I shall look for ye in the next.”
With another curt nod, Lachie turned and strode away, but Grant felt better for the conversation.Brothers-in-arms didn’t need words when the time to battle came.
Grant moved to the edge of the dark, gaping seam and squinted down into it while flexing his fingers.The swirling blackness revealed nothing, not even any sounds.He lowered himself to the edge and dangled his legs off into it, thumping with his heels to test the earthen wall behind his calves.But it wasn’t earthen—it was solid stone.He reached down and felt it.It was slick and cold, like the finest marble.To use a rope to lower himself into the unknown didn’t sit right with his gut.There was just something wrong about that.He envisioned the Morrigan swatting at him like a cat toying with a mouse on a string.The sly shapeshifter loved her wicked games.To jump could mean certain death, but somehow, he found that choice more appealing.But the longer he ran his fingers along the refined smoothness of the wall behind his calves, the more he was certain.This was a riddle, and the vile harpy had purposely done it that way.This was a test.
He tore off a chunk of earth from the uppermost portion of the edge and stared at it there in his palm.A rocky mix held together by roots, and yet the wall behind his heels was nothing like that.If anything, it felt made by man rather than nature.Holding the dirt in one hand, he felt the edge with the other, digging his fingers into the softness of the loamy soil the seaside grasses loved.That soft, pebbly earth wasn’t even as deep as his longest finger.The gods had slathered but a thin layer of the natural covering atop their walled pit of marble.On a whim, he let the handful of dirt and pebbles dribble through his fingers into the darkness just past the edge.The clear clicking of the wee rocks as they bounced not too far below surprised him.The dark mist hid a level closer to the surface.
Unsheathing his sword, he rolled to his stomach and reached down into the unseen with the overly long blade that had been forged to fit his height.The tip struck something solid, not too far down, about the distance from his heel to his hip.Concentrating on the sound, he tapped the blade as far out as he could stretch his arm, discovering the length of whatever it was to be about as wide as he was from shoulder to shoulder.He brought his arm back and tapped his blade parallel to the marble wall.
“It’s a feckin’ step.”Either that or a ledge.Whatever the devil it was, it got him that much closer to Jessa.He sheathed his sword, drew two daggers, then rolled to his belly again and stabbed them into the ground.They wouldn’t be much of a handhold in the shallow soil as he lowered himself over the edge, but they would be something in case he needed to dig his way back up.
As soon as his toes hit the ledge, he eased down into the darkness and sat, feeling for what he prayed was another step below that one.Could he be so fortunate as to have found a stairway into the depths of this inky hell?His boots thunked solidly on the next step down.Hope flared strong and sure.He was another step closer.
It might not be manly to hug the wall to his right and feel his way downward with his feet while he slid on his arse across the steps, but it was safe, and if he was safe, he was whole and could fight for his precious Jessa.
The deeper he descended, the colder it became.Morrigan’s hell lacked warmth, and that nay surprised him.A low, hollow sound filled the void, the wind moaning as it rushed through the unholy space.The steady crash of waves came to him, gnawing at him with a new, worrisome fear.What if the briny deep had swallowed his sweet Jessa?
He bowed his head and shook away the terrible thought.“No,” he told the darkness.“She lives.I know it.”
“Are ye certain of that, warrior?”a voice of pure evil quietly asked.
Chapter 15
“She lives,” Grant said, pouring all his rage into the darkness.“Show yerself, coward.”He scooted down the steps faster.He had to reach Jessa.Had to find her.Now.
“Coward?”A low, deep chuckle made the suffocating darkness ripple across his flesh.“And why would ye think me a coward, foolish mortal?”
“Because ye dinna fight me face to face.Ye hide yerself in storms or blinding mists, shielding the truth and making it look a lie.”
“That is not cowardice, warrior, but good battle strategy, ye ken?”
The wind changed, hitting him full in the chest and shoving him back.The crash of waves sounded closer now, and he instinctively knew he had reached the last step.His boot tip confirmed there was not a next one.He stood and unsheathed his sword but remained in place.There was no way to know if the solidity of the ground ran throughout or if he stood on a small landing amid dangerous nothingness.
“Ye are too late, ye ken?”The void repeated the goddess’s words over and over in a taunting echo.The wind caught hold of them and swirled them around him in an icy caress.
