They’d slowed to a trot now, the wind whipping against their faces. “I spoke impulsively by the lakeside,” she said after a few moments, still reeling from his offer. It nearly made her lose her train of thought, or the reason she’d approached him. “Maybe you should go.”
He gave her a long look. “Is that what you want?”
Misery twisted hard in Lara’s chest—and a longing so sharp that she gasped. “I’m in love with you, Alar mac Struana.” She choked the words out. “Gods, I wish I wasn’t. I should hate you. Why don’t I?”
Reedav slowed to a walk, and Bracken followed suit. The Whistle whined around them. Neither noticed. Instead, their gazes locked in a silent duel.
He gave her a tight smile. “I don’t know.”
Lara’s fingers clenched around the reins.Gods.She was suffering, yet he just gave her a glib three-word answer.
“I’ve done terrible things … have given you little reason to love me,” he continued, his gaze fusing with hers. “Although it’s something I’ll cherish until I take my last breath.” A pause followed. A heartbeat. “So, no … I don’t understand what you see in me … but I know exactly why I loveyou.” Dizziness swept over her, yet he wasn’t done. “You give me hope. Before I met you, I was a bitter bastard … searching for justice in a world where there is none. But just a few days in your company showed me there’s light in the darkness. Beauty. You made me see it … and once you did, there was no going back. For that, I’ll be eternally in your debt.”
Lara cut her gaze away then.Her throat ached, and her vision blurred. She didn’t want to break down in front of him. That would be the last straw. And so, she dug her heels into Bracken’s flanks.
The mare lurched forward into a canter.
Moments later, she was racing ahead of him. To her relief, Alar let her go. And as she rode, tears started to roll down her cheeks.
They rode into Crask in the late afternoon.
Even from a distance, Lara saw things had changed. The sod roofs no longer sagged. The wattle and daub walls glowed gold in the lowering sun instead of a dull dirty-brown. The loch sparkled, no longer lying flat and black like something waiting to swallow you whole.
The air felt different. Lighter.
Then the bairns came running.
They poured out from between the roundhouses, shrieking and laughing, their bare feet slapping on the wooden walkways. Then they ran alongside the horses as Lara and her escort approached, calling out questions that tumbled over each other.
“Did you fight monsters?”
“Did you make the ghosts go away?”
Lara’s throat went tight as she looked down at their faces—flushed with excitement, eyes bright, questions spilling from their lips—and something knotted deep in her chest unraveled.
These children weren’t hollow-eyed anymore. They weren’t clinging to their mothers’ skirts, too frightened to play.
They were alive again.
Connor appeared at the end of the walkway, Orla at his side. And when Lara saw what the chieftain’s wife held against her chest, her breathing caught.
The infant she carried was moving and wriggling.
A happy gurgle reached her ears, and Lara’s face split into a wide grin.
The silent baby who had haunted her all the way north—that tiny, still thing wrapped against her mother’s chest—was laughing.
“My Queen!” Connor’s voice carried over the excited chatter. “The sun has shone since Gateway. The nights are quiet … the wraiths have disappeared.”
“The danger has passed.” Lara slid off Bracken’s back, her legs nearly buckling. Gods, she was tired. After three days riding, sleeping rough, her body screamed for a proper bed.
But she was smiling—she couldn’t help it.
More people emerged from the roundhouses now, crannog-dwellers she recognized from days earlier. They’d once looked at her with a blend of hope and fear, wondering if she’d succeed or if they’d all die slowly as the world rotted around them, but they were all smiling now.
“You did it!” A woman called out, clutching her husband's arm.
Others took up the cry, and suddenly, excited chatter surrounded her. Relief and joy spilled over.
