Page 192 of A Courage of the Chosen

My heart, however, is already splintering. Because I know that sound. Have felt the burn as it races through my body.

Loss. Grief. A pain so acute that it shifts your perspective on the world.

Freya is bowed over a bed that wasn’t there before, and Finneus rushes to her side, placing a hand on her shaking shoulders.

Grandpa nears the bed. “What is it?”

“She’s gone. My baby girl is gone,” Freya cries.

Those dreams weren’t dreams at all.

I almost died, and the spirits brought me back.

And Rachel . . .

“I’m sorry, Freya. I tried.” My tears flow freely, each one filled with the moments of my past with Rach.

I did everything I could to save her. Was ready to fight Dhia, and the spirits that created the Seelie Goddess, if I thought it would bring her back. My sister, not by blood, but by choice, and now by marriage.

There is no defeating the dark, and there was never a way to bring her back from what Raghnall did. I see that now.

My mother-in-law turns to me, saying no words, but conveying everything she needs to say in the single look she gives me. Sadness, acceptance, gratitude.

“My old friend,” Grandpa says softly as he drops to his knees next to Freya. “We’re with you.”

He bundles Freya into his arms and she weeps heavy sobs that rattle through her entire body.

Finneus wraps them both in a hug. “We’ve got you, Freya. We’ll help you through this unimaginable pain together.”

Together . . .

Three syllables. A word that means so little. And so much.

Reyne. Me. Rachel. Brodie. Callahan. Eòghann.

Together.

A small group that became a lifeline in my most painful hours, and now it’ll be forever fractured.

“I’m sorry,” I say again, weaker and wobblier than before.

Freya pulls away from Grandpa, climbs to her feet, and strides in my direction. She cups the back of my head as she holds me, and together, we mourn the woman we both loved so dearly, before reality seeps in with the reminder that the rest of my family are fighting without me.

Dhia takes up the space in my mind that she has a direct path to. “You know what you must do, child. Go now, the time is near.”

An invisible thread beckons me beyond the door, a swift jerk behind my belly button, like the one in the Lagan Naomh as we were drawn away from Ishbel’s visions, and I quickly dress back in my room, leaving Freya to grieve her daughter with my grandpa and great-uncle.

Lumiathar is a steady presence at my hip as I swallow down my grief.

She’s gone. Really gone.

This is going to break Callahan. And Brodie.

But that’s something I’ll need to deal with later. Right now they’re battling Tavish, and who-knows-what army, and I need to hurry if I have any hope of helping them.

Grandpa’s head lifts when I re-enter the living room, decked out in my armor and ready for war.

It’s then I clock that he’s dressed the same way. “I’m going with you,” he asserts.