Page 144 of The Shadow Path
Lachlan leaned down to her. “If anything goes wrong, stay close to me.”
She glanced up. “You still think he’s trying to trick us?”
“No. But Cian is powerful and smart. And no one can anticipate you more than a sibling.”
Carys nodded and scooted closer to Lachlan. “Do you think this fog is freaking out your soldiers?”
“I think it’s?—”
The fog closed around them, and Carys’s world went white.
There were whispers in the distance, slithering sounds and childish laughter.
Something rustled in the long grasses on the banks of what might have been a river or a plain. The lapping water that had pushed against the barge was silent, and all sound seemed to soak into the dense cloud around them.
Carys stared ahead. She knew fog, but this was something far more than natural. “You think it’s what?” The only thing shecould hear over the rustling grass was the sound of Dru’s voice singing a low, droning chant. “Lachlan?”
Carys looked over her shoulder and saw that the line of soldiers directly behind her were frozen in a trance, their eyes wide, unblinking, and locked on something in the distance that Carys couldn’t perceive.
She turned and saw Lachlan in the same state, and her heart began to race.
“Goddess-touched.”
Carys turned her head and saw Dru surrounded by the fog, a smile flirting around his lips as the fae on the barge examined her with curious eyes.
Carys tore her attention from the crowd. “What?”
“If I hadn’t known before, I’d know now.” Dru walked over and touched Lachlan’s forehead with his finger. “Fae-touched. Your prince has magic. He can access the earth and the air. That’s what makes him so charming and so musical.” He turned to Winnie. “Fae-touched. She never misses with her bow. The trees speak to her, and she’s more at home in the forest than the castle.”
He turned back to Carys and reached out, running soft fingers along her cheek. “Goddess-touched. No wonder you can speak with dragons. My magic works on you, but only a little. I should have known the first night I met you in the pub. You truly are Epona’s daughter.”
A moment later, the world around her came alive. It was as if everything had been muted and then it wasn’t.
“—hard to know how they’re feeling,” Lachlan muttered. “The unknown is usually more frightening than the reality.”
She blinked, and Lachlan caught her stare.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She didn’t want to explain Dru’s words. She couldn’t explain them yet.
The fog lifted and the slow, wide river they’d been traveling along was gone. Instead, a narrow, grassy waterway with dense reeds and overhanging trees surrounded them.
The fae with them started whispering and fluttering their wings. Branches cracked and boughs flexed as they moved off the barge, some flying and others climbing on the treelike creatures that had planted their feet into the shallow water and were lurching toward the bank.
The selkies and the mermin in the river drifted into the shadows or slipped below the surface as the second barge came through. Then one by one, each of the massive boats came to rest in the narrow Saris Avon.
“We’re here.” Dru motioned with his hand, and the barge floated to the riverbank where it bumped against the muddy ground and came to a stop. “Come. We still have miles to march.”
Ridingover the grassy landscape of Southern Anglia was making Carys rethink her decision to stay. Even when their horses were unloaded and she was able to mount Leuca, the calm presence of the mare did little to soothe the anxiety in her blood.
She felt Cadell overhead—the dragon had quickly found her the moment she crossed the gate and was now flying overhead, communicating with her as he surveyed the landscape.
I see soldiers in the distance, but they’re far off. On the far side of the plain, coming up from the south.
“Cadell said there are soldiers coming up from the south.” Carys looked at Dru. “Cian is here.”
“Does he see fae or human armies?”
