Page 76 of Broken Veil
“I feel like we’re bordering on body-shaming now,” Carys whispered.
“It’s just his legs.” Laura gestured at Angus and kept her voice at normal volume. “I’m not insulting them. They’re perfectly fine, but we kind of need to know how much attention we’re going to have to fight off.” She looked at Duncan. “You hear me on this, right, grumpy?”
“I have no opinion.” Duncan glanced at Angus. “If he agreed to guide us, he’ll figure out how to blend in once we’re in the Brightlands.”
“I have my ways, human.” Angus lifted his voice. “The imps have been here.” He wrinkled his nose and stopped in the middle of the path. “Nasty creatures.”
Nêrys, we are near.
They were closing in on the dense canopy of the dark forest when she felt Cadell approaching. Angus halted and looked up, watching the dragon circle and descend from the clouds.
Cadell set down on a clear rise a short distance away, and Duncan walked toward the landing party while Carys and Laura waited with Angus.
I am going to tell Lachlan that Seren is speaking from Annwn,Cadell said in her mind.
“So that’s why Duncan walked over,” she muttered.
Laura frowned. “What?”
“My boyfriend and my dragon are both protecting me from however they think Lachlan is going to react to Seren being… alive. Ish. Not completely dead.”
“But she is dead,” Laura said. “Cadell said?—”
“Cadell is not hearing her in his mind.” Carys pointed to her head. “Cadell did not hear it from the goat guide?—”
“I heard that,” Angus muttered.
“—that he was going to have to figure out how to walk to the otherworld before all this is over. So you can all say that she’s not technically alive, but?—”
“Seren is what?” Lachlan’s roar erupted from beyond the trees.
“See?” Carys threw up her hands. “Alive-ishseems accurate.”
Moments later, Lachlan was striding up the path with Duncan walking behind him. Cadell and Naida followed at a distance.
“Did you know?” Lachlan strode right past Carys and put his finger into Angus’s face. “Did you know she was alive, you bastard?”
“She’s not alive; she’s in Annwn,” Angus said. “And if you’d taken two minutes to think about it instead of rolling around in your own grief after she died, you would have realized it too. She was a warrior and heir to the throne who died in battle.” The ùruisg leaned forward. “Just because you didn’t know you were at war doesn’t mean her mother’s gods would have missed it.”
“Not all humans who die go to Annwn,” Naida said quietly to Carys and Laura. “But it does not surprise me that Seren would have been taken there after her death, considering who your mother was and the circumstances.”
Carys kept her voice low too. “Angus told me ages ago. He asked if Seren had returned from Annwn when he saw me. I just didn’t realize?—”
“So she’s alive,” Lachlan said. “Seren is alive. Heroes travel back from Annwn.” His voice was half-desperate. “It is written in the stories that?—”
“The living are sometimes granted passage and return,” Cadell said. “Not the dead.” For once, the dragon’s voice was soft with empathy. “If there is anyone whose grief is the equal of yours, it is mine, Lachlan of Moray. If I thought there was a way to return Seren to this realm, I would fly to Annwn and drink fire from the cauldron of Caer Sidi myself.” He turned his gaze to Carys. “Even though I have found peace with a new nêrys.”
Lachlan suddenly turned to Carys and his face went pale. “Carys.”
“It’s fine.” She felt her cheeks burning. “Lachlan, we don’t need to?—”
“I love you both. Gods of old, I love you both so much.” He wrapped his arms around her and folded her into a ferocious embrace. “What do we do, Carys? What do we do?”
Lachlan’s shoulders shook with grief and confusion, and Carys felt his hot tears on her neck. She caught Duncan’s glare over his Shadowkin’s shoulders, but she couldn’t find it in her heart to turn Lachlan away.
Seren was alive. Ish.
Lachlan had crossed a world once just to catch a glimpse of Seren’s echo in the Brightlands. He’d abandoned a throne just to see her face.
