Page 22 of First Light

Long minutes later, the land evened out and the forest grew thinner. The occasional bird fluttered overhead, and insects began to chirp and saw through the bushes. Dark pines gave way to lighter hardwoods, and the occasional evergreen dotted the landscape along with hedgerows and widening paths.

Duncan’s shoulders slowly relaxed as the land around them turned from brown, black, and grey to green and blue. “I keep a cottage that’s not far from here. We can rest there, and you can change.”

“Change?”

He paused, turned, and looked her up and down. “Yes.”

They paused when a tall woman crossed their path. She came walking through the trees, stopped, and stared at them for a moment.

Carys couldn’t speak. The woman was thin as a willow branch and nearly as tall. Her golden-brown hair was straight and fell down her back, threaded with leaves and a few bright, berry-laden twigs. Her skin was golden brown, her ears were pointed, and gold rings pierced the tips.

Duncan paused and gave the silent woman a deep nod, but he didn’t speak.

She stared at Carys with obvious curiosity, and Carys stared back. The woman cocked her head and blinked thick-lashed brown eyes. Like Dru, she wore sigils on her face, but they were delicately drawn, fine lines curling like tendrils from the arches of her cheeks up to her temples and into her hairline.

The woman stared for a few silent moments, and then Carys blinked and she was gone.

After a long moment, Duncan kept walking, gripping Carys’s hand in his.

“What was she?” Carys couldn’t stop the question, but she kept her voice low. “Was that an elf?”

“Light fae. You’ll see them out and about more than the dark.”

Duncan helped her over a stone wall and across a rolling meadow with lights dancing just over waving heads of ripe wheat. The horizon was growing lighter but never truly bright. It was as if athick fog covered the sun, making the sky glow but with no clear radiance.

As they walked, the land grew warmer and the colors brighter. It was awash in hues that reminded Carys of a watercolor painting. Purple and deep green trees, blue-green meadows, and soft-gold fields. She saw the first sheep when they climbed over the next stone wall, this one cut with steps from whatever shepherd trod the path they were walking.

Carys sighed with relief. “Sheep and stone walls. Things are getting more familiar.”

“Wouldn’t be any kind of Scotland without sheep,” he muttered. “Even an alternate one.”

There was smoke in the distance, a curling grey puff of human habitation that tickled her nose with its familiar smell. They passed into a lane that was rutted with narrow wheel tracks and turned right, following the well-worn mud path.

“My cottage is just over this next hill.”

She wasn’t winded, but she felt tired. Still, the thrill of the unknown pulled her to waking and her body responded. The hills rose beside them, blanketed in colors that became more familiar the longer Carys looked at them.

The colors, the light, the clouds in the sky. She remembered where she’d seen them before.

“My mother painted landscapes like this.” She smiled a little bit, a wave of inexplicable calm touching her soul. “This place looks just like one of her paintings.”

“She was an artist?”

“Yes. I can’t draw anything though.”

“You’re a teacher.” He nodded. “Like your father.”

Carys frowned. So few people associated her mythology studies with her father’s humble high school wood shop, and she was surprised Duncan had made the connection.

“Yes. My father loved to teach.”

“Your mother wouldn’t have been here.” Duncan looked around. “Maybe… in a dream. People dream of this place. Maybe some kind of memory through the eyes of her Shadowkin.” He glanced over his shoulder. “But people from the Brightlands don’t come to this place. Not on purpose.”

“We’re here.”

“Yes, we are.” He didn’t sound happy about it. “And I’m going to hear about it.”

When they reached the top of the hill, she saw it in the distance, just as she knew she would. A stone castle with four round towers, flags flying from the turrets and a high ridge with an old stone tower backing up to the castle. On the hills beyond, a dark forest stretched on for miles and miles. The only things missing were dragons flying overhead.

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