Page 36 of First Light

She was immediately disgusted by her own thoughts.

Self-respect, Carys.She heard her father’s voice.Pick your head up, my girl. You’re as good as any of them.

“Better.” She continued walking on the path.

She came to a clearing and heard a rustling in the bushes, then a child’s cry.

Carys froze, wary of any unfamiliar sounds, but this time there was nothing otherworldly about the small noise. There was a huff, a pained exhalation, and then a whimpering sniffle that turned into a plaintive sob.

She stepped toward the trees, peeking around the yellow-leaved brush to see a little girl around five or six on the ground, her ankle twisted in a hole. She had a grubby face, brown hair, and dark brown eyes that were filled with tears when she looked up at Carys.

“I hurt my foot.”

Carys was surprised the girl spoke English, but she immediately bent down to help. “You poor thing. Did you trip?”

The little girl nodded. “I was running after my cousin, and he ran away with his friends and I couldn’t catch up. They run much faster than me.”

“Don’t worry.” Carys dug around the girl’s ankle, loosening the soil in what looked like a small animal burrow. “You’ll catch up when you’re bigger. In fact, I bet you’ll be the fastest runner of them all.” She pulled the girl’s narrow ankle from the hole, already seeing where the joint had swelled. “Oh kiddo, that looks like it hurts.”

“It does hurt.” She sniffed. “But I won’t cry. I promise. Do you have a potion?”

Carys’s eyebrows went up. “A potion?”

The little girl nodded. “For my ankle. Humans have potions sometimes.”

Carys stood quickly and looked down at the little girl. “Humans have… Are you not human?” All of Duncan’s warnings about talking to the fae came rushing back, and Carys felt like a fool.

“I am right now, silly.” The little girl leaned forward and tried to stand but couldn’t. “Can you help me?” She held out her hand.

The child wasn’t acting like she was trying to trick or trap Carys,and it was impossible to leave a helpless little girl in the middle of the forest when she was injured. Could fae even get injured?

After a moment of hesitation, Carys squatted down. “Can you ride on my back if I help you up?”

The girl giggled. “Yes.”

“Okay, let’s try that.” She turned, and the little girl put her arms around Carys’s shoulder and her legs around her waist. Soon she was carrying the child through the forest like a backpack.

“This is fun!”

Carys was glad the little girl sounded cheerful. Her ankle was swelling to the size of a grapefruit. “Can you point me the way to your house?”

“Oh, we don’t live in a house, but I can show you where our meadow is.”

“Your… meadow?”

“It’s the prettiest meadow!” The little girl started bouncing. “Come on. I’ll show you where to go.”

Okay. Maybe the girl’s family was itinerant. Maybe they lived in wagons or tents. She didn’t look hungry, and while she was grubby from playing in the forest, her hair was neatly braided, and from the weight on Carys’s back, she was well fed.

The child proceeded to give Carys directions through the forest, taking small paths and jumping over little streams that flowed downhill toward a glimmering blue body of water that peeked through the trees.

“Is that a lake?”

“The loch?”

“Right,” Carys whispered. “Aloch.”

The loch stretched out from the forest, calm and smooth and bright as it reflected the pearl-grey sky. Birds sang in the trees, and the only break in the glassy surface of the water was the ducks cutting across the mirrorlike surface with a line of ducklings paddling behind them.

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