After a few steps, the blood dried and there was no trace of where he had gone.
She followed the stakes the guard had set to mark a potential path, hoping she didn’t run into Torin. She had washed the dirt from her hands and tended to her bruises earlier that morning. She had even found a looser chemise of Emma’s that fit her and had wrapped herself in one of Graeme’s woolen cloaks to ward off chills, but she knew she still looked half dressed and wild.
Sidra didn’t care.
She realized as she walked the hills that her steps had quickened. She could move thrice as fast as normal, and she almost laughed as she felt the magic rush through her. She could also sense how close other people were. There were four guards to her right, two kilometers away. There was a croft to her left, five kilometers away. She could feel the distance in her bones, and it enabled her to travel, undisturbed by others.
All too soon, she came upon the end of the marked path. She decided to continue walking to the southwest, following threads of gold in the air and in the grass. They brought her to a copse of birch trees. Sidra paused, confused when the golden essence flared violet on one of the trunks. She could sense the maiden in the birch tree; Sidra faintly heard her voice as she lamented. The spirit had been wounded.
Sidra reached out her fingers to trace the bark.
“Don’t touch her,” a voice thundered in the ground. The words raced up Sidra’s legs, and she snatched her hand away before she could comfort the birch maiden.
She took a step away, but she could feel the sorrow in this place. The trees were in anguish, and she didn’t know why.
Sidra pressed onward.
“Can you take me to my daughter?” she asked, but her voice fell unanswered, even as she sensed the spirits’ wary attention. “Can you show me where she is?”
Her thirst suddenly became intense. She could hardly think of anything else, and she closed her eyes, seeking the closest water spirit. She sensed the cold, quiet presence of a loch, just over the next hill. Sidra hurried to find it—a narrow but deep body of water, nearly hidden in a secluded valley.
She hadn’t been here before, and she heard her grandmother’s voice, echoing in her memory.
Never drink from strange lochs.
But Sidra was so thirsty. Her mouth and her soul were both parched, and she knelt at the bank and filled her hands with clear, icy water. She took her first sip—it was sweet, as if spun with honey. She took another draw before she paused, noticing the swirl of gold within the water. Like threads of flaxen hair. Disquieted, she lowered her hands. Her eyes drifted to the deeper side of the pool, where something was bubbling.
It was Maisie.
Maisie was in the water, held just beneath the surface.
Sidra cried out and lunged into the loch. She tore Graeme’s cloak away from her collar and dived, pulling her body through the water in frantic strokes.
She was almost to Maisie, but then Sidra saw that her daughter was farther below the surface than she had realized. Sidra cursed, returning to the surface to gasp fresh air. She plunged again, following those golden tendrils down, deep into the dark waters of the pond.
But every time Sidra stretched out her hand to grasp Maisie, she discovered the lass was just beyond her reach.
Maisie drifted farther and farther below, as if she were tethered to something in the heart of the loch. Sidra continued to chase her. Her open eyes burned as she reached for her daughter again and again, to no avail.
She could feel her lungs begin to smolder. She was almost out of air.
Sidra glanced upward; the surface was far away. She hesitated, her black hair tangling like silk across her face.
From the corner of her eye, she saw movement. She wasn’t alone in the water, and Sidra glanced sideways to see the water spirit approach. A woman with translucent skin, dark blue fins, and oversized, cat slit eyes. Sharp, pointed teeth and long, blond hair, its tendrils illumined in the dark water.
Sidra’s fear and indignation morphed into a blazing fire.
This is a trick. She’s fooling me.
She closed her eyes and began to kick to the surface. Sidra could feel the threads of the spirit pull against her, inviting her to stay. To sink into a place where the world shed its old skin. To be reborn in the weight of the loch.
Sidra desperately swam upwards, where she could feel the waters grow warm again. Her legs and hands felt heavy, but she opened her eyes and followed a bold wisp of gold now, as if another spirit was urging her to rise. Bubbles slipped from her lips as she struggled to keep her mouth shut. To resist taking a breath of water.
I’m not going to make it …