Page 35 of The Last Kelpie

We slipped beneath the surface together, and I panicked. I thought I could handle it, but when faced with the prospect of breathing in water, my body rebelled. Áedán squeezed my hand, and I forced myself to relax and trust him. I inhaled, fighting my survival instincts. And breathed! I gasped in shock, and water rushed into my mouth and down my throat. Somehow, my lungs accepted it. Processed it. I was breathing water as if it were air.

Áedán smiled, his hair billowing in the water. It's all right, his expression seemed to say. I have you.

I smiled back at him, and we descended slowly. The loch was deeper than I'd imagined; the darkness absolute except for a faint glow that emanated from Áedán. His skin gave off a soft luminescence, just enough to see by. I hadn't thought he could get any more beautiful, but this was where he belonged. This was where he was his truest self.

We swam deeper. My ears popped. The pressure increased. But Áedán's hand in mine was steady, and the water in my lungs felt natural, almost comfortable. I could feel the current moving around us, could sense the vastness of the loch stretching in all directions.

Then I saw the stones.

They rose from the loch bed like blunt teeth, arranged in a perfect circle, taller than a man. Light, more brilliant than Áedán's glow, emanated from them. As we approached, I saw that the light came from carvings in the stones. They looked impossibly old, and the closer I got, the more my skin tingled. They had magic like Áedán.

Áedán led me slowly around the perimeter of the circle, our fingers still intertwined. I felt the water change. It grew thicker, heavier, charged with energy. The stones seemed to hum, sending out a vibration I felt in my bones rather than heard.

We completed a full circuit. Then another. On the third pass, Áedán stopped us between two stones. He looked at me, his expression serious, then reached out with his free hand and placed his palm flat against the stone on his left.

The water shimmered. It started as a ripple, spreading outward from where Áedán's hand touched the stone and then ripples came from all the stones. The light emanating from the stones shot through the ripples and merged in the center of the circle. The light grew, expanding to fill the space. Within the light, a vision emerged. Not flat like a movie but fully dimensional, as if a portal had opened for us to peer through.

Human children, maybe six or seven years old, sat on Loch Lomond's shore. They wore simple clothes of rough fabric and were weaving flowers into crowns. They laughed as they worked, their small hands quick and sure. When they finished, they waded into the water and held the crowns up like offerings upon their palms.

Shapes rose from the depths. Horse heads broke the surface, and then they moved closer to shore, revealing slick black coats, eyes that flashed, and manes that shone like moonlight on water. The children placed the flower crowns on the horses' heads, and the horses—the kelpies—bowed, accepting the gifts with what looked like genuine pleasure.

The vision shifted. A village appeared—primitive stone buildings clustered near the loch's shore. The water was rising, flooding the lower fields, and people ran about, shouting, trying to save what they could. Then the kelpies came. They moved through the water like living dams, redirecting the current, creating channels that led the water away from the village and onto land a safe distance away. When the flood receded, the villagers came to the shore with offerings, and the kelpies accepted the gifts with the same grave courtesy I'd seen in the previous memory with the children.

It was proof of what I already knew—kelpies were guardians.

The vision shifted again, and this time I saw two men walking along a shore. One was tall and broad-shouldered, with dark auburn hair that fell past his shoulders. The other was smaller, dressed in simple robes and carrying a leather satchel. They laughed together, their heads bent close, and there was an ease between them that spoke of years of companionship.

I recognized Caelum immediately and then recognized Velas from his portrait. They'd been to this loch, and the water remembered.

They walked side by side, Velas gesturing as he spoke, and Caelum listening with his whole body tilted toward his companion. They looked happy. They looked like people who had shared countless roads together and knew each other's thoughts before they were spoken. They looked like two people in love.

The vision, like the others, was silent. I couldn't hear what they were saying, couldn't hear what had made them laugh. But I could see the love between them, clear as the water around me. When I looked at Áedán, I found him frowning. Had he been there when they visited? But no, Áedán was six hundred years old. Velas had died before he was born.

Before I could wonder more about Áedán's frown, another memory came, but it was fuzzy at the edges, indistinct. I could see a few kelpies in the loch, but then a section dissolved, as if someone had washed it away. I frowned as the memory vanished entirely. Another tried to take its place, but it faded too.

Áedán's hand tightened painfully around mine. I looked at him and saw something I'd never seen before. Fear. Real, visceral fear.

The water always remembered, that's what he said. Humans could forget or change what they remembered, but not the water. Until now.

I wanted to say something, to offer comfort, but I didn't know how to speak underwater. So I leaned against him, trying to communicate what I couldn't say aloud. He didn't look at me, just stared at the visions as they continued to rise, only to fracture.

Then the water around the vision began to ripple. As the vision dissolved, the current twisted through it, forming a familiar shape—a spiral. It was the same one we'd seen in the pond, with an extra curved line at the outer end, either severed from the whole, or a stunted start. Then the spiral dispersed, and the light retreated to the standing stones. Áedán pulled me upward with desperate urgency.

We broke the surface, gasping. The night air hit my face like a slap, and I floundered. Áedán was already swimming toward the dock, towing me behind him, and I kicked my legs to help. He let go of me to climb onto a ladder on the side of the dock, and his magic left me in a rush. I coughed up water, my body going cold, and I nearly went under. But then the water lifted me to the level of the dock, and Áedán hauled me onto the boards. As the water receded, it took what was on our skin and in our hair. I rolled onto my back, dry, and he sat beside me as we got our breathing under control.

“Did you see it?” Áedán's voice was rough. “The spiral.”

“Yes, I saw it. We need to figure out what the hell it is.”

“Whatever it is, it just erased the water's memories, and that shoulda been impossible.”

We sat in silence for a moment. Then Áedán stood up and offered me his hand. I took it and let him pull me to my feet. My legs felt unsteady.

“Come inside.” He picked up our clothes and shoes, piling them in his arms. “You're freezing.”

I was. Now that his magic had left me, I could feel the cold settling into my bones. My teeth began to chatter.

Áedán led me up the hill and into the cottage. The interior was warm; the fireplace already burning low. He disappeared through a doorway and returned wearing pants, with an armful of clothes—soft flannel pants, a thick wool sweater, wool socks. They'd be warmer than what I'd been wearing.