Doon

Duncan, slightly out of breath as if he’d been sprinting, spoke first. “This side is impassible.”

“Aye,” Fergus confirmed as he approached. “My way as well.”

At the sound of voices, Kenna sat up, blinking against the artificial light. “Did they find a way across?”

“No.” My single word came out harsher than intended as frustration threatened to consume me from the inside out. Any problem could be solved under the right circumstances. Usually I could step outside of myself and examine different perspectives, but at the moment all I could feel was hopeless. We would never find the right solution in the time we had left.

“This is useless.” The girl who shared my brain spoke my exact thoughts. “I say we go back to the castle.”

Duncan and Fergus nodded in agreement as Fiona said, “Aye. It’s time to accept what’s ta be.”

Yes, we should go back. Wait! What was happening? Kenna wanting to go back to Castle MacCrae? Duncan and Fergus meekly accepting the inevitable destruction of their kingdom? And Fiona’s reaction was most telling of all. She wanted to give up? She was the most tenacious person I’d ever met, besides myself.

With a sinking feeling I shouted for everyone to get off the bridge. Despite some grumbling, my friends complied. When we reconvened about thirty feet away, I asked, “Everybody still want to give up?”

Overlapping exclamations of disgust and determination punctuated the quiet.

“Give up?”

“Never!”

“Death first!”

Only Fiona remained silent. After a moment she announced gravely, “It was an attack. I should have sensed it. Despair is the Deceiver’s weapon.”

I opened my mouth to ask the group what we should do next, but before I could speak Muir Lea filled my senses. A flash of snowy peaks, a sandy beach, and an ocean crashing against rock told me the impossible. “I know how we get to Alloway.”

Like a good lieutenant, Duncan was instantly alert and at my side. “How, Veronica?”

“Through the mountains.”

Fergus spoke first. “You’ve gone daft!”

Duncan’s face mirrored the other boy’s skepticism, and with good reason. The first time I’d tried it, I’d nearly destroyed Doon … but that still, small voice that had been guiding me since Bainbridge insisted that this time was different. Unfortunately, persuading Fergus and Duncan would waste valuable time—time we didn’t have. Turning to my best ally in the group, I said to Fiona, “With every fiber of my being, I know this will work—that the portal will be open for us.”

Fiona voiced her agreement. “Veronica speaks the truth. We must cross through the mountains.”

Kenna reached for Duncan’s hand. “We’re in.”

“Me as well. With one condition.” Fergus’s gaze moved across our faces before looking up into the sky. “Fiona stays here. I’ll not risk her life on the chance the mountain border is passable.”

Spinning the giant around to face her, Fiona cried, “Ye don’t get ta decide for me, Fergus Lockhart. If the mountain pass doesn’t work, we’re all goners anyway.”

She gave him a shove but he captured her hands and held them over his heart. “Please, Fee. I will follow Veronica, but I need ta know yer safe.” His eyes softened as his voice dropped. “I know I’m not the manliest of lads, but I still need ta protect my own. If anything happened ta you, I’d never be able ta live wi’ myself.”

As I watched, the girl’s resolve melted. All her tumultuous affection poured from her hazel eyes, causing the object of her feelings to turn forty shades of pink.

Sensibly, Duncan added, “With Jamie and me gone, the people will be afraid and lookin’ for someone to blame. We need someone who can speak the voice o’ reason. And we’ll be needin’ a welcome party for the Destined who cross when we restore the bridge. We’re depending on you, Fiona.”

Tearing her eyes away from her love, Fiona gave Duncan a curt nod. “Dinna worry m’ laird. I’ll see ta the people.”

She hugged him and then Kenna. As they parted, Fiona pressed Cameron’s ring, the emerald one, into Kenna palm. The look on my BFF’s face told me she didn’t want it, until Fiona slipped it on her finger and lightly admonished, “You didna choose the ring, it chose you. And it continues to have need o’ you.”

Next Fiona turned to me. “I know this has been hard for you, but when the time comes ye must be willing to sacrifice … for Jamie’s sake.” As she hugged me good-bye she whispered, “Pure, unselfish love can break any spell.”

While I appreciated the sentiment, I had no idea how it could apply to saving Jamie. This wasn’t like one of those fairy tale movies where Love’s True Kiss could break any curse. But since she’d never steered me wrong before, I tucked the information away.

Fergus, still mottled from their last encounter, cleared his throat shyly. “We may never see each other again. Won’t ye kiss me, Fee?”

She leaned, doe-eyed with puckered lips, and whispered, “Come back ta me after ye help Veronica save the world. Then you kin have all the kisses ye like.”

Abruptly, Fiona spun out of Fergus’s reach and mounted her horse. Without a moment to lose, the rest of us followed her example. Together, we galloped to the fork in the trail where Fiona would take the low road back to Doon while we climbed the high road toward Muir Lea. Just after the split, before she disappeared from sight, Fiona looked back over her shoulder and bellowed, “Believe!”

CHAPTER 33 Mackenna

Thankfully, we encountered no bears or blizzards, which Vee had been worried about. But we’d had to abandon the horses at the end of the cart path and go the rest of the way on foot. It seemed a lifetime since I’d last hiked this hill carrying worries over whether or not the boy I liked wanted to kiss me. And if I’d let him. Now I fervently wished my cares were as trivial as kisses.

As we approached the mountain meadow the sky began to lighten to indigo and then fuchsia. Moments later, crimson, orange, and hot pink streaked across the heavens at an impossible rate as dawn became day. When we entered the woods on the far side of Muir Lea, the sun blazed down from high noon. By the time we finally crossed through the passage in the rocks that would lead us to the beach, the sun already hung low over the ocean, bathing the modern world in gold as it prepared to say good night. The whole day had lasted maybe thirty minutes.

The final descent into the real world had been murder in ballet flats. After Jamie’s kidnapping, Vee’d been so singularly focused on getting him back that she refused to waste any time on inconsequential things like practical clothes or clean underwear. The dress code for this pursuit was strictly formal.

We stumbled onto the beach at sunset looking like something from a high school horror movie. My gorgeous teal ball gown had been shredded by thorns and low-lying branches, and my sagging hairdo, complete with twisted tiara, flopped annoyingly over my right eye. Deranged Homecoming Queen was not a good look on me.

Duncan and Fergus, in their ragged dress kilts, looked like they’d just survived the Scottish zombie apocalypse. And Vee, well, she’d ripped off the bottom foot and a half of her scarlet gown ages ago. What was left of her tattered dress, plus the leaves and other debris poking from her hair, made her look like a crazed pixie. It gave me new insights into the integrity of some of my favorite TV shows. Saving the world while looking fabulous was next to impossible.

Although the beach had looked deserted during the climb down, the minute we touched the sand clumps of vacationers materialized. Weaving through a touristy maze of plastic lounge chairs, striped blankets, and oversized umbrellas, Duncan and Fergus did their best to temper their reactions to the strange new surroundings as they followed our tiny fearless leader toward the parking lot.

Trading sand for asphalt, I glanced back at the beach just as the sun dipped beneath the horizon with a flash of green. Soon it would be night—only a few hours until the Centennial was over. A nearby sign announced