Chapter 88 — The Edge of Time

Chapter 88 — The Edge of Time
The first sound she remembered was the rhythmic beep of a monitor.

Soft voices whispered near her ear, one anxious, one trembling.

“Oh my goodness… Isla, sweetie.”

Her eyelids fluttered. Light stabbed at her vision. When she turned her head, two blurred figures swam into focus.

“Mom? Dad?” Her throat burned. “What … how … what happened?”

She tried to sit up, but pain shot through her side and leg. A cast encased her left leg from hip to ankle; white bandages wrapped her torso. Her left hand was splinted, swollen and stiff.

Her mother’s hand covered hers gently. “You were in an accident, honey. A car came through the book fair—drunk driver. You were thrown nearly thirty feet.”

Her father’s voice cracked. “You’ve been in a coma, love. They didn’t think you’d wake.”

The words blurred together. A coma… the book fair…
Her mind reached for images—stone walls, torches, Lachlan’s eyes—but everything dissolved into the sterile glow of hospital light.

Recovery was slow.

Her femur had shattered; walking again was a victory measured in inches. The physical-therapy gym became her second home, its mirrors and parallel bars her new battlefield.

And yet, as the months crept by, the strangest thing wasn’t her limp or her scars.

It was the feeling that she didn’t belong in this time anymore.

Two years passed.

Modern Edinburgh was still familiar—the rush of buses, the hum of students, the smell of rain on cobblestone—but Isla moved through it like a ghost who’d lost her way home.

At the hospital she’d met two other long-term patients, Alan and Nell—names that had startled her the first time she heard them. Alan with his mischievous grin, Nell with her soft laugh and endless curiosity. They were Vaelen and Fenella to her heart, even if they didn’t know it.

The first time she saw them, she’d burst into tears and hugged them both before realizing how insane she must look. Later, over coffee in the rehab lounge, she told them the truth—or as much of it as she dared.
A story about 1213 Scotland. About a love that shouldn’t have existed.

About a prophecy, a bond, and a man named Lachlan Strathclyde.

Alan had been skeptical until Nell, ever the romantic, searched the names online.

To their astonishment, records did exist—fragmented tales of Fenella Mac Crae and Vaelen the Healer who left Strathclyde lands and lived long, peaceful lives together.

Isla had cried that night. Tears of relief, of gratitude. They made it.

But Lachlan… there was nothing.

No record, no portrait, no mention in any archive.
It was as if he had vanished the moment Mairi and Ruadhán were executed.

Sometimes she wondered if breaking the bond had rewritten history itself.

The faint scar over her heart was the only proof he had ever been real.

Life slowly settled into rhythm.

Her parents chose to stay in Scotland, buying a cottage outside the city. Sunday dinners became tradition—warm food, laughter, the comfort of the living. Alan and Nell joined often, their friendship anchoring Isla to this world.

One crisp autumn afternoon, Alan suggested a hike to the distillery in the hills. “Good whisky and better scenery,” he’d promised.

So they went—the four of them with packed lunches, hiking boots, and too-much enthusiasm. The trail cut through rolling green, the air sweet with heather and rain. For a while, Isla let herself forget the ache of what once was.

They stopped to rest in a meadow near the forest’s edge, eating sandwiches, trading stories. The sun hung low, turning the sky gold.

Then it happened.

A tremor in the earth. The faint, rhythmic pounding of hooves.

Wind rushed through the trees, bringing with it a distant echo—a battle cry, a name carried on air.

“Isla!”

The voice hit her like lightning.
She turned, heart hammering.

Before she could react, a force shoved her backward. She braced, curling instinctively, hands over her head. The ground vanished beneath her—and then strong arms caught her mid-fall.

“You’re okay, lass,” a deep voice murmured near her ear, thick with a Highland lilt. “You can open your eyes now.”

That voice.

That impossible, beloved voice.

She opened one eye, then the other.

“Lachlan?” Her breath hitched. “Lachlan… is it really you?”

He smiled—tired eyes, wild hair, the same familiar warmth she’d memorized centuries ago.

When he opened his arms, she flew into them.
The world tilted. The humming was back, the vibration deep in her chest, thrumming between them like a heartbeat shared. The bond—broken by lies and death—was alive again.

They clung to each other, laughing and crying all at once. The smell of rain, the sound of wind, the taste of tears—it was all real.

“I’m sorry, lass,” he whispered against her hair. “For not believing in you. For letting darkness come between us. I was a fool. But I’ve a lifetime now to make it right—if you’ll let me.”

She drew back just enough to look at him. “You found me.”

“Aye,” he said softly. “You called me home.”

A throat cleared behind them. “Isla?”

She turned. Her parents and friends stood frozen, mouths open, eyes wide.

Realizing how it must look—her in his lap, his arms wrapped around her, her hands tangled in his hair—Isla flushed crimson.

She stood, smoothing her jacket, heart pounding.

“Mom, Dad…” she began, glancing back at Lachlan, who looked completely lost in the modern world yet somehow perfectly at home beside her.

She smiled through tears. “This is Lachlan. My… boyfriend.”