Hearts of Highland Fire

Prologue

PROLOGUE

Iris Wallace dug her heels into her horse to keep it moving forward, knowing that the animal, like herself, was realizing how close they were to home.

Home. That word hadn’t crossed her mind in so long that she nearly forgot she even had one. After a month away from the keep she had grown up in, Iris would have to reacclimate herself to sleeping in a real bed again and not on a forest floor.

Or the food. Her mouth salivated at the thought of a hot meal that didn’t involve a dead animal spit roasting over an open fire. She missed fresh bread and potatoes to fill her stomach and chase away the gnawing feeling that had eaten at her insides.

“Ye know, lass, that I’m keen on tellin’ Da aboot yer accolades on the battlefield,” her brother, Ian, remarked as they made the last crest before the village. “He’s gonna enjoy the tale.”

Iris snorted while her other brother, Stephan, snickered at Ian’s jab.

“Ye go on now, Ian, with yer tall tales!”

Ian’s eyes twinkled with laughter. “Ye know, Iris, they arenae just tall tales. Ye really did fall off yer horse in the middle of battle.”

“Only after it was cut out under me,” she retorted, her cheeks flaming regardless.

It hadn’t been her finest moment, but there wasn’t much she could have done to prevent the horse from buckling under her. The sword in its side had ensured Iris that her horse would die on the battlefield, and though she hated to lose the animal, at least the sword hadn’t pierced Iris’s side instead.

“Besides,” Iris added, “wot other lad would have still killed the arse who had done so?”

“She has a point,” Stephan remarked, resting his hands on the hilt of his saddle. “Iris is as tough as the next lad on that field.”

“And just as stubborn,” Ian added with a wink. “But she’s our sister.”

Iris shot her brothers a dirty look before spurring ahead of them, her cheeks still red from their teasing. Being four years younger than Stephan and eight years younger than Ian, she was often the butt of their jests, but she knew that deep down they did care for her. It mattered not that they all came from different mothers. Her father, Laird John Wallace, was known to bed a number of lasses in his lifetime, not settling for any one sort but caring for them all in his own way. He had ensured that his children, however illegitimate they were, received the same sort of care and taught them all to be great warriors like he had been.

Not once had he looked at Iris as a lass, reminding her when she was nothing but a wee bairn on his knee that she could do the same thing as the lads could if she put her mind to it.

She had. Iris was one of the few lasses that were part of her father’s warriors, having seen more bloodshed than she cared to admit to anyone, but all in the name of the Wallace clan. Their most recent target had been the McGregor clan that bordered their own lands, which had caused her father to send out his warriors to protect the isolated farms that dotted Wallace land against any bands of warriors from the other clan.

When her horse climbed the last hill, Iris found herself staring at the small village below, with the keep in the distance. The smells of burning wood and freshly baked bread caused her to grin slightly, a swell of pride welling in her chest.

She was home.

When they entered the village with the rest of the warriors, a cheer went up as their clan came out to greet them home. Bairns raced alongside the parade of horses, shouting and cheering as they made their way to the keep, where the gates had been thrown open in anticipation of their arrival. Iris couldn’t remove the grin from her lips, pulling on the reins to stop her horse behind her brothers’.

Their father stood on the steps to their home, flanked by Iris’s younger sisters, Gretna and Lena. Gretna was on the cusp of womanhood, preferring not to take Iris’s path that she had chosen and remain in the keep. Lena was only ten summers and had the same warrior spirit as her other siblings.

Regardless, Iris’s heart warmed tenfold as she gazed upon their smiling faces, dismounting before they could reach her.

“Welcome home, mah children!” their father boomed, a smile on his weathered face. “And thank ye for the great victory ye have bestowed on our clan!”

Ian, Stephan, and Iris all dropped to one knee with the rest of the warriors, placing their fists over their hearts in respect. Some would even say that their loyalty was not needed, but Iris knew just as well as her brothers did that their legitimacy had always been a source of contention with some of the villagers. They had asked for no favors, and it had been their father who had insisted they live in the keep.

She wanted nothing other than a chance to prove her worth.

“Rise,” he finished. “And thank yer God with yer safe return!”

They rose for the friar to bless them before a crowd gathered around the warriors. Iris gave a smile to all the happy clan members, but it was her sisters that she longed to see, and they did not waste their time finding her.

“Ye’re home!” Lena shouted as she launched herself into Iris’s arms. “Finally!”

“Ye smell like horse,” Gretna replied, wrinkling her nose. “When is the last time ye have bathed, Iris?”

Iris laughed as she hugged Lena tightly. “’Tis nary a bathing chamber on the battlefield, Gretna. Ye should smell yer brothers.”

“Well, we have a bath already drawn for ye,” Lena said when Iris released her, tugging on Iris’s hand. “And a feast like ye have never witnessed before.”

Iris’s stomach rumbled at the thought, and the sisters laughed, tugging their favorite sibling toward the keep’s doors.

It was good to be home.