Chapter 43
Calum
The world came back to him in pieces.
A whisper of heat.
The crackle of fire.
The faint scent of herbs and smoke.
Then pain — dull and deep, pulsing just beneath his collarbone. Each breath pulled at something that felt stitched together, tender and wrong. For a time he lay still, trying to remember how to breathe without drowning in it.
Light crept through the shutters, soft and gold against the far wall. The fire had burned low, the air thick with the musk of fever and old sweat.
He shifted slightly, and a weight tightened around his hand.
Sorcha.
She sat slumped beside the bed, her head tipped against his arm. The plaid he’d given her was still wrapped about her shoulders, though it had slipped crooked with sleep. Her hair had fallen loose from its braid, a dark tangle glinting with red where the firelight touched it.
Her face, even in rest, bore exhaustion like a wound — lashes heavy, mouth pale, smudges of shadow beneath her eyes. He didn’t know how long he’d been out, but she looked as if she hadn’t slept in days.
A rush of memory struck him then. The forest. The horn. The hiss of the bowstring and her cry — “Calum!” — just before the world went white with pain.
He blinked hard, the effort making the room tilt. His fingers brushed the thick bandage between his collarbones, still warm beneath the linen. Pain pulsed there — distant, dull, alive. He couldn’t tell if it had been hours or days.
The door creaked softly, breaking the quiet. The healer stepped in with a basin and stopped short. “By the saints,” she breathed, one hand to her heart. “Ye’ve chosen to wake after all.”
Her whisper carried no scolding — only relief.
Calum’s voice was raw, barely sound. “How long?”
“Four days since the field. Ye’ve been fightin’ fever near as long.” She glanced at Sorcha and smiled faintly. “And she’s fought harder still. Near broke herself to keep ye with us.”
He looked back at Sorcha, at the stillness of her sleep. “She… she stayed?”
The healer’s brows rose. “Aye. We couldn’t pry her away with the point of a spear. She’s eaten next to nothin’ and won’t rest unless she falls where she stands.” She bent, wringing the cloth in her basin. “Ye’ve a stubborn wife, Calum MacRae.”
He managed a weak smile. “Aye. I ken it well enough.”
“Would ye have your father sent for?” she asked softly.
He hesitated, then nodded once. “Aye. Him—and no noise. Let her sleep.”
The woman left, her steps quick but quiet. Calum let his head fall back against the pillow, watching the faint rise and fall of Sorcha’s shoulders.
In the stillness, memory bled into thought—fragments of the fever that had held him. Fire and shadow. The sound of her voice, low and shaking. Ye gave me this to keep, she’d said. So I’ll keep ye too, stubborn fool that ye are. Come back to me…
He could almost feel her hand closing his around something cold and familiar.
When he turned his palm now, a glint of silver caught the light.
His brooch.
The one he’d used to secure his mother’s plaid when he draped it over Sorcha’s shoulders. His thumb brushed the edge, tracing the familiar knotwork — the same lines he’d followed since boyhood, when his father first pressed it into his hand and told him it marked the laird he was meant to become.
He swallowed hard, eyes stinging. So that hadn’t been a dream.
The door opened again. Elder MacRae entered, his cane in hand, his face pale from lack of sleep but his eyes bright with relief.
“Ye look like a ghost, son,” he said, voice roughened with emotion.
Calum managed a rasp of a laugh. “Feels not far off.”
The old man crossed the room and laid a steady hand on his son’s uninjured shoulder. “Thank God ye’re back. I near thought we’d lost ye.”
“How fares the keep?”
Domnhall drew the stool closer, settling beside him. “Whole and holdin’. The men pushed the raiders back. Not a life lost within the walls. Your warnin’—and Sorcha soundin’ the horn—turned the tide before they reached us proper.”
Relief flooded Calum, leaving him dizzy. “We’d just reached her trainin’ clearing when we heard them,” he murmured. “Raiders in the trees. She’d her bow drawn. Liam Dunn was among them.” His jaw tightened. “He aimed for her, Father. She didna see. I only meant to push her clear…”
“Aye,” Domnhall said quietly. “She told me as much. And she blames herself for it still.”
Calum’s brow furrowed. “Blames herself?”
“She thinks it punishment—” Domnhall’s gaze flicked toward Sorcha, asleep in the chair. “—for sparin’ him. Says if she’d done her duty and hanged him when she should, he’d never have brought ruin to our gates.”
Calum stared at her, at the faint tremor in her fingers where they rested against his hand. “She carries guilt enough to bury her,” he said hoarsely.
Domnhall nodded. “Aye. She’s been nursin’ ye like a priest with a dying saint. Barely eats. Barely breathes. The healer says ye owe her your life twice over.”
Calum tried to smile, but it caught somewhere deep in his chest. “Then I’ll pay it back however she’ll have me.”
A flicker of warmth crossed the old man’s face. “Ye’ve found your sense, then.”
Calum huffed a slow, painful breath. “I found it too late, maybe.”
“She’s no one to turn from a man who’s willin’ to learn,” his father said quietly. Then his eyes went to the plaid draped about Sorcha’s shoulders. “That’s your mother’s tartan, is it no’? I thought I’d not see it again outside the chest.”
Calum followed his gaze. The wool, once his mother’s, was dulled now by wear, but the weave was unmistakable. “Aye,” he murmured. “I gave it to her.”
Domnhall nodded slowly, something soft and proud flickering in his eyes. “A fitting gift. Your mother would’ve liked her—Sorcha’s the kind of woman she’d have called a match for our line.”
Calum turned his head slightly, looking at Sorcha as she slept. The firelight played along her cheek, casting her in gold and shadow both.
“I love her,” he said, the words rough but sure. “God forgive me, I think I always have. I just didna ken it ’til she was near lost to me.”
Domnhall said nothing for a long moment. Then, quietly: “There’s no sin in learnin’ late, lad. Only in not sayin’ it when ye’ve the chance.”
Calum’s throat tightened. “She said somethin’ to me, while I was out. I thought I dreamed it.”
“What did she say?”
Calum turned his palm upward, showing the brooch resting there. “That I’d given her this to keep—and she’d keep me with it. Said she’d never shut me out again.”
Domnhall’s eyes softened. “Then ye’d best make good on that, when she wakes.”
“Aye,” Calum said quietly. “I mean to.”
For a while they sat in silence, father and son, the only sound the low crackle of the hearth and the slow, even breathing of the woman who’d kept him alive.
Domnhall rose at last, setting a hand to Calum’s shoulder once more. “Rest now. Ye’ve both bled enough for one night. I’ll tell the clan their laird stands yet.”
Calum nodded. “Thank ye, Father.”
At the door, Domnhall paused. “Ye ken,” he said softly, “your mother once told me that the measure of a man isn’t how loud he shouts, but how steady he stands beside the woman who makes him better. Ye’ve her stubbornness, Calum. Best use it wisely this time.”
When he was gone, the chamber fell into quiet again.
The light through the shutters had deepened toward evening. Calum shifted, grimacing, and looked once more at Sorcha. Her head rested against his arm, her hand still twined with his.
He let his thumb brush the back of her fingers, tracing the faint calluses that spoke of bow and blade.
“She said I was stubborn,” he murmured under his breath. “But she’s worse by far.”
Her lips moved faintly in sleep, a sigh leaving her. He smiled—tired, aching, but real.
The brooch lay warm in his palm. He set it beside their joined hands on the bed, the metal glinting softly in the firelight.
Then, with the last of his strength, he reached to brush a strand of hair from her cheek.
“I’m home, Sorcha,” he whispered. “And I’m stayin’.”
The fire snapped softly, sending a glow across the room. Outside, the wind moved through the heather, carrying only the faint echo of Tha mo ghaol air àirigh—its notes long faded, though the memory remained.
Calum closed his eyes, Sorcha’s hand still caught in his.
And for the first time since the arrow struck, he slept without pain.