Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
Duncan woke to the sound of her crying. It was not loud. It was soft and broken, barely more than a breath pulled too sharply in the quiet of the room. But it was enough.
His eyes opened instantly, his body already turning toward her before thought could catch up. The darkness of the chamber pressed in around them, with the faint glow of dying embers casting just enough light to shape her beside him.
“Elaina,” he whispered her name like a prayer.
She was trembling, curled slightly into herself. The soft sound was breaking from her again, as though she were caught somewhere far from him, far from there. Without hesitation, he pulled her closer, with one arm wrapping firmly around her, drawing her against him and anchoring her there.
“Elaina,” he said again, his hand coming up to cradle the back of her head, pressing her gently into him. “Ye’re safe.”
She did not answer. Her breath stuttered, because her body was still caught in whatever had found her in sleep. Duncan held her tighter.
“It’s over,” he murmured despite the tension that had already begun to coil through him. “Whatever it is, it’s over. Ye’re here, with me.”
His hand moved slowly along her back in a steady, grounding rhythm, meant to pull her from wherever she had gone.
For a moment, nothing changed. Then, she gasped in a sound that was sharp and sudden, and her body tensed in his arms before she drew in a breath as though she had been pulled from deep water.
“Elaina,” Duncan whispered tenderly. “Look at me.”
Her eyes opened wide. They were unfocused at first, still caught between dream and waking. Then, they found him. The fear in them did not fade immediately, while recognition broke through.
“Duncan…” she whispered.
“Aye,” he replied quietly. “I’m here.”
She drew in another breath, shakier this time, her hand lifting slightly before resting against his chest, as though she needed to feel it, to be certain he was real.
Duncan did not move away. He stayed exactly where he was, with his hold on her steady.
“Ye’re safe,” he repeated even more softly now.
Her breathing slowed gradually, though the tension in her had not fully eased. He could still feel it as he held just beneath the surface, as though whatever had found her had not yet fully released its grip.
He let her settle. He let the quiet return, but he did not mistake the silence for peace.
“What did ye dream?” he asked at last, careful not to disturb what little calm she had regained.
Elaina stilled slightly against him. He felt the hesitation. Her fingers curled faintly into his chest, as though holding herself in place, as though the answer was something she did not easily give.
“It was nothing,” she said, but she didn’t convince him. He could see that she wasn’t even trying to.
Duncan’s hand paused briefly against her back before resuming its slow, steady motion.
“Aye,” he murmured, not challenging her outright. “It never is.”
The quiet stretched again. He did not press. He did not demand. He simply waited. And after a moment, he heard her inhale.
“I’ve had them before,” she said quietly.
Duncan’s gaze lowered slightly, his attention sharpening though his hold remained gentle.
“For how long?” he asked.
A small pause. “Since me mother died.”
The words came softer than anything she had said before. He did not speak immediately. Neither did he offer empty comfort. He only drew her a fraction closer, his hand moving up to rest more securely against her shoulder, anchoring her there.
“What kind of dreams?” he asked after a moment.
Elaina didn’t answer right away. She gazed into the distance, past him, looking at something only she could see.
“Always the same,” she said finally.
Duncan did not interrupt.
“I’m in her chamber, and the air smells spoiled and sharp, naething like herbs, naething like her at all, and I ken what it means before I even look at her, but I dae anyway. I keep telling meself I can fix it, because she taught me how and because I should be able tae save her.”
Her fingers twisted tighter in the blanket as she spoke.
“But me hands just willnae dae what I tell them tae. Ingredients keep spilling, disappearing or they’re just plain old wrong, and she just looks at me like that, gently, with those forgiving eyes of hers, telling me how proud she is of me, and I hate that part the most, because she says it like she is saying goodbye.
I ken what comes next, and I still cannae stop it.
I hold her hand, I try tae keep her with me, but her hand goes cold in mine and she slips away, every time… ”
She inhaled deeply, and that sigh was interrupted by several sobs.
“That is when the voice appears.”
“The voice?” he echoed.
She nodded. “This monstrous voice, telling me it is all me fault, that I didn’t help the one person who would have done anything tae save me if the situation had been the other way around, and I realize that the voice is me faither’s, which transforms intae hands that pull me intae the darkness, screaming me name, that I have naewhere left tae run and hide, and this is where I always wake up. ”
Duncan knew that feeling well.
Loss. Terror.
“She’s gone,” Elaina said defeatedly. “And I cannae change that.”
The finality in her voice struck deep.
“Nay,” he agreed with her. “Ye cannae.” He paused for a moment, then he continued. “But ye’re nae alone any longer either.”
Elaina stilled. He felt it.
“Ye’re here,” he promised her. “With me, in this room. Ye are safe.”
He thought to leave it there, to let the quiet settle, to give her only what comfort he could without reaching further into what she had shared. But the raw vulnerability of the way she had spoken stirred something in him in return.
Duncan drew a slow breath. His hand did not leave her, though his gaze shifted slightly, drawn somewhere deeper than the dim outlines of the chamber.
“It was much the same fer me,” he revealed.
The admission came without force, but it carried a weight he did not often allow himself to revisit. Elaina did not move. He felt her listening.
“When me parents died,” he continued measuring each word as though each one had to be chosen carefully to be spoken at all, “the nights were… the worst.”
A faint tension settled through him. The memory did not come as images alone, but as sensation. Both his body and his mind remembered the cold stillness of the halls, the way shadows stretched too long in the darkness and the way sleep never came without something following close behind it.
“I would wake thinking I could still hear them,” he said quietly, feeling the pain of every word. “Or that if I moved fast enough, I might find them as they were before.”
He never spoke of this. He did not often allow himself to remember it so clearly.
“But it never changed,” he added. “Nay matter how many nights passed.”
Elaina’s hand shifted slightly against him. He felt it, and it steadied him more than he expected.
“And Catriona,” he started, halting. “She suffered worse than I did.”
Elaina lifted an eyebrow, but she still said nothing.
“She would wake in fear,” he continued, “nae always kenning where she was. She would be crying out as though the world had ended all over again.”
His heart ached at the memory of little Catriona crying in the darkness before he would hear her and rush to her. The quiet of the castle broken by the soft, terrified cries that carried through the halls long after the fires had burned low.
Catriona, small and trembling, would be waking from dreams she could never fully explain, and her voice would be raw with fear as though she had been pulled from something she could not escape.
He would find her curled into herself, with eyes wide and unfocused, reaching for something that was no longer there.
And he would sit beside her, speaking softly until her breathing slowed, until her grip on him loosened just enough for sleep to claim her again.
Those nights had carved something into him, not just grief, but purpose.
“I couldnae afford tae fall apart,” he told her.
The words were quiet, but they held more than they revealed.
“Looking after her…” he went on through the pain, “it gave me something tae hold on tae.”
He didn’t say that looking after her gave him something that kept him from being swallowed by the pain, and it also kept him from losing himself entirely to grief that had no place to go. But somehow, he knew that she understood that.
“She needed me tae be there,” he said. “So, I was.”
Elaina’s breath had softened against him. It was no longer as uneven as before.
“I ken what it is tae wake with something still holding ye,” he added more quietly. “Even when the world around ye has changed.”
His gaze lowered slightly, though he did not look away from her entirely.
“And I ken how long it can follow.”
The quiet stretched between them, not empty, but filled with a gentler weight, one that did not need answers, only presence.
Duncan drew her closer, his arm tightening around her in a way that felt instinctive rather than deliberate.
It was not possession, but protection, an unspoken claim that she would not face this alone.
“It does pass,” he spoke in a voice low enough that it seemed meant only for her. “Nae all at once and nae in a way ye can always see. But it daes.”
There was no false comfort in his tone, only quiet conviction, shaped by years he rarely spoke of. Elaina did not answer, but he felt the gradual easing of her breath and the way the tension in her began to loosen, as though his words had reached her even where she could not fully respond.
Duncan lowered his head slightly, his lips brushing softly against her hair. The gesture came without thought. It was simple and it felt natural, like a quiet comfort offered without expecting anything in return.
“I am here,” he murmured. “And I will be.”
It was not a grand oath or declared promise, but the meaning was there. His hand moved along her back, slower now, guiding her further from the remnants of fear that still clung to her.
He pressed another gentle kiss to her temple, then her brow. Each kiss was unhurried, as though the moment itself required reverence. Elaina’s fingers, which had been lightly curled against him, began to relax. Her breathing evened, with the unrest fading into a softer rhythm, closer to true rest.
For years, he had kept that part of himself guarded.
And now, for some reason, he did not wish to.
His lips brushed once more against her hair before he settled back slightly, though his hold did not loosen.
Because even as her breathing deepened, even as sleep began to claim her once more, he remained awake, listening.
And in the hush of that shared stillness, with her safe in his arms, Duncan allowed himself, at last, a moment of rest.