Prologue
Ailsa Donaghey prayed that it was fire.
It was a mad thing to hope for; even in a mostly stone building like Castle Dubh-Gheal, the Donagheys’ ancestral home, fire was a disaster, a tragedy that could kill many.
But if that sharp, metallic scent, the one she’d only before smelled at a forge, didn’t spell fire, then it must mean…
She burst into the Great Hall, and that hope died. Her hands flew to her mouth to stifle the scream that tried to rip from her throat.
“Mama,” she whispered, feet briefly frozen in place. “Da.”
She hadn’t called them that for years. Mother and Father, that’s who they had been since she had been in long skirts. But now, in a flash, it was her childhood names for them that came roaring back.
They didn’t respond, and it snapped Ailsa back into action.
She rushed over to her parents’ side, the metallic stench of blood in the air presaging what she would find. They were both slumped over the table. When she came close, she could see the blood that had come from their mouths, that coated their chins.
A little whimper escaped her. Her hand, she realized coldly, was still pressed to her mouth. The horror was so great that she could scarcely feel anything. It was as though she had been plunged into the iciest of winter oceans.
Her mother’s eyes were open. Lady Donaghey was staring, unseeing and lifeless, at the ceiling above her, her head thrown back as if in some horrible, twisted imitation of laughter. Laird Donaghey’s hand was still outstretched on the table, fingers falling just short of a goblet.
A droplet of blood dripped from where her father’s body was still warm. It landed on the hard, polished wood of the ancient table, the one where the family had shared a thousand meals over centuries, the one where Ailsa had taken her breakfast that very day.
The table that had now become a bier to her parents’ hideous, violent deaths.
Ailsa didn’t know if she stood there for a moment or for an hour, the scent of blood flooding her nose until she feared that she would never again smell anything else.
But something broke the spell eventually. And suddenly, it was as though she could hear her father’s words in her ears.
If aught ever happens to me, mo leanbh, ye must flee to the Buchanans, aye? They’ll render ye aid.
Ailsa hadn’t taken his warning seriously. She’d pressed her lips together, had protested being called mo leanbh, an endearment for children, not for a grown woman like herself.
She hadn’t asked questions. Why hadn’t she asked questions?
And now, he was beyond giving her answers. He was beyond giving her anything.
Flee for the Buchanans.
Yes, she could do that. She had to do that.
She turned on her heel, refusing to let herself consider why her father had seen fit to give her this warning. She refused to think about why the Buchanan family keep was the very last place she wanted to go.
Instead, she just obeyed. Too late, perhaps, but this, she could do. She could obey.
She fled, seeking her sisters, his father’s voice following her like a ghost.
Ye’ll be the head of the family, ye ken? If I’m nae here, it will fall to ye. Ye’re strong, my girl, and ye’ll have to be strong for your sisters.
For years, Ailsa had accepted this as her duty in life.
But now, as she dashed through the castle, wanting to scream for her sisters and yet not daring to do so, she wished with all her heart that she could call for her brother, Graham, who had died years prior.
He was the one who was supposed to lead the family—the eldest brother, her big brother.
But Graham was gone. Her parents were gone.
It all fell to Ailsa now.
“Vaila?” she called quietly as she made her way up to the wing where the four Donaghey sisters all slept. “Davina? Eilidh?”
She was too scared to raise her voice. She was scared not to. What if they didn’t hear her? What if she didn’t find them?
What if they’d been killed too?
The thought had no sooner occurred to her when her mind started throwing up images of her sisters coated in the same blood that had covered her parents. Then her next oldest sister, Vaila, stuck her head out of her bedchamber, bringing her out of her terrifying reverie.
“Why are you talking like that, Ailsa?” Vaila asked. In the next instant, her sharp, assessing gaze took in Ailsa’s expression, her pallor, and her aspect shifted from playful to serious in an instant. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
Ailsa didn’t know where she got the courage to respond, but her voice was even.
“It’s Mama and Da,” she said. “Someone has poisoned them. They’re gone.”
With either of her younger sisters, Ailsa wouldn’t have been able to say this so bluntly. But Vaila was a warrior; she’d trained alongside Graham, when he was still with them, and had continued laboring alongside the keep’s soldiers after they’d lost Graham.
If Ailsa was head of the family now, then Vaila was her second. She needed to lean on her sister.
“They’re dead,” Vaila repeated in that same flat, dead voice that Ailsa had heard coming from her own mouth.
“Aye.” It came out as a choke. “And Da—Father told me that if aught ever happened to him, we must hie for the Buchanans.”
Valia’s eyes flew wide. “The Buchanans,” she said.
She knew what that would mean to Ailsa. Neither of them needed to mention it.
“I’ll do what needs to be done,” Ailsa promised her. “But first, we must go. Now.”
If news of their destination had distracted Vaila briefly, this order, sharply delivered, made Vaila’s attention grow sharp as a blade.
“I see,” she said, her shoulders drawing back like she was about to go into battle. “You find the girls. I’ll quickly gather a bag of essentials and meet you at the stables.”
“Hurry,” Ailsa urged.
The two sisters squeezed hands, just once, before parting.
Ailsa continued down the hall and found her two younger sisters in Davina’s bedchamber, as they so often were.
For a split second she paused, watching the way Davina lounged on her bed, her feet kicked up behind her, as she noted something in the little book where she kept the details of her garden.
Eilidh was playing idly with one of the pigmented pencils that Father had ordered specifically from Germany so that Davina could color her botanical illustrations.
Eilidh had it balanced on her nose and kept giggling when it toppled to the side.
They were happy. At peace.
And Ailsa was going to wreck that.
“Girls,” she said. They both looked up.
Technically, Davina and Vaila were the closest in age, at one and twenty and two and twenty respectively, but the divide of the family had always meant that Ailsa and Vaila were the elder pair, while Davina and Eilidh were “the girls”.
“Something has happened,” Ailsa told her sisters, carefully moderating her tone. “I’ll explain along the way, but we must go. Right now. Vaila has gone to fetch the horses.”
Eilidh sat up, clearly confused. She opened her mouth as if she planned to argue or ask questions, but closed it again when Davina lay a hand on her arm. Davina had always possessed a talent for understanding the temperature of a room, and now she sensed that something dire had transpired.
Eilidh took the cue. She idolized Vaila anyway, and likely would have followed Ailsa right into the pits of hell if Ailsa told her that Vaila had already headed that way.
“Right,” she said, sounding much younger than her eighteen years. “I… Alright.”
“Do we need things?” Davina asked, already clambering to her feet.
“No time,” Ailsa said. “Vaila is gathering essentials. But we must flee.”
The girls just nodded, their expressions grim but determined. Ailsa adored her sisters always, but she felt an especially keen pang of appreciation for them as they fell into line like battleworn soldiers.
And if she was a coward for relishing these last few moments before she had to give the girls the news of their parents’ brutal deaths?
Well, then she was a coward. She would worry about it later.
Eilidh and Davina followed Ailsa with a confidence that belied their trust in her.
However, Ailsa could feel their tension ratchet higher every time she made them pause at a corner or hesitate to assess that a sound wasn’t coming toward them.
Ailsa felt her chest grow tighter and tighter as they crept down hallways that suddenly seemed strange and menacing, for all that she’d traversed them without thinking every day of her life.
The castle, her home, was suddenly a prison. Each breath felt like a battle.
A gasp left her lungs in a rush when they finally stepped out onto the verdant grounds, the air crisp and smelling of spring. She knew it was a false reassurance—they weren’t away safe yet—but she drew strength from the land.
Her land, even if it had now been tainted so mercilessly.
It felt so incongruous to creep across the expansive, open grounds that it would have been comical if it wasn’t so horrid. It was even sunny, one of those rare, perfect spring days in the Scottish Highlands.
Ailsa worried she’d never enjoy the sun again.
“Where is everyone?” Eilidh whispered, slipping her hand into Ailsa’s. “Where are Ma and Da?”
“They’re… They’re not coming with us,” she stammered.
It was the best she could do. And maybe Eilidh understood because she didn’t ask another question. She just squeezed Ailsa’s fingers and kept on.
They reached the stables to find Vaila there, already with four houses saddled. When she saw them, her shoulders slumped in relief, but she revealed no other outward sign of relief or distress.
“Come,” she urged instead, holding out a hand to take Eilidh from Ailsa’s grip. “The horses are ready.”
The sisters moved with quiet purpose as they mounted their horses. Ailsa wound her fingers tightly through Geal’s white mane, drawing comfort from the white stallion that had been with her since she was a girl.
Her father’s voice played in her ear again.
Ye’re a horsewoman in yer blood, leannan. Never let anyone tell ye that a lassie cannae ride a stallion. Trust Geal, and he’ll serve ye well.
She had never had reason to doubt him at his word.
The sisters rode out across the glen. With every long stride of her mount’s legs, Ailsa felt both safer and more ill at ease.
She was leaving her home. She knew it was right, but it was still her home. And what lay ahead of her…
Well, she couldn't think about that quite yet. Not just yet.
Vaila rode in the lead, her mount, Sgàil, always eager to go faster, faster. Vaila’s head never stopped moving, always scanning the horizon.
Davina and Eilidh rode up on either side of Ailsa.
“They’re dead, aren’t they?” Davina asked quietly.
And there it was, the moment where Ailsa had to shatter her sisters’ hearts.
“Aye,” she said. “They’re dead.”
Eilidh let out a choked sob, but she didn’t falter in her saddle.
Ailsa felt her own heart break just a little bit more at that. Her sisters were so, so strong. And she hated that they needed to be.
“And where… are we going?” Eilidh asked, her voice hitching in the middle.
Ailsa had to take a breath before she could be confident that she wouldn't sob as well.
“The Buchanans.”
Davina jolted. “The Buchanans? But—”
“Ailsa!” Vaila’s sharp voice cut off Davina’s question. “They’re coming.”
Ailsa jerked her head to follow the direction of Vaila’s arm. There, on the horizon back the way they’d come, was a line of riders, too far away to identify. It was possible they were friendly, Ailsa supposed, but she didn’t dare take the risk.
“Ride,” she ordered. “Faster.”
As one, the sisters kicked their horses to urge them to ride harder. They plunged ahead.
Ailsa just wished she knew if she was plunging toward salvation or toward her own doom.