Chapter 28
Kristen barely heard Neil bark the order. The courtyard had shrunk to the woman crumpling on the ground, her hands sliding from a wound that bloomed like dark poppies across her dress.
People hovered, their mouths hanging open with shock.
“Move!” Kristen cried, shouldering them aside.
She dropped to her knees beside the woman, the cold seeping through the fabric and into her bones.
“Press here,” she told herself as much as anyone, pressing both hands to torn flesh. “Stay with me. Please. Stay with me.”
The woman gasped, her back arching, her pupils blown with terror.
Blood trickled hot between Kristen’s fingers as she pressed even harder. But it was not enough. It would never be enough.
Frightened shouts and the scrape of boots rose behind, but the world narrowed to the woman’s pale face.
“Look at me,” Kristen said firmly. “Ye are safe. I have ye. Keep yer eyes on me.”
The woman fought for breath, her lips grey, a smear of red at the corner. Her right hand pawed weakly until it caught Kristen’s sleeve. The grip was barely there, yet the intent was clear.
“Thank ye,” she rasped.
Kristen bent closer. “For what?”
“For loving me children.” The words were barely a whisper. “I thought I did right by bringing them here, to their faither’s home. I… I was afraid. I watched from the trees, at the market, at the lake. I saw ye with them. Laughing. Holding them like they were yer own.”
Tears stung Kristen’s eyes as the image of the children in a basket flashed before her. She could still hear their cries like it was yesterday. Hell, she could almost hear Lachlan’s orders as he asked the guards to go search for whoever had left the babies.
For the woman now lying before her, about to take her last breath.
“Thank ye,” she said again, her voice weak.
“Ye have nothing to thank me for, do ye understand?” Kristen’s voice broke. “Ye did the right thing, ye hear me? Ye did.”
The woman’s lashes trembled, and relief softened the panic on her face. “Tell them…” she whispered. “Tell them that their maither loved them, even though she was a coward until the end.”
“Ye arenae a coward,” Kristen said, fierce and tender all at once. “Ye were failed by men who should have stood between ye and harm. I swear I will keep them safe. Always.”
A small, tremulous smile touched the woman’s mouth, and her gaze began to drift.
“Stay,” Kristen begged. She pressed harder, as if sheer will could hold a soul in a wounded body. “Stay. Please. Look at me.”
The woman drew a last, shuddering breath, and her fingers loosened on Kristen’s sleeve. Her eyes glazed over.
For a heartbeat, the courtyard faded away. There were no torches. No cries. No guards. Only the sudden weight of a life gone.
Memories she had thought were long buried suddenly rose to the surface. Her father’s voice bellowing from old rooms. Men deciding. Women bleeding.
She could see Neil on their wedding night, setting cold rules with colder eyes, a shield hard as iron. She saw the bandit’s knife drive home without mercy.
Her tears fell on the woman’s face as she brushed her dark hair from her cooling brow with shaking fingers.
“Rest,” she whispered. “I will tell them for ye.”
The noise rushed back, a wave that crashed over her. Someone sobbed behind her, and the wind whistled through the arch.
Kristen looked down at her hands, bloodied to the wrists, and something inside her snapped. Grief sharpened, heated, twisted. Rage slid into the space it left.
She rose so fast that she almost slipped. A hand caught her elbow. She pulled free without seeing who it was.
“Kristen,” a voice called.
Neil, or Davina, or some guard who thought to steady her. She could not bear the touch.
She wiped her palms on the ruined front of her dress. The blood smeared.
It did not matter. None of it mattered if this was the world they wanted her to live in, a world where men laid down rules and blades and called it order.
She looked once at the woman. “I will keep me word,” she muttered under her breath. A promise to the dead and a vow to the living.
The crowd pressed and shifted, hungry for vengeance and direction. Kristen could not breathe in it.
She needed the stone walls.
She needed answers.
She needed to move before the fury swallowed her and turned to helpless sobs.
She turned away from the circle and made for the archway, ignoring the calls. The air in the corridor was cooler, a hard line against overheated skin. She took the steps two at a time, her breath sawing in and out, the tang of fear and anger bitter on her tongue.
Something was wrong. Not only the bandit’s cruelty, or the woman’s plea to keep taking care of her children.
No, something was wrong at the roots. Wrong in the way the night had turned and turned again until it landed on a woman’s blood.
Neil’s plan, Lachlan’s patience, the bandit’s timing. Threads crossed where she could not see them. She felt them all the same, like cords under her skin.
Something about all of this felt planned, and the only person who could give her the answers she needed was the man in the dungeons.
She reached the stairs that led to the underbelly of the castle, and the cold stone breathed up from below. The smell of damp air and iron came with it, causing her pulse to stutter.
She was not sure what she meant to do when she reached the bottom. She only knew that she could not stay one more minute amid a crowd that waited for her to decide what to do next.
“Answers,” she said, an oath set between her teeth. “I will have answers.”
Her feet carried her, steady and certain, toward the dungeons.
The air grew colder as she descended the stairs, and the shouts from the courtyard faded to a dull hum, then to nothing. Only the drip of water and the low groan of old hinges punctuated the silence. Her skirt brushed damp stone, and her breath fogged in front of her.
She didn’t care about any of that. All that mattered was getting to the bottom of this.
At the last turn, she heard voices.
She halted with one palm flat against the wall, feeling the cold bleed into her skin.
“… ye shouldnae have killed her. That wasnae the plan.”
Kristen’s breath caught.
Lachlan.
She crept along the wall and pressed herself into the shadow where the passage bent. Lamplight spilled from a cracked cell door and left a pale blade across the floor. She leaned forward until she could catch a glimpse of the room beyond.
Chains.
A table with a lamp.
Two figures inside.
Lachlan stood with his back half turned. The bandit was slumped against the wall, his wrists manacled, blood crusted at his temple. Lachlan must have sent the guards away when they finished chaining up the bandit because Kristen couldn’t see anyone else but the two of them.
“Ye have ruined everything, ye bastard,” he hissed, making her heart lurch.
The bandit laughed, the sound broken and bitter. “Who else was I supposed to take? Ye said the wife. The lady. I saw a woman and—”
Kristen froze.
The wife. The lady.
Her?
Her heart thudded so hard that the sound filled her ears. She did not move. She did not breathe. Every part of her listened.
Lachlan’s voice dropped further, but the stone threw his words back all the same. “Kristen was meant to be the target, ye fool,” he grunted. “Ye nearly ruined everything, killing yer sister instead.”
The world tilted under her feet, and she dug her nails into the wall, holding on.
The bandit spat on the floor. The wet sound carried. “Yer precious lady means nothing to me,” he sneered. “Ye are the one who used us. Ye are the one who told us that Neil helped Alex escape. That if we took one Drummond, we could gut the other.”
Kristen’s vision blurred.
What?
What?
A shaking hand rose to her lips.
Lachlan did not deny it. He did not deny being the cause of Neil’s disappearance five years ago. Did not deny the fact that he had practically handed his brother to the bandits.
“Aye,” he said, calm as a man speaking about the weather. “I told Neil that ye had Alex so he would leave. I couldnae let him settle. I couldnae let him have children and keep our faither’s curse alive.”
Bile rose in Kristen’s throat, and she pressed the back of her wrist to her mouth. Her pulse hammered, and she tried to swallow. The air, however, would not go down.
The bandit gave a rough snort. “We did as we were told. Held him. Broke him when we could. Starved him when we couldnae. Waited for orders. Then ye vanish and leave me with nothing but a rope and bad luck. Now, ye come down here with yer clean hands and say I ruined yer neat plan because I stabbed the wrong lass. Ye sound stupid.”
Lachlan did not flinch. “Ye were supposed to hold him long enough,” he said. “Break him down. Make him doubt himself. Folks already thought Alex was gone. If the Laird died in a bandits’ den, they might finally turn to someone worthy.”
“Someone like ye, ye mean,” the bandit snarled.
“Someone who wouldnae lead them where their faither led them,” Lachlan said. “A pirate’s son makes a poor shepherd. Ye ken that as well as I do. The former Laird was a terrible man. Out of his sons, I was the only one who saw it. And the old man despised me for it.”
Kristen’s fingers curled into her palm until they ached. Images flashed through her mind, swift and wrong. Neil at the lake with water on his skin. Neil in the courtyard with a blade in his hand. Neil in her room with thunder in his bones and shame in his eyes.
Five years gone because his brother had drawn a map for his enemies and lit it like a lantern.
Her breath came in a thin hiss.
The bandit shifted, and the chains clanged. “It wasnae like ye gave us a lot of choices,” he huffed. “What were we meant to do there? We cut him, we branded him, but he refused to speak. What else were we supposed to do?”
Lachlan’s answer was soft and cold. “I didnae realize it then, but I see it now. Kristen was the only blade sharp enough to make him bow. He wouldnae break for me, but he would break for her.”
“So that is why ye wanted her gone?” the bandit asked. “Ye really have it all mapped out, do ye nae? Ye have everything to satisfy yer selfish desires.”
“I speak of the clan,” Lachlan said. “The clan comes first. Always.”
Kristen closed her eyes for a moment. Then she opened them and looked at the cell again. Lachlan stood easy, his weight braced on one heel. He could have been in the Great Hall, asking for more bread. The bandit bared his teeth and bled on the floor. The lamp flickered. The iron whispered.
The truth slotted into place like a blade finding its sheath.
It had been Lachlan.
It had always been Lachlan.
He had shown the bandits a path. He had pointed at Neil and at Alex and at her. He had told lies to get Neil out of the way.
That bastard.
Her body moved before her mind could catch up. She stepped out of the shadows.
Lachlan spun. For a breath, his eyes went wide. But then the shock vanished, and something colder slid into place. He measured her with a look, quick and neat.
The bandit lifted his head and grinned through split lips, savage with the glee of a man about to witness death.
“Ye bastard,” Kristen growled. “What did ye do?”
Silence held for a blink as the lamp wavered. Water dripped in the far corner.
Lachlan’s mouth curled. “Ah,” he said softly. “Sweet Kristen. Ye’ve learned to mind yer business, have ye?”