Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“An attack, was it?” Halvard asked as he, Sten, and the rest of their party reached the borderlands. “Well, we either have the wrong place, lads, or somethin’ else is happenin’ here.”
There were no raids, no attacks, no battle. There was a fire, one which seemed to be quickly getting under control, unlike the one he had fought back in the village, but other than that, there was no sign of struggle.
To the south, a pale dawn filtered through a ceiling of cloud, its weak light casting long, blue-gray shadows over the hills. The heather lay flat under a night’s worth of wind, trembling in places where small creatures fled the approach of horses.
There should have been more smoke or shouting or the scent of fires set to crofts. But there was nothing. Only the stirring of cold air and the distant rush of a burn tumbling over stone.
“This is where the messenger said the attack started,” Sten said, shifting in his saddle. “By the standing stones. But it’s quiet as a graveyard.”
Halvard’s fingers tightened along the reins. His horse snorted, stamping frost from the ground, as if unsettled by the silence as well. A grim heaviness settled in Halvard’s chest—a weight that refused to be reasoned away.
Elsie’s face flickered unbidden in his thoughts; her brown hair braided down her back that morning, her soft laugh when he had teased her for worrying over him. The way she had reached for his hand with that lingering touch she thought he didn’t notice.
Stop it. She’s safe.
He was a laird of war-seasoned years; he knew the difference between intuition and unfounded dread. And yet something gnawed at him. A persistent, bitter edge at the back of his ribs.
“Spread out,” he ordered. “Check the stones, the glen, the western ridge. If somethin’ happened here, we’ll find a trace.”
They searched. Men dismounted and walked the frost-slick grass, boots sinking into the earth. The air smelled of rain and morning cold. Ravens croaked in the distance but did not approach—the clever birds knew real violence when they smelled it. Today, they seemed disinterested.
Nothing was burned. Nothing torn. The herds grazing far downhill watched them without fear.
Sten crouched near the standing stones, brushing his broad fingers over the soil. “Nay hoofprints. Nay torches dropped. Nay blood.”
Halvard dismounted beside him. The stones rose like ghostly sentinels, lichen-covered and older than any clan. “Someone sent us false word.”
“Aye. But why lure us this far?” Sten asked, his voice low. “What’s worth drawin’ the laird an’ half his fightin’ men away from the castle?”
The weight in Halvard’s ribs twisted into something colder.
Elsie.
He swallowed, his jaw flexing. “Perhaps the other clans seek tae test our borders.”
“Or perhaps someone closer seeks tae test ye,” Sten countered.
Halvard turned a sharp look on him, but Sten lifted both hands as if in surrender.
“I’m only sayin’ it because I ken ye’re thinkin’ it.”
Halvard exhaled slowly, the mist of his breath hanging in the air. He hated how right Sten was, hated the coil of dread in his belly. Hated, most of all, how easily he could picture one man bold—or desperate—enough to try such a ploy.
Harcourt is behind this. He must be.
But suspicion was not truth, and a laird who acted on mere suspicion risked growing tyrannical.
Halvard forced his shoulders back. “We’ll sweep the ridge. Then the marsh. If it’s all quiet, we return. I’ll nae assume the worst on a whisper o’ feelin’.”
“A whisper from ye tends tae be more accurate than most men’s shouts,” Sten said under his breath. But then he followed orders, gathering the men to search for more signs of struggle.
The ridge revealed nothing, the marsh only the distant croak of frogs and the rippling of water disturbed by wind. Every man returned to the meeting point with the same report—no raiders, no damage, no living soul who had seen anything.
It had all been false word, a lure. A trap—one sprung not to kill them there, but to leave something unguarded behind.
Sten guided his horse beside Halvard’s. “What now?”
“We ride,” Halvard said, already turning his mount toward the north. “At once. Nay stops. Nay rest.”
The soldiers exchanged tense looks but fell in line immediately. They trusted their laird’s instincts—even when he tried not to trust his own.
As they began their ascent toward the road home, Halvard cast one final glance at the empty, peaceful land around him. Mist rolled low along the ground, curling around the stones and drifting up from the valley like spirits rising from the earth.
Had he been too hasty? Should he have simply sent Sten in his stead?
But after that fire in the village, he could not be too careful, not when it involved his land and his people.
Besides, there was no place in his lands safer than the keep.
His men were well-trained and Elsie was under their protection.
No one could storm inside and harm her when all those eyes were watching.
And when he returned home, he would make sure to find out just who it was who had sent him on that pointless mission.
Elsie drifted through the corridors of the keep as though the stones themselves bore the weight of her worry. The morning light, thin and cold as winter milk, slid through the narrow windows, catching dust motes that swirled like thoughts refusing to rest.
Halvard had ridden out the night before and she hated to admit that she already missed him.
Now, with nothing but the hush of the castle around her, the worry grew teeth and gnawed at her, never once letting her rest.
She crossed the inner courtyard, her skirts brushing over cold flagstones, and moved toward the gardens. Perhaps the fresh air would ease her chest; perhaps the charmed hush of the hedges and winding paths would quiet her thoughts before they swallowed her.
The garden gate creaked softly as she opened it. Frost clung to the tips of the heather, and the bare branches of the apple trees arched overhead like interlaced fingers. The air smelled of damp earth and the last remnants of autumn.
Elsie walked the path slowly, arms wrapped around herself. He’ll be fine, she told herself. Halvard was formidable, guarded by loyal men, capable of reading danger better than any soldier she had ever met.
But she felt it—an ache deep in her ribs, a whisper of dread not unlike the way a storm cloud can darken the heart before it covers the sky.
She shivered, not so much with the cold but with the thought that something terrible could happen to him at any point.
That was when she heard it—soft, trembling, but unmistakably human. A child’s sob.
Elsie turned sharply. Near the ivy-draped wall a small boy stood alone, his shoulders shaking. His clothes were simple, mud-spattered, and his cheeks streaked with tears as he stood there all alone.
“My dear?” she called gently, stepping toward him. “What’s the matter? Are you hurt?”
He looked up, eyes wide and glistening. “M–me maither… she… she needs help, me lady. Please.”
Concern flooded her, Elsie’s heartbeat picking up as she looked around her, trying to locate the boy’s mother. “What’s happened to her?”
“She fell,” the boy said quickly. “Near the old path. She’s bleedin’. I cannae lift her.” He sniffed, wiping his face with a grubby sleeve. “We dinnae have anyone else. Please …”
Elsie’s heart twisted. She didn’t recognize him from the keep’s children or the village children, but fear often carved unfamiliar shapes into familiar faces.
“I’ll get the guards,” she said, turning back toward the gate.
“Nay!” His voice cracked, urgent. “They’ll be too slow. Please, please, come now. She’s going’ tae die.”
Elsie hesitated. She glanced at the curtain walls, where plenty of guards stood, watching the land. It would only take a few moments of their time.
But if the mother was as severely wounded as the child claimed, then they didn’t have any time, not even moments. Elsie couldn’t know if the child was explaining it well enough to her, if the mother was truly dying or if she simply had a wound that bled too much.
Or if the child didn’t realize just how severely wounded his mother was.
Halvard would have insisted she get help.
But Halvard is gone. And a woman might be dying.
“All right,” she said softly. “Show me.”
She followed the child out through the garden’s side gate, down a narrow path lined with gorse and bramble.
The castle walls loomed behind her, but with every step they shrank, until she could no longer hear the faint clatter of kitchen pots or the distant voices of guards changing post. The morning fog pooled low across the ground, curling around her ankles like pale, ghostly fingers.
She rubbed her arms bring some warmth back to them, her gaze flicking ahead to the boy who walked with stiff, hurried steps.
“Is it much farther?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. The silence pressed at her, oppressive, bringing to mind terrible thoughts that she didn’t want to consider.
“Where is your mother exactly? What’s her name? I may know her.”
Still nothing. The boy kept walking, his head down, his shoulders tight, and Elsie’s stomach plummeted as she realized something was terribly wrong.
She came to a sudden halt, refusing to follow the boy any longer.
“Boy,” she said firmly, voice trembling only slightly, “tell me where your mother is.”
The boy froze. Then slowly, too slowly, he turned to look at her. His eyes no longer wet with tears. There was no trembling lip, no fear for his mother’s life.
Just emptiness.
Elsie’s breath hitched. “What––”
Suddenly, there was a whisper of movement behind her.
Elsie spun, her skirts sweeping the frosted path, her breath catching painfully in her throat.
Hooded figures emerged from the brush—three, four, five, perhaps even more.
Elsie lost count quickly as she spun around and around, trying to keep track of them all.
Their cloaks were dark and unmarked, their faces shadowed, their footfalls silent as death sliding across stone.
“No… no!” Elsie stumbled back, her heart crashing in her chest. “Stay away!”
A hand clamped over her mouth. She screamed into it, a choked, desperate cry that tore at her throat but vanished into the open air. The castle was too far, the walls too thick. No one would hear her. No one would come.
Halvard’s face flashed across her mind—strong, steady, frowning with that fierce protectiveness he tried so hard to hide.
Halvard, please, please hear me. Please come back. Please.
Elsie kicked, twisted, clawed; she refused to let them take her without a fight.
Her legs dashed out, trying to kick at the men who approached her, but they quickly caught them both.
She continued to scream, but that hand remained firmly fixed over her mouth.
Tears streaked down her cheeks, hot in the chilly air, but the men were trained, silent, merciless.
One pinned her arms. Another forced a hood over her head, plunging her into suffocating darkness.
“Be careful with her,” a voice muttered beside her. “Harcourt said not to harm her.”
Harcourt.
The name crashed into her like a blow.
Halvard had distrusted him from the moment the man had stepped foot into his home, and he had had good reason to. Elsie had been the naive one, thinking that with him and his people gone, he posed no threat. But clearly, he was not as gone as she would have liked to think.
The men began to carry her away from the castle. Elsie continued to thrash in their grip, to scream at the top of her lungs, but it didn’t matter. She was already too far away from the castle, already exhausted, already caught in the trap.
And now, there was no escape.