Chapter 1 #2
Kenina turned back just as the first raiders broke fully onto the green.
They were fur-clad and armed with axes and hooked blades already slick with someone else’s blood, their blood-red cloaks snapping behind them.
But it was the colors that marked them unmistakably, the deep forest green and black tartan of Clan Graham, crossed over their shoulders and cinched at their belts.
Bronze wolf-head brooches—their clan’s sigil—glinted at their throats.
Behind her, someone shouted in triumph. A heavy thud followed—someone falling. She didn’t turn, she kept running.
Smoke began to curl from somewhere—she didn’t want to think where.
Kenina found and herded four more toward the storehouse. She ducked into the storehouse and shoved the door closed, wedging a broken crate against it, then crouched.
The air inside was cool and thick with the smell of grain. Shapes huddled in the shadows — small bodies, pressed close, barely breathing.
“Stay quiet,” she whispered. “Dinnae move unless I tell you.”
“Lady Kenina…” one boy whimpered, lip trembling.
She brushed his hair back. “I’ll be right here. Ye’ll be safe. I promise.”
Kenina looked around. Another scream sounded—this one closer. Metal clashed violently. The Grahams had breached the outer line already.
Where were Faither and Maither? Where was her brother Lachlan? The warriors should have been there by now.
“Breanna!” she whispered, her eyes straining into the dark. “Breanna, are ye here?”
For a heartbeat there was nothing then a tiny whisper came from behind the barrels, “Here!”
Relief nearly buckled her. Kenina swallowed it down and murmured. “Good lass.”
A small face peered out from behind the stacked barrels, eyes too wide, one clamped over her mouth, the other holding a small human figure.
Kenina crouched and scanned them quickly. Ten. No, twelve. Breanna walked to the center, arms wrapped tight around the youngest, jaw set hard in a way that made Kenina’s chest tighten.
She went to them, moving carefully so her boots didn’t scrape.
She turned as the rest of the kids began to gather around her.
“All right,” she murmured, voice low and even. “Listen tae me. All of ye.”
A few faces tilted toward her. One child’s breath hitched.
“Nay crying,” Kenina said gently. “Nay whispering. Nay matter what ye hear. The walls here are thick. They willnae hear ye if ye dinnae give them reason.”
She met each child’s eyes in turn, holding their attention until the panic eased, just a fraction.
“If ye’re scared,” she went on, “ye hold the grain sacks. Feel them. Count them if ye need tae. But ye stay right here.”
She turned to Breanna and adjusted the girl’s shawl, tugging it low.
“Ye’re the oldest,” Kenina said quietly. “That means ye’re in charge now.”
Breanna’s eyes widened. “Me?”
“Aye. Ye.” Kenina kept her voice calm, certain. “If I dinnae come back right away, ye keep them here. Ye dinnae move unless the chapel bell rings twice. Dae ye understand?”
Breanna swallowed, lip trembling, then nodded. Hard.
She cupped the girl’s cheek, thumb pressing gently beneath her ear, then pushed the barrel just enough to shadow her completely.
“Good lass,” she whispered. “Stay.”
She straightened slowly and moved to the door. There was a crack between the boards where the latch didn’t quite meet. She leaned close and peered out.
The green was no longer chaos — it was worse. Men moving with intent now, fanning out, checking doors, prodding at sheds.
A couple of them were angling that way.
Too close. Kenina’s pulse steadied, sharp and cold. If they reached the storehouse, they would search it.
She leaned back from the door and closed her eyes for one breath.
Then she made her choice.
She turned to Breanna one last time. “Nay matter what ye hear,” she said softly, “ye keep them quiet.”
Breanna nodded again, tears spilling silently now.
Kenina slipped out the door, but she did not run. She walked, just long enough to be seen — long enough for a shadow to catch movement where none should be.
Then she broke into a run.
Her boots struck stone as her skirts swung wide. One of the men shouted. Another laughed.
“Ye there!”
Kenina cut left, then right, keeping to open ground, letting them see her just enough to think they had her measure. She vaulted a low fence and let herself stumble, heard them surge closer.
Good.
She ran harder now, breath burning, heart pounding in her ears. She knocked over a stack of crates, sent them crashing down behind her, and bought herself seconds.
Hooves thundered somewhere. Steel rang.
She didn’t look back, she didn’t need to. She knew they were chasing.
And the storehouse with the children inside it were already fading behind her.
Her lungs were on fire now. Each breath scraped raw, the cold air cutting deeper than the pain in her legs. The ground sloped unevenly ahead, frost slick beneath her boots, and she knew—too late—that she had misjudged the turn.
Her foot slid.
She caught herself on a post, spun and a hand closed around her cloak.
The fabric tore with a sound like a gunshot in the quiet between shouts.
Kenina stumbled forward, dragged back a half step, then wrenched free as the cloak ripped clean from her shoulders. She ran again, skirts gathered, hair coming loose down her back.
Almost clear. Something struck the back of her knee.
Pain exploded. Her leg buckled and she went down hard, palms slamming into frozen earth. The shock knocked the breath from her chest in a sharp, humiliating gasp.
“Found ye,” growled a man in a matted wolf-pelt cloak. His accent was thick, his smile a jagged line. “A pretty one.”
She tried to scramble up.
A boot came down on her calf.
Not crushing. Just enough.
“Stay,” a voice growled above her. Calm. Certain.
She clawed at the ground, fingers slipping in mud and frost. Another hand caught her braid and yanked her head back before she could rise. Her scalp burned. Stars burst behind her eyes.
She cried out despite herself.
Kenina clawed at his wrist, twisting, kicking—anything. But he was stronger, dragging her upright by her hair.
“Let me go!” she spat, scrambling for footing.
He only laughed, breath reeking of ale and rot.
She grabbed his knife hand with both of hers and drove her knee upward. He grunted, grip faltering, and she broke free long enough to stagger back—
But another grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms. Kenina screamed, fury lacing her voice. “Cowards! Let me go!”
The wolf-pelt raider recovered quickly, wiping blood from his lip with the back of his hand as he approached her again.
“Fiery,” he said with a grin. “Good. The laird will like that.”
She looked back for a split second only to see Fergus rushing towards the raider.
Where had he come from? No!
He suddenly barreled into the raider with a broken spear shaft, throwing him off balance for half a heartbeat.
“Run!” he shouted.
A massive arm hooked around her waist.
She gasped as the world spun sideways. The raider she’d lost sight of hauled her back by sheer brute force.
“Let—go—of me!” She drove her elbow back, catching him in the ribs. He grunted but didn’t loosen his grip.
Fergus lunged again, but another Graham slammed into him, sending him sprawling across the dirt. His body fell limp.
“Fergus!”
Her scream tore raw from her throat.
He reached for her helplessly, breath knocked from his chest. “K-Keni—!”
The raider hoisted her off her feet as if she weighed nothing. Kenina kicked, clawed, twisted—her braid snapped against her cheek, her lungs burned with terror.
“Faither!” she screamed. “Lachlan!”
She was thrown to her knees and the wolf-pelt man grabbed her chin roughly.
“Where’s yer laird, girl?”
Kenina glared, breathing hard through pain. “Coming fer ye.”
Another strike, backhanded this time, snapped her head sideways. She fell to the side hitting her head hard on a tree.
Through the ringing in her ears, she heard the distant horn.
A deep, familiar bellow echoing through the trees.
Her father’s war horn.
Her heart soared—only for the hope to crack an instant later as the raider behind her tightened his grip.
“Take her,” wolf-pelt ordered. “Before the laird’s men arrive.”
“Nay!” Kenina kicked, twisted, fought wildly but the world was tilting, her senses spinning from the blow.
They dragged her toward the tree line, boots skidding across frost, her fingers scraping hopelessly against the earth.
Kenina went, stumbling once, then straightening despite the pain screaming through her knee. She lifted her chin as they marched her back toward the green.
The children were hidden. They had chased her.
She had done what she had set out to do.
Then the raiders pulled Kenina into the cold of the forest just as the horns of her father’s warriors thundered onto the green.