Chapter Five
Sorcha
The morning after her wedding, Sorcha had been greeted with cautious warmth by a few of the elder women in the kitchens—those who remembered her mother, or at least her mother's good name.
She'd offered her help with the stores, careful with her hands, quick with her sleeves rolled, trying to find the rhythm of a keep that had only just become hers.
But it hadn't lasted.
By the next morning, the smiles had cooled. Whispers flared like wind-fed embers. And by week's end, they no longer hid their sneers.
She'd been tripped—twice—once while carrying a basket of eggs that shattered across the stone floor.
The next time, a kettle of stew she'd stirred for hours had gone to waste after she'd been shoved from behind and scalded her wrist. When she tried to explain, to set the truth aright, the replies were sharp and immediate:
"Too fine to own a mistake, are ye?"
"She thinks her hands too clean for proper work."
Haughty. Cold. Distant.
She heard the words, muttered and shouted both. One woman had even cursed her outright, swearing Sorcha acted like "her shite didnae stink." The venom in her tone had startled Sorcha more than the words themselves.
She stopped trying to explain after that.
Calum said nothing. He watched it all with that infuriating, knowing grin—sitting back like a man watching the first stage of a plan unfold just as he'd meant it to.
Worse still was Elspeth. With her sly smiles and cloying tone, she had taken credit for Sorcha's work—received praise for the food Sorcha had helped prepare, basking in approval for stores she hadn't lifted a finger to account for.
She moved through the keep like it was she, not Sorcha, who had married the Laird's only son, and the people welcomed her as if she had.
Sorcha said nothing.
She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her break.
She was her mother's daughter.
Lady Glenbrae had ruled her household with steadiness and quiet dignity. A strength that did not boast.
It was her mother who had taught her to count stores and account for each sack of barley, each coil of rope, each vat of salt—because a Lady who ruled must ken the weight of what fed her folk.
But Sorcha knew it hadn't been enough just to count.
When her mother had once asked, half in jest, "when ye're the one in charge, will ye lift every barrel, too?
" She'd known her daughter would master every task, no matter the weight, and carry any burden she chose.
And Sorcha chose to bear those burdens still—hauling sacks, scrubbing floors, stirring great pots over the fire—because she’d been given no choice but to lead, and leadership in Strathloch was a quiet, thankless toil, done in silence even when it left her back aching and her pride worn thin as old linen.
One of the first lessons her mother had taught her came one morning while they counted stores. She had laid a gentle hand over Sorcha's and said,
"Ye lead by learning first. Listen. Ken every corner of what ye now belong to."
Sorcha had remembered. She had done the work, every last bit of it, even when no one thanked her.
But it hadn't mattered.
The evening after she arrived, she had wandered past the edge of the keep's land and found a clearing tucked behind a ring of trees. There, under moonlight and shadow, she began to train again. Her sword had traveled with her, as well as her longbow and quiver.
Each night since, she returned to that same space, training until her muscles burned and her body trembled with weariness.
She pushed herself to the edge of exhaustion, until her arms were heavy, her feet raw, and her breath came in sharp, stinging gasps.
She craved the fatigue. It dulled the sharpness of her thoughts. Of her heartache.
Because it was easier to bear blisters and bruises than the quiet shame of how they looked at her here—her new clan, the folk she was meant to serve.
They didnae want her.
Didnae see her as one of their own.
Just a highborn bride, bartered off to stitch together peace and land.
Calum's precious Elspeth was one of them. She worked hard—or seemed to—taking credit for Sorcha's efforts and being praised as the true Lady of the keep.
It felt all too familiar.
Back home, her own clan had seen her value only in what she could offer—until her eldest brother wed, and his young bride took up the mantle of Lady MacAlasdair. The people had embraced the newcomer with open arms, as if Sorcha's time had quietly come and gone.
No one had spoken the words aloud, but Sorcha had heard them all the same: her place had shifted.
Now, in a new clan, among strange folk, with a husband who didnae want her and a keep that resented her, she was beginning to wonder—
Had she ever belonged anywhere at all?
They whispered that Calum was born of war and sorrow. That his mother, the Laird's wife, had died bringing him into the world. That grief had near hollowed his father, and Calum had been reared more by warriors and steel than a mother's arms.
Sorcha didnae ken if that was truth or tale, but she believed it—
Saw it in the way he carried himself. Alone even when surrounded. Always watching. Always calculating.
For a time, it seemed that might be the worst of it—the quiet cruelty, the bitterness from the servants, the way her husband wore indifference like mail.
But all of that changed one month after their wedding.
War came to her father's keep.
And the warriors of Strathloch were called to aid them in battle.
Sorcha stood at her window as the men gathered in the yard below, watching through the narrow pane of glass.
Calum mounted his horse with the ease of long practice, dressed in riding leathers and armor half-fastened.
He cast off his plaid with a flourish, slinging it across the saddle in a way that drew a cheer from the men nearby.
Elspeth was the one who handed him his sword. The one who adjusted his bridle and laughed at something he said.
Sorcha couldn't hear the words—but she saw the way Elspeth's hand lingered at his side. The way he let it. And when he turned to ride out, it was Elspeth who stood watching him go, her hair golden in the morning light, dabbing her face with a kerchief while waving as he rode from the keep.
Sorcha stepped back from the window.
She would not watch him ride away.
He belonged to the keep. To its folk. To the war.
And she would make certain never to forget that truth—not for a single heartbeat.