Chapter Eight
Elspeth Dunn- Age Five and Twenty years
She had begged him not to do it, using every charm that had ever worked before—a tear on her cheek, a hand at his sleeve, soft-spoken lies wrapped in sweetness.
The memory clung like a thorn in her chest—her voice trembling, Calum's expression resolute.
"Run away with me," she had whispered. "We'll find a new life, one not shackled by your title or duty."
But he had refused. Said that, as his father's only child, he could never shame the MacRae name or turn his back on Strathloch.
Of course, Elspeth had known Calum was betrothed—he had been promised for eight long years—but so long as the wedding remained a distant promise, she could pretend it wasn't real.
When the date for the wedding was finally set, it felt as though someone had slammed a heavy door—and locked it tight behind her.
From that moment on, something in Elspeth curdled. Bitter and sharp, like cream soured in the sun.
So when Calum—sweet, soft-headed Calum—offered her a chance to make Sorcha's new life as Lady MacRae unbearable, Elspeth smiled sweetly and accepted.
He had even said, "If ye need to get your own back for what she's taken from ye, I won't stand in your way."
So she did.
And Elspeth began to carve her revenge with a whisper and a lie.
She took credit for Sorcha's work, turned her quiet acts of care into twisted tales of ambition, and sowed seeds of doubt among the servants.
When she saw Sorcha slipping from the keep, donning her cloak night after night, Elspeth made sure everyone knew.
She didn't need to say what the Lady was doing out there—she simply let the clan draw their own conclusions.
But gossip could only cut so deep.
She needed something final.
Something fatal.
Elspeth and her brother, Liam, had long known of a man—once Strathloch-born, now outlawed and exiled—who'd taken up with lowland raiders near the border.
During a routine errand to gather herbs for their ailing mother, they veered from the known path and found him.
He listened.
And he agreed.
For a promise of gold and free rein to pillage Strathloch's stores, the lowland scum agreed to come—along with a pack of his new friends.
For all she promised, they need only do one thing.
"Take her out," she said. "Kill Sorcha MacAlasdair. Leave the rest be, but see to it she doesn't walk away."
A purse of silver to a gate guard with more complaints than sense ensured the eastern entrance would go unwatched at midnight.
The rest... was meant to be easy.
But nothing about Sorcha of Glenbrae ever was.
The warning horns shattered the night—shrill, urgent, panicked.
Elspeth rushed into the courtyard, her heart hammering with dreadful hope.
Then a figure burst from the woods. Running full tilt toward the keep.
That cloak.
It was her.
The cloak fell away, cast aside like shed skin.
And beneath it—
Steel flashed, silver-bright in the moonlight.
Sorcha pulled the longbow from her shoulder, the motion swift and sure.
She loosed an arrow that sank deep into a raider's throat — the very one poised to strike down Isobel, the same girl who had once tripped her in the bailey and laughed behind her hand.
Sorcha did not wait to see the girl's shock. She spun, blade suddenly in hand, and drove it clean through another marauder who had crept up behind her, his weapon raised high, ready to end her.
Elspeth froze. Her breath caught. Her heart stuttered.
Under the moon's cold gaze, Sorcha stood bloodied and unbowed, her face streaked with crimson.
This was no delicate lady of court.
This was a warrior—blood-slicked, sure-footed—and Elspeth realized then she'd never stood a chance. She would never have broken Sorcha.
The lass was indomitable.
Panic surged.
She fled.
Inside the great hall, she found Domhnall MacRae—Calum's father, who had stayed behind to watch over the clan.
The old laird stood with a sword strapped to his hip, gripping it with his one good hand. His left sleeve was tied off neatly, his arm lost long ago in battle.
"I saw Sorcha letting criminals onto our lands," Elspeth gasped, breathless and wild.
Domhnall narrowed his eyes. Silent. Weighing. Then he pointed toward the cellar.
"Go. Hide with the other women and children."
"But—"
"Go."
She obeyed—at first. Only long enough to melt into the shadows. Then crept after him, heart pounding.
She followed him out toward the clash.
What she saw nearly felled her where she stood.
The courtyard was a battlefield. Fires raged on scattered rooftops, set by the raiders' flaming arrows to sow panic and ruin.
Smoke curled thick and low, seeping into the keep's heart, stinging eyes and choking breath.
Bodies littered the earth—strangers, lowland men with foreign blades—and Sorcha stood at the center, sword in hand.
The blood of those Elspeth had summoned now soaked Strathloch's earth.
A marauder knelt before her, trembling, hands raised high, his sword thrown to the ground at his feet.
"Spare me," he begged. "I'll tell ye who sent us, how we got in—just don't kill me."
Elspeth shrank deeper into the shadows, her pulse roaring in her ears.
What if he saw her? What if he spoke her name?
Sorcha didn't blink. She glanced to Domhnall.
"This one has a tale to tell."
She turned to a nearby clansman and added firmly,
"Put him in chains. Bring him to the cells and watch him close."
But as the wounded man was dragged away, he turned his gaze—and grinned when he saw Elspeth.
"That's her," he said, raising one shaking hand to point at her—his voice hoarse but clear.
"That's the lass who promised us Strathloch's spoils if we killed the Lady of the Keep."
Gasps rippled.
Eyes turned to where the enemy was pointing.
Elspeth took one faltering step back—but her back met the cold stone of the hall's wall.
There was nowhere left to run.
Sorcha met her gaze, cold and sharp as the sword in her hand.
"Well, Elspeth. It seems you've earned the cell beside this weasel."
Later, in the cold dark of the dungeon, Elspeth sat slumped on the floor, knees to her chest.
Just across the corridor, the sly raider hummed, tuneless and smug.
From the shadows beyond the bars, Sorcha's voice echoed—low, steady, and laced with fury.
"Treason ill becomes you, Elspeth. I'd say your stay will be short, but until Calum and the men return from battle, this cell's your only hearth."
Elspeth said nothing.
The cold chill of the dungeon was a world away from the warmth of the fire she had sought in the great hall. She leaned her head back against the damp wall and closed her eyes.
All her careful plans, her whispered lies, her sweet-tongued manipulation—it had all unraveled in a single, bloody night.
The truth settled like a stone in her chest, heavy and unyielding.
She had lost.