Chapter Ten
Sorcha
Smoke still clung to the hills like a warning not yet lifted, and the reek o' ash soaked into Sorcha's clothes no matter how often she washed. The raid was over. The bodies had been buried. But the cost still echoed in the breath of the wounded and the grief of the mourning.
Sorcha did not wait for orders. She rose before dawn, did her usual chores in the kitchen and then went to the edge of the village to help the old woman who'd lost her roof.
She tied beams, stacked stones, and held the ladder steady while her grandsons repaired what they could.
She did the same the next day, and the next, ignoring the throb in her arm.
No one spoke to her at first. They looked, though. She felt their stares on her back, their murmurs in the corners of fields and hearth-warmed halls.
But then, something shifted.
A smith offered her water while she passed by, unasked. A wee lass tugged on her skirts and handed her a wildflower. A widow whose eldest son had died in the fighting gave her a folded piece of bread and cheese without a word. Sorcha nodded her thanks and kept moving.
She had always moved. She had always worked.
She took stock of what supplies remained, spoke to the injured, and helped organize medicines with the healer.
She repaired cloaks with torn seams and sharpened dull blades.
She saw that no bairn went hungry and that every elder had firewood.
She continued performing the duties she always had.
Quietly. Diligently. As though nothing had changed.
Because to Sorcha, it hadn't. Not truly.
She had always served the people.
One morning, as she finished rationing barley in the storehouse, Elder MacRae approached. He said nothing at first. Simply watched her.
"If you've something to say, Elder," she said without turning, "spit it out."
"I do," he replied. "Though it isn't just from me."
Sorcha looked up.
"The folk are watching you, lass," he said. "They see who stands with them. Who bears the burden that ought not be hers."
"I carry what needs carrying," she replied.
Elder MacRae gave a small nod. "That you do. And whether you meant to or not, you've become the very soul o' this clan."
Sorcha didn't know what to say to that.
So she didn't say anything at all.
Instead, she handed him a bundle of dried meat and moved past him to the next family that needed help.
By week's end, there were others beside her. Not many, not loudly, but enough. They followed her steps, echoed her tone, asked her what came next.
One woman said, "Lady Sorcha, where d'ye want the timber?"
Another asked, "Shall we keep the younger bairns safe in the north barn while we haul the stones?"
The title caught in Sorcha's ears, but she did not correct them.
When a boy scraped his knee gathering kindling, he ran to her. Not the healer. Her.
That evening, as she wiped blood from her skirt and set another pot on the hearth for the injured, a voice spoke behind her.
"You ken," Elder MacRae said again, "there are lairds who rule with far less sense than you show in silence."
Sorcha gave a small, tired smile. "I'm naught but myself. I always have been. My mother taught me to serve my folk. That's all I've ever done."
He looked at her for a long moment, then gave a single nod. "Aye. And that's why they've chosen you. Even if they've yet the words to say it plain."
As he left, Sorcha sat down for the first time that day. Her legs ached, and her hands were raw from rope and blade.
But her heart felt steady.
For the first time in a long while, she was not alone in her fight.
She had not asked for their loyalty.
But it had begun to take root all the same.