Chapter 29
Calum
Three days had passed since the nooses had swung, and still Calum heard the gallows creak when the wind turned.
The bodies were long buried beyond the walls, yet their presence clung to the courtyard like a shadow.
More than once, he found himself drawn back to the place where the scaffold had stood.
He told himself it was to look upon the square, to measure how the clan fared.
But the truth was simpler. He came to remember—to feel the shame that should have seen him swinging beside them.
Elspeth. Liam. Even John. Their crimes were their own, aye—but Calum had given Elspeth room to scheme, had handed her his ear when all others warned him away.
He had called her the wife of his heart and let that folly blind him.
He wondered how many of his people held him directly responsible for the attack on their clan—and if Sorcha were not the woman she was, perhaps the rope would have been his as well, for failing to guard his folk.
And yet, the clan healed.
Laughter returned slowly, like spring grass after fire.
Children chased one another through the yard again, their shrieks mingling with the ring of hammers on fresh wood.
Smoke curled from repaired chimneys. Women sang low over the looms. Life crept back into Strathloch, steadier each day. And everywhere, Calum saw her.
Sorcha.
Her plaid drawn close, braid swinging down her back, hands never idle. She moved from firepit to forge, from healer’s hut to storehouse—tireless as the tide. The folk no longer turned away when she passed. They spoke her name with respect, even pride—Lady Strathloch.
He had tried to speak with her. Twice at dawn in the kitchens, once as she crossed the yard. Each time she slipped from him, as though she had no breath to spare. Perhaps she meant it so. Perhaps she wanted him to feel the weight of silence—to learn patience where he had never practiced it.
But still, he watched. And he remembered.
His mind drifted back to the morning Niall and his wife departed.
Banished, their heads bowed, belongings few.
Yet before he stepped beyond the gates, Niall had turned back.
His voice had cracked when he spoke—not to the clan, not to Calum, but to Sorcha.
An apology. A plea for forgiveness she had no reason to grant.
And Sorcha, instead of spitting scorn, had pressed a bundle into Mairi’s hands—dried meat, herbs to ease her belly, a strip of cloth for the bairn soon to come.
Then, in a voice quiet but steady, she told them she would not see them cast adrift.
She had already written to Glenbrae, asking mercy on their behalf.
There was a small cottage outside the walls, long empty, where she and her brothers had played as bairns.
The bones of it were sound. Her request for them to be allowed to stay there had been granted; it was made ready for them.
Mercy, even for those who had betrayed her.
The memory burned. Elspeth would never have shown such kindness. Elspeth would have mocked. And Calum—blind, proud fool that he was—had thought her better than Sorcha. Warmer. More suited to him.
But he knew now what he had refused to see.
Elspeth had not truly been his heart. She had been rebellion—a way to spit at duty, to pretend he could choose for himself when all his life had been chosen for him.
She was freedom only in the way fire feels free before it devours the thatch. She was never love.
And Sorcha… Sorcha was the one who bore the weight he cast aside. Cool in her manner, aye, but only because he had given her cause to shield herself. She was never the enemy. She was the strength he should have stood beside from the start.
That evening, Calum lingered near the courtyard fire, watching her speak with the children as they drifted off toward the hall. Their laughter softened something deep inside him—a place he hadn’t realized had grown so hollow.
When the last of them had gone, Sorcha turned, startled to find him there. The flames caught the gold in her hair, the faint weariness beneath her eyes. For a heartbeat, neither spoke.
Calum took a breath, stepping forward. “Ye’ve done more for this clan than I ever did,” he said quietly. “Ye’ve led them where I should’ve stood beside ye. I can’t undo what’s been done—but if you’ll allow it, I’ll spend what’s left of me tryin’ to be the man ye deserved from the start.”
Her gaze flickered, unreadable. “Ye’ve already begun,” she said at last. “Whether ye see it or no.”
Hope stirred, sharp and uncertain, in his chest. “Then mayhap there’s still a path forward.”
“Mayhap,” she said, her voice gentler now. “But walk it slow, Calum MacRae. Some wounds need time to mend.”
He nodded once, the firelight glinting in his eyes. “Aye. I can do that.”
And though no forgiveness was spoken that night, something quieter passed between them—something that felt like a beginning.