Chapter 30
Sorcha
It was no accident anymore, she concluded.
She had begun to notice the pattern—how Calum was there when she came out of the kitchens, wiping meal from her hands; when she entered the dining hall to break her fast; or when she returned from the healer’s hut, where she stopped daily to ask if they had need of her help for the day.
He had learned her rhythm, studied it, and now placed himself in her path.
So when he came upon her that afternoon near the stables, she was not surprised. Still, her back stiffened, her hands knotting in her skirts as he spoke her name.
“Sorcha.”
She turned, wary, and found his eyes steady on hers. For once, there was no bluster in him, no heat—only a question held tight in his chest.
“Why?” he asked. “Why would you write to your father, beg for Niall and Mairi to be given a place outside Glenbrae’s walls—after all he did? After he nearly saw you slain?”
The words were not an accusation, not quite. More the bewilderment of a man who could not fit her mercy into his measure of justice.
For a long moment she held his gaze, weighing her answer. Then she spoke, voice quiet but firm.
“I did not write to my father. I wrote to Mairead, my brother’s wife. It was she who laid my request before him.”
His brows drew tight. She went on.
“From the moment I opened my ears to the clan’s counsel, Calum, there was but one judgment ever asked for Niall—banishment.
No man or woman called for his death; they knew well he could not remain among them, but neither did they thirst for his blood.
Had I believed otherwise, I would not have stayed my hand.
I would have had no qualm seeing him hang. ”
Her fingers curled at her side. “But to kill Niall, when his guilt—great though it was—was born of weakness and sway, would have been like killing you. You did not loose the gates, but your blindness to those who stood beside you let the raiders through all the same.”
His breath caught, though he said nothing.
“I could not put him to death for what the clan itself did not ask,” she finished softly. “Nor would I stain my hands for vengeance alone.”
She turned then, meaning to walk away, but her steps slowed.
“It was not easy, writing home,” she said, her voice lower still.
“Almost five months I have been gone, and no word has been sent to me—not until I wrote first with that request. The reply was short, but my father agreed. The cottage outside Glenbrae’s walls was set in order for them.
It is not much, but it will be safer for them there than being cast out into the Highlands. ”
The words left a faint ache in her chest. She had not wanted her first letter home to be a plea for the lives of those who had betrayed her. Yet so it was.
Calum’s silence pressed on her as heavy as the Highland sky. At last she looked at him once more.
“You wished to ken the truth. Now you have it.”
She left him there, though she felt his eyes on her back until she passed beyond the yard.
And when she glanced toward the cottages, her gaze lingered on the old Dunn smithy—now filled with the clang of a new blacksmith, John Dunn's apprentice who had taken up the post. The sound rang strange, a reminder that nothing in Strathloch stood still.
***
Calum
Calum remained rooted where she had left him, her words ringing in his skull.
To kill Niall would have been like killing you.
The comparison cut deeper than any blade, for it was true.
He had not loosed the gates, yet his folly had paved the way all the same.
And if mercy could be granted to Niall, then what reckoning still awaited him?