Chapter 36
Sorcha
Sorcha’s steps crunched softly over frost-slick earth, her bow at her shoulder, the hush of the trees calling to her, a balm after the endless days of command. She had near reached her clearing when she stilled.
Calum sat on the old log by her pell, the moon painting him in silver. A small wooden trencher rested at his side, a linen cloth drawn over it.
“I thought ye’d come,” he said, voice quiet, stripped of his usual command. “Ye’ve been wearing yourself thin, lass. A warrior rests between battles, or he breaks. A lady too.” He pulled the cloth aside, showing bannocks still warm, drizzled with honey. “Sit. Share them with me.”
Caution pricked her, but curiosity tugged harder. She lowered herself to the far end of the log. The bannock was warm against her fingers, the sweetness rich on her tongue, though her gaze never strayed from him.
For a while they ate in silence. Sorcha tilted her face toward the moon, letting its pale light rest on her features.
The night hummed soft with the forest—the rustle of leaves stirred by the wind, the low hoot of an owl, the crackle of the small fire between them.
For the first time in many days, she felt a breath of stillness, as though the dark itself had drawn a cloak round them.
At last, Calum spoke, his voice low, as though wary of breaking the stillness.
“When I was a lad, I thought myself half an orphan. My mother died the day I was born, and my father—aye, he grieved her, but duty left him little time for aught else. Duty was all he could give me, and I took it as best I could. But it was John who taught me to tie a proper knot, who showed me how to mend a horse’s girth or sharpen a blade.
And Marion… she was soft-spoken, but she made certain I ate, and listened when I raged against my lessons.
She was near a mother to me when mine was gone. ”
His hand tightened around the horn cup he held, eyes shadowed.
"Liam—he was more than companion. He was brother in all but blood. We trained together, bled together. I thought there was nothing between us that could be broken.” He swallowed, voice roughening.
“That’s why his betrayal cuts deepest. Because I ken what I lost.”
Sorcha sat still, letting his words sink into the hush between them. As much as she wished to shut him out, still she listened.
“And Elspeth,” he went on at last, his gaze fixed on the dark line of the trees. “I thought I loved her once. I told myself I did. But it wasna love. It was gratitude. Familiarity. She was always there—watching, waiting. I mistook her constancy for the bond I hungered for.”
He exhaled hard, as though forcing the next words. “I never laid with her. Not once.”
Sorcha’s head turned so sharply her neck twinged. His eyes locked on hers, steady, pleading.
“I told myself it was to guard her virtue, but truth was, my father had warned me plain—that I should stay away. That tying myself to another lass, especially one of my own clan, when I was betrothed to you, would only end in ruin. And he was right. But I was older than you, and I let myself believe it was my right to seek comfort where I wished. I was wrong. Wrong to her. Wrong to you. Wrong to the vows I had yet to make.”
“When Elspeth was executed, I searched my heart for grief, and found none. I was a coward—clinging to what I thought was love, when all along it was naught but rebellion. Rebellion against duty, against the path laid before me. Sorcha… my whole life has been bound in duty. To my father. To this clan. And when we were betrothed, you became that duty too. A burden I told myself had been laid upon me, not a gift placed in my keeping. I resented you for it—resented you though you’d done nothing but exist. I thought you no different than the lairdship itself: heavy, endless, asking everything of me and giving nothing in return.
And so I blinded myself, when I should have seen you as more.
That blindness… that was my greatest failing. ”
Her pulse thudded hard in her ears, anger sparking like flint against stone.
“You think you are the only one bound by duty? You think it hasna defined me, demanded everything of me, and given nothing back? From the day I was born I’ve been weighed, measured—useful only for what I could give my clan, never for who I was.
And then you—” her voice cut sharp, “—you, who should have been my partner, saw me no different. So dinna speak to me of burdens, Calum. I ken well enough what it means to live beneath them.”
For a long moment he did not move, her words hanging between them like steel in the dark. Then, slowly, as though he feared she might flinch, Calum reached across the space and laid his hand lightly upon her arm. His touch was warm, steady—not command, but plea.
“For my blindness… and for every wound it dealt ye, Sorcha… I beg your pardon. I would give aught to take it back, but all I have to offer now is the truth of my regret. For all of it—for every time I failed to see you as more—I am sorry.”
The honesty in his tone left her throat tight, though her face stayed composed.
“I know the silence between us is a wrong I laid upon ye,” he said quietly. “I can only hope that with time, the hurt and anger I’ve caused may lessen.” He paused, then gave the old words weight with his voice.
“Chan eil tuil air nach tig traoghadh.” (There is no flood that will not subside).
Her breath caught. Memory rose sharp as a blade: she was nine again, in her mother’s solar, hunched over a frame of embroidery.
***
“It’s ruined!” she cried, tugging the needle too hard until the golden thread snapped and pulled free in a jagged tear through the fabric. The half-finished embroidery—her attempt at the MacAlasdair crest—lay crumpled in her lap, its pattern unraveling beneath her hands.
“I’ll never be good at this!” she burst out. “Why can’t I be like Tavish and Fergus—out learning to ride and fight—instead of sitting here with this hateful work?”
Tears blurred her sight, shame and temper burning in equal measure.
Her mother knelt beside her, smoothing the ragged linen—her touch steady, not scolding.
“Hush, a chuisle (my pulse)," she said, her voice warm as the sea wind.
“Even the greatest flood will fall back to calm.”
She lifted Sorcha’s chin, guiding her to meet her gaze.
“Do you remember the storm that nearly swallowed the sea wall? Even that gave way to the moon’s pull. Chan eil tuil air nach tig traoghadh. So it is with tempers, so it is with grief. We stitch again. We begin again.”
***
Now, in the moonlit wood, Sorcha drew a slow breath, her mother’s voice lingering in her ears.
“Aye,” she said softly to Calum, steadying herself. “There is no flood that will not subside. But sometimes ye must wait long upon the shore ere the ebb begins.”