Chapter Twelve The Last Neutral Heart #2
Ross stepped fully to her side. “Those able to hold a spear or bow and still stand straight after what came, perhaps forty at once. More if the farther tenants are found and believe there is something left to return for.”
MacNair grunted softly. “Forty hungry, half-burned survivors do not make an army.”
“No,” Ross said. “They make men who know the land and have buried their own.”
That quieted him.
Kenan had not spoken once.
Eilidh felt his silence more sharply with each passing moment. He was listening not only as War Chief, but as the man who had feared she would vanish into grief and now watched her walk out of it with steel in her spine.
She put both palms on the edge of the table.
“I do not offer this with idealistic hope. I offer it with clear eyes. If Jardine survives, it will survive in the teeth of this war, not outside it. If my people are to live as more than scattered mouths at another clan’s mercy, then what remains of our strength must be spent where it has a chance to matter. ”
Gavin’s expression had gone very still.
“My lady,” he said.
She shook her head. A tiny motion. Enough.
His face changed at once.
Then Gavin said, “Eilidh Jardine, on behalf of Kincaid and the alliance, I accept the commitment of your people and your hand in this war. What remains of Jardine will not be treated as charity under our roof, but as allies.”
The formal words should have sounded cold.
Instead they struck her with terrible force.
Allies. Not refugees. Not remnants to be tucked aside and pitied.
Ross bowed his head once. She did not, because if she moved too much the grief beneath her resolve might tear through.
Then, at last, Kenan spoke.
“We will need the birch shelf marked in full,” he said, his voice even. “The old quarry cut too. If Roderic used a guide once, he will try again somewhere else.”
The war chief’s answer. Practical. Immediate.
And yet when she looked at him, she saw the deeper thing beneath it. Respect.
“I will mark them,” she said.
Their eyes held for one heartbeat more than safety advised.
Then Donal cleared his throat, dry as old paper. “Well. Since all our remaining illusions have now either burned or enlisted, perhaps we might continue with the war.”
A strained breath of laughter moved around the table. Even MacNair’s mouth twitched.
The council turned practical at once. Maps were drawn out.
Questions sharpened. Ross and Eilidh marked hill routes together.
Caelan asked where the birch shelf narrowed enough for two riders to hold against six.
Kenan asked about the lower drifts after hard rain and which paths could bear wagons in sleet.
Baird muttered over stores and nearly wept with gratitude when Ross confirmed one of the hidden oat caches had likely survived.
MacNair, seeing where all this now led, began asking less whether Jardine could be trusted and more how quickly its survivors might be armed.
The room had changed.
So had she.
By the time the council finally broke, the sun had slid lower and the hall’s torches had been lit.
Ross leaned more heavily on the table than he wished anyone to notice, but his eyes were brighter than they had been that morning.
Gavin gave orders for fresh scouts. Baird clutched his notes like treasure.
Donal, passing Eilidh on his way out, said quietly, “Your father would have recognized the steel in that.”
The words nearly undid her.
She could not answer. Donal seemed to understand. He only inclined his head and went on.
Soon only she, Ross, Kenan, and Gavin remained.
Gavin looked between the three of them and said with weary bluntness, “Ross, if you remain upright another half hour, Morna will have my hide for allowing it.”
Ross bristled on instinct. “I am not a child.”
“No,” Gavin said. “Children are easier to manage. Go.”
That earned the smallest real smile from Eilidh, and Ross obeyed with more grace than he would have shown anyone else. He paused near Kenan as he passed.
“You brought me back,” Ross said.
Kenan met his gaze. “Aye.”
Ross nodded once. “Then I remember that before I remember anything else.”
It was not gratitude. Not fully. But it was close enough to matter.
When Ross had gone, Gavin gathered two parchments and left them on the table. “Do not make me regret giving both of you sharp corners and no supervision,” he said.
Then he, too, was gone.
The hall had emptied by the time Eilidh and Kenan stood alone at the long table.
The fire had burned lower. The light from the torches wavered softly against stone. Outside, dusk had deepened, turning the narrow windows into black mirrors. For a little while neither spoke.
Eilidh rested her fingertips on the table’s edge because otherwise she might not trust them to stay still.
Kenan had not moved from his place at her right. He seemed in no hurry, yet she could feel a held patience in him, as if he would wait in silence until she chose what shape this moment should take.
She was tired of silence deciding for her.
“I did not thank you,” she said.
His gaze lifted to hers at once. “For what?”
“For bringing Ross back.”
Something changed in his face. “You had other things to do.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No,” he agreed. “It is not.”
Eilidh looked down at the map. “Then hear the proper one. Thank you.”
The words came plain. No ornament. They mattered too much for that.
Kenan’s hand shifted on the table. “I went because he mattered to you.”
She met his eyes then. “Aye. I know.”
The room seemed to narrow around that knowledge.
“I was angry with you,” she said. “More than angry. I wanted grief to have somewhere to strike, and you were nearest.”
“I know.”
This time the words did not wound. This time they steadied.
“And I was unfair.”
A shadow of old weariness crossed his expression. “At times.”
That drew the smallest sound from her, almost a laugh.
Eilidh let the fragile moment settle before going on. “I do not know if what lies between us returns easily from this.”
He shook his head once. “It does not.”
“Good.” She drew a breath. “I would not trust easy things now.”
Something in his gaze warmed at that. “Nor would I.”
She looked past him toward the dark window. “What I said in the corridor remains true.”
“That you wanted one thing to be my fault.”