Chapter Fifty-Three
C allum takes me up a narrow stairway to the top of the castle’s curtain wall.
He walks to the edge, and rests his forearms on the stone wall. I stand beside him, and his body heat stops me from feeling the early morning chill. Mist whispers across the loch far below, and thick clouds hide the peaks of the mountains. The evergreens to the left rustle in the breeze, their pine needles black in the low light. For a moment, we are silent—drinking in the peace. I wonder if, like me, he wonders how long it will last.
“My father took James and me up here on the first night we arrived at Madadh-allaidh,” he says, his voice rough. “That way is the enemy, he told us.” He gestures south, over the forest. “And that way is home.” He inclines his head toward the mountains in the north.
“Highfell.”
“Aye.” He smiles softly. “I have thought a thousand times of what would have happened if I’d not stopped in that spot, by the loch, on our way there—if I’d not left you alone that morning. I should have held onto you tightly, ridden with you until you were safe in my castle, never let you go. It’s the most foolish thing I have ever done, and yet, that night, with you, in the tent when you called me handsome—”
“I called you beautiful.”
He grins, eyes shining. “It was the best night of my life.”
My throat tightens. His face, full of emotion... it’s like looking at the sun. I have to look away. “It was for me, too, Callum.” I shake my head. “This bond, you speak of it as if there is no choice... as if I have no choice. There is always a choice.”
“You still believe that?”
“You still do not?”
He shrugs a big shoulder. “You cannot choose if you are not free. You are tethered to him, whether we like it or not. The Anam-Cridech is unbreakable, created by Ghealach herself. I don’t understand it, but for whatever reason, she has decided you and Blake are—”
“Don’t,” I say. “You’re wrong. It’s my choice. I’m going to break the bond. If the moon’s power created it, then the moon’s power can destroy it, too.”
“I have prayed to her every night. I prayed for her to give you to me. She has not answered.”
“My heart, my body, my soul—I’m the only one who gets to decide who to give them to.”
Sadness flickers across his face as he turns toward the mountains. He makes a noncommittal sound, as if he doesn’t believe me.
I exhale. “The Heart of the Moon might be able to break the bond.”
“If we knew where it was. But it has been lost for many centuries, Princess.”
“Lochlan thinks my mother had it at some point.”
“I heard.” He shrugs.
“You thought it was in the Borderlands on the night we met.”
“Aye. I did. I came up here the night before I rode south. There was barely a cloud in the sky, and Ghealach shone brightly over the Borderlands. I thought it was a sign. Perhaps it was. Perhaps she led me to you.” He runs a hand over his mouth. “You really want to look for it?”
“I do.”
I half expect him to change his mind, to tell me I cannot go. “Okay.”
“You’re going to let me?”
“It’s not safe for you here. Not anymore. Alexander wants you, and I don’t yet have control of all the Wolves in my kingdom. I won’t make the mistake of trusting too easily again. Alexander’s men are getting ready to march upon Madadh-allaidh, and when the fighting begins, I cannot trust that no one will betray me.” He drags his teeth over his bottom lip. “But I cannot let you travel alone. It’s not safe.”
A long breath plumes in front of my face. “You want me to go with Philip, don’t you?”
“I had a conversation with him yesterday. He’s annoying, but I could sense no ill feeling from him. He’s your brother. He will keep you safe when I cannot. I’m going to tell him to go back to his queen in the Snowlands, and to bring her back here.” I snap my head toward him, gritting my teeth to stop the pain that shatters through me from escaping. He gives me a sad smile. “Not to marry her. To ask her to fight with us. I don’t know what to believe when it comes to the God of Night. I feel we will need a bigger army soon enough. You said you wished to go to Glas-Cladach—their port is the closest to the Snowlands. He can accompany you there, and I recommend you go with him to your homeland.”
“Okay.”
His eyebrows raise, as if he had not expected me to agree. “I thought I would have a fight on my hands.”
“I am fighting. Even if you are not.”
“I always knew you had fire in your soul.”
“I thought you were wrong when you said that about me. Perhaps... perhaps you were not.” I peer up at him. “What are you going to do about Blake?”
Callum’s big shoulders soften. “I’ll let him go, eventually. He’s no threat to me while you’re away, and I cannot risk him getting harmed when your lives are linked. Ghealach knows, he has as many enemies here as I do. I just want to make sure you’re out of the kingdom before he’s free.” He grips his hands together, knuckles whitening. “He’ll come after you, you know.”
“Yes,” I breathe. “I know.”
“Perhaps it would not be so bad, if he found you.”
Hurt surges through me. “Why do you say that?”
He shrugs. “He won’t harm you. Of that, I’m certain. There must be a reason for all of this. I had thought, at first, that Ghealach had created the bond because she wished him to be king, and wanted you both to bring the kingdoms together. But I cannot make peace with the idea that my goddess would want a southlander on the throne. There must be another reason.” He shakes his head. “I despise the male, but I believe there is goodness in him, buried deep.”
I believed that once. Now, I see shreds of it at times. But I had told Callum once that Blake may not be as bad as we thought and he had told me I was wrong. “What changed your mind?”
“The wee lad at Lowfell. Alfie. I realized why I recognized him.”
I realize I never told him Alfie is Magnus’s son.
“It’s how we knew where James had taken you,” says Callum. “Blake got a message to Madadh-allaidh, and Magnus replied. I’m sure Blake would have us believe he took the lad, and his mother, as hostages to control Magnus. But the wee lad was a menace—free to roam the castle, happy, healthy, undisciplined.” He shakes his head. “No. I think he gave them refuge in his castle because he knows Magnus is an abusive piece of shit. I think Blake knows, as I do, that not all men are fit to be fathers.”
“That doesn’t make him a good man.”
“No. But it gives me hope that he could be, under the right circumstance.”
He sighs and his breath plumes in front of his face. The mist is clearing from the loch to expose the silver water beneath. I pick at a loose stone in the wall as I shake my head. “Things don’t have to change.”
“Things have changed, whether we wish it or not.” His voice is rough. Quiet. The backs of my eyes burn because I know he’s right. “I’ll never forget the first time I set eyes on you at the dog fight. The way you held my gaze. Stubborn. Filled with fire. Beautiful.”
I turn my gaze to the sky. “I will come back to you, Callum. This is not goodbye.”
“And I will wait for you. Always.” His voice is strained. He straightens and steps back, and I know everything is about to end. I’m not ready. How can I be ready?
“Will you hold me?” My voice is quiet. Unsure.
He takes a deep breath. There is an endless chasm between us, and I think he will walk away. His heat surrounds me as he steps behind me. He wraps his arms around me, pulling my back to his chest, and placing his chin on my head. “Aye.”
I cocoon myself in his solidity, his safety. I try to suppress it, but a hot tear slips down my cheek. He sniffs behind me, his heartbeat thudding against my back.
Together, wrapped in each other’s arms, we watch the sky over the mountains.