Chapter 1
Alog popped in the fire and Freya jolted awake. The dream of her father’s grip still clung to her, leaving her sick with the memory. Panting with fear, and then relief, she wiped sweat from her brow and drew in the stuffy air of the longhouse.
The churning tide, her father forcing her beneath the waves, the ache of her lungs desperate for breath, her hands clawing wildly—a terrifying remembrance of the day that had changed everything.
In times of turmoil, whenever her father’s will pressed too hard, the dream returned: the near-escape she had once tasted, tantalizing and cruel.
She slipped beside her father, easing the earthen cup from his limp hand and tossing the last of the milk and henbane into the embers of the hearth. In case the draught failed, she arranged a blanket beneath her bedcovers, shaping it into the likeness of a sleeping figure—an illusion of obedience.
With no time for vanity, she plaited her hair back from her face and stole a half-glance at her reflection before dashing across the longhouse.
Snatching her blue woad cloak from its hook, she swept it over her shoulders, its folds fluttering as she escaped into the only part of her life that felt her own.
The moon rode high as she followed its silver light down the trail through tall grass.
Its beams caught the argent threads of embroidered starbursts and auroras on her cloak, and for a moment she felt enchanted—like the Storyteller who’d always lived in her heart, instead of the cowering girl who had to sneak out to escape her father’s careful control.
Pebbles crunched beneath her feet as she traced the cliff’s edge above the misty sea, staring out over black waves and the memory of that day ten years past. She had been so close to freedom—so close to another life.
She remembered it all—the feel of lean muscle beneath her hands as she tumbled into his arms, the surprise in his eyes as he touched her face, the brush of his ink-darkened thumb across her trembling lips.
Until then, Calum had been only a sympathizer—one who noticed her with pity when no one else seemed to see her at all.
Yet she had always watched him more closely than she would ever confess, trailing after him with the quiet hope he might remember her.
The way he had looked at her, spoken to her that day, had unsettled her, and made her question what he truly was to her, and why it was that she had followed him to the bay.
Her daring defiance of her father had followed her like a shadow longer than she could have dreamed.
When she woke in Calum’s bed the morning after his flight, her father sat stone-faced on the bench opposite.
She cracked an eyelid and saw Mariota giving thanks to Jesus for her waking, while Papa cursed her openly to stop speaking such nonsense.
Disoriented, Freya tried to sit, but Mariota’s warm, motherly hands pressed her gently back into the soft bedding.
Surrounded by the scent of clove from his pillow, urged into rest, she slept five more days out of sheer exhaustion.
When she woke again, to her great relief, Papa was gone.
Mariota hovered above her, holding out a spoonful of steaming broth. “Here. Take this.”
The tender sweetness of Mariota’s voice made Freya ache for her long-dead mother. Tears stung her eyes as she parted her lips and let Mariota feed her. Again she drifted into sleep—and so it went for three more days.
The third time she woke, her world had changed. Papa was under house arrest by Tyr for nearly drowning her in the bay, and the elders had come to question her.
Had her father ever raised a hand against her before?
He had. Once. But how could she speak against her only blood, the only parent she had left? Feeling like a wide-eyed fledgling, helpless and uncertain, she had said nothing.
The elders pressed harder. What, then, had compelled her to chase after Cù Cogaidh?
The truth felt absurd—a sword dance when they were eight. Yet was it not also his oath, his confession, the courage it had taken to speak it? It was the lad she knew. The lad she cared for.
Were they lovers?
No.
Had he taken her to the marsh, as he was known to do with other lasses?
No.
Was she with child? Horrified, she shook her head with all the force she could muster.
No.
Did she love him?
Here she faltered, unsure of the answer herself. What had passed between them in the skiff left her shaken and tongue-tied. Something new had stirred there, but it was not love—at least she didn’t think it was. So she only stared.
Tyr leaned closer, his face intent. “Why did you do it, Freya?”
In a small voice, she peeked her nose above the covers and whispered, “He let me win the sword dance. I owed him my help.”
Mariota pressed a soothing hand to Freya’s forehead, checking for fever, and declared she needed rest. With no further evidence to keep her father under house arrest—and deciding it was all a misunderstanding—the elders released him, on the condition that Freya remain in Mariota’s care for two months to recover.
Papa, his position already precarious, had no choice but to agree.
For the first time in her life, Freya experienced life in a normal household.
She learned to care for a family, did chores the proper way, cooked and hunted, and shared meals with neighbors.
More than that, for the first time, she knew what it was to be loved: to have her favorite dish prepared just for her; to be roused at night to sit beneath the stars and name constellations; to feel her short hair brushed and be dressed in a feminine leine; to sleep until sunrise; to have her talents encouraged; to be kissed goodnight.
When the two months ended and her father demanded her return, she obeyed without complaint—but not without a secret. With Tyr she devised a signal in case she ever found herself in danger—a green stocking hung from a loose stone in her father’s fence.
The boat incident—as she came to think of it—changed life even within her own house.
Under Mariota’s tutelage, she became the Lady of Thane MacSorley’s household, something even Papa could not fault.
The longhouse grew cleaner, and she learned to cook and nourish herself, no longer dependent on the scraps Papa scrounged when he remembered.
Before long her skill surpassed that of the neighbors, and Papa, abandoning his habit of taking supper elsewhere, began staying home.
With her belly now full on a regular basis, she’d finally blossomed in her seventeenth summer.
Her hips rounded, her bust filled, and her frame stretched another two inches in height.
The high angles of her face and too-large features softened into the beginnings of beauty.
And then, she became a woman. No one took more delight in these changes than Papa.
Now able to cook, clean, and bear children, she was at last worth something to him.
A rare gem, he declared, like her mother.
A prize to be bargained, a means to seize the chieftainship he coveted.
So he stopped shearing her hair and dressing her as a lad, and began bringing home suitors.
He had waited ten years for the perfect son-in-law, letting her bride-price rise to its highest value, and his patience had won more than she could have imagined. She was to wed Rory MacDonald, one of the most powerful men in King John of Islay’s court—yet the betrothal sat uneasily with her.
Papa had thundered at her after the match was sealed, unable to understand her disappointment.
“Are you not pleased? Will I not make you the most powerful woman at court? You will wed the head of the King’s guard—his most trusted retinue.
You have the beauty to lord power over him and anyone you choose.
You will make me chieftain, and from there, king. ”
Again the memory of her near escape surged so strongly she staggered to a halt in the harvest night, staring past the trees to the black ocean, feeling as though she were drowning all over again.
Nothing in this world would ever belong to her.
Not even her appearance. The only things that were truly hers were her stories, her words, her voice—and the one night each week when she could be herself.
Through the bowed branches heavy with leaf, she looked upward.
Clouds drifted across the moon, and stars glittered in the dark.
As often happened when she remembered Calum beneath such skies, she suddenly felt him close in her heart.
Did her lad look upon these same stars tonight?
Did he ever remember that she had once helped him?
What would he think if he knew she still did?
A nebulous fog of breath slipped from her lips as she began to whisper the words of a ballad, walking on, clinging to the connection between herself and the kind lad she had once known.
She had pledged to walk beside him in solidarity with the man he was.
Though she had not been able to follow, in some small way she liked to think she had.
Ardlussa Wood was dark and deep. The long stretch of wild between Inverlussa and Lealt tangled with gnarled branches, twisting vine, and bramble.
Mist clung to silvery webs like dragon’s breath exhaled over a floor of moss and liverwort.
A narrow path, scarcely two paces wide, wound through the darkened forest until it opened into a clearing of heath.
She had just passed the lone rowan tree when she heard it—the shuffle of feet, the snap of a twig.
Her heart leapt into her throat. She froze, listening, praying she had not woken her father when she slipped away.
“Heill og sael?”2 The greeting wavered like a question. She licked her dry lips, squinting into the night. Her pulse thundered in her ears as she edged forward, eyes locking on a shadowed figure moving along the forest’s edge. Breath catching, she waited.