Chapter 32
The great hall of Castle Tioram was packed with MacDonalds, all gathered for the evening’s entertainment.
Lime-mortared stone walls glowed with torchlight, and the hearth blazed with a roaring fire.
Tables were laden with food—lampreys, fruits, game, marzipan—and the finest selections of French claret.
Birdy and Léo sat beside him, a contented look on Leo’s face as he sipped the dark red vintage, murmuring softly in French. Calum tried to catch the words, but only picked up fragments.
“Enjoying it?” he asked.
Léo nodded, taking another sip. “Thinking of home.”
Calum’s chest tightened as he searched the hall for Freya.
His heart thudded with anticipation, nerves drawn taut.
Every moment until she began felt stretched to breaking, charged with the certainty that her words would move the people and breathe life into their resistance.
His gaze swept the chamber, taking in the others scattered across the room in their finest attire, careful not to draw suspicion as they waited for the evening’s festivities to begin.
At the far end, he spotted Cota Liath speaking quietly with Laird Tioram.
Calum gave a discreet nod, and the minstrel returned it with their signal.
Freya was in place—poised for her next performance.
Across the hall, Iain and Eoghan sat together, talking to two pretty maids.
David stood toward the far end with a group of Highlanders, drawn taut as he had been the night at Findlugan.
Murdoch settled among the musicians, flute in hand.
Cota Liath nodded to the king, then moved toward the musicians, acknowledging his retinues scattered throughout the room.
They were ready. Calum signed to Murdoch.
A low, droning note warbled from the flute, silencing conversation as it drifted across the hall.
In tandem with the drum, torches were extinguished in a rhythmic trail along the walls.
An excited frisson shivered through the crowd.
The flute’s haunting whistle curved and twisted, weaving a mesmerizing reel across the hall.
Darkness swallowed the space, save for the fire blazing at one end behind the Laird’s high seat.
In the darkness, Calum could just make out a shadow of movement and knew Freya had taken her place. Before her, Cota Liath touched flame to the brazier, and a sudden blaze leapt to life in the center of the hall. The dark wool that cloaked her arched elegantly, then parted and fell to the floor.
The crowd’s breath made an audible catch, captivated by her.
Calum had seen her before, made up with the fierceness of a Valkyrie, but tonight she seemed crafted from lacy breaths of frost. The brazier’s light caressed her velvety skin and glimmered against the white silk of her gown.
From beneath a silver-gilt mask, her eyes sparkled, catching the firelight like fresh snow.
Calum’s chest tightened, a fierce thrum of pride and longing rattling through him. Every detail—her skin, the pearls, the faint warmth of her lips, the sway of her hair glowing in the firelight—seared into his memory.
The delicate notes of Cota Liath’s citole1 plucked in harmony with the flute.
Freya began a gliding stride, hovering through the room, spinning with a graceful, fluid dance.
None of the frenzy of Findlugan lingered in her movements.
Instead, she seemed forged of softness and peace, a vision of beauty amid a harsh and unforgiving world—swirling like a snowflake upon the wind.
She paused, then took a breath, her voice lilting across the hall, echoing back from the far side.
Léo straightened, leaning forward, signing to Birdy. Cara… I cannot see where.
Calum’s heart thrummed, caught by the lilting harmony as Freya sang and Cara mirrored each note, as if Freya’s voice had been disembodied, cast down the hall, and returned to her in perfect accord.
The men and women looked around, enchanted by the trick of voices.
She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them, letting her gaze roam the room as she began her song.
“Soft falls the frozen winter night
Howling wind, the hoarfrost bite
Within his eye reflected light
The wolfhound stalks in moonrise...”
The refrain echoed back to her. A chill frosted over his arms as understanding began to dawn on him.
She moved closer, circling the brazier. Behind the laird’s seat the fire threw a wolfhound’s shadow across the walls, weaving with branches and moonlight.
Recognition pricked sharp within him—this was no mere story, but a mirror of himself, of the mark he bore and the life bound to it.
An ache stirred in his chest as the crowd murmured with delight, blind to the private truth unraveling before him.
“Into the wild, he shakes the ground
His thrumming heart the only sound
Strong in command and honor bound
Swift the coursing hunter flies…”
The wolfhound’s shadow leapt high, arcing over hill and valley—then vanished.
In its place loomed a wolf, fangs bared, claws outstretched, prowling toward a village.
The audience leaned forward as the song quickened, drum rattling in a flurry of triplets, pipes shrieking with the sound of pursuit.
Then the wolfhound returned, rising on the horizon—alert and ready to defend.
A memory flashed through Calum of the attack, now writ large in shadow.
And in that moment he grasped the tender, fierce intent woven into her words.
“Senses sharpened he scents his prey
Charging fearless into the fray
A righteous heart his fine array
His beloved to defend...”
His beloved to defend. The refrain echoed through him, awe rising at the beauty of her words as shadows leapt across the walls.
She caught his eye, a smile touching her bonnie lips.
On the stone behind her, the Wolfhound appeared, shielding the village, clashing with the prowling Wolf.
They fought savagely until the Wolfhound struck its foe down.
Slowly, the Wolf’s shadow withered and faded into darkness, leaving the hound alone on the hill—proud, vigilant, a silent sentinel in the glow of the firelight.
“Crashing down the wolf defeated
Justice from his fangs is meted
Place of honor the Wolfhound seated
Legend whispered on the wind.”
Stunned, Calum gripped the table, chest bursting with love, feeling as if he had just been enshrined in the halls of legend.
Even if he never regained his clan, to Freya he would always be chieftain—and that was all he would ever need.
She was the one he had loved since first holding her, the one he thought of each night before sleep.
His treasure. The fairest woman to walk the Isles.
With her words she could stir kingdoms, with her voice she could call him back from death, with her kiss she could calm the tempests in his soul.
The crowd burst into applause, and she nodded, offering the Juran salute. Laird Tioram rose, weaving through the crowd to settle beside Hector.
He was whispering something, gesturing to Freya, his face creased with inquisition. Calum leaned toward Birdy.
“What is he saying?”
Birdy’s brows drew together as she read his lips, a flicker of worry crossing her face. He is asking Hector where John Mór has found her.
Calum’s eyes kept drifting to Freya as she introduced herself to the audience, her voice smooth but her hands slightly trembling.
A subtle tension in her shoulders, the tight line of her jaw—something was off.
He noticed the faint pallor to her cheeks, a hint of sweat along her temple, the way her eyes darted to Hector.
Laird Tioram is saying she is the exact image of someone he knows. Birdy signed quietly, concern etched in every gesture.
Straightening, Calum motioned to Angus across the room. Angus’s eyes followed Laird Tioram and then Freya, as he skirted along the edge of the wall, ready to intervene.
Birdy’s face softened slightly. It’s all right. He’s mistaken her for someone else—someone from the MacRuari clan.
Downy flakes pranced upon the night breeze, turning slow revolutions through the air before clinging to Freya’s dark lashes as they made their way back to Moor Leathann cottage.
His ink-stained fingers wrapped around her delicate warmth, the touch sending a quiet heat through his body that no winter’s chill could dim.
She had been magnificent. In that great hall, she had held the mighty MacDonald clan in the palm of her hand.
She had read the room as only she could—choosing not fire or fury, but gentleness, supplication, a weaving of beauty that left even hardened men spellbound.
The evening had been a tapestry of song, tale, and dance…
until the end, when her voice lifted in the ballad of Bonnie Morven.
By the trick of echoed voice she had cast it as flawlessly as she had the tale of the Wolfhound.
And now she walked at his side, this fae-born creature of the crystalline north, snow and starlight clinging to her as though she belonged to them.
Something else clung to her still, like the snowflakes that swirled in the night air, and he wished with all his heart he had been born as deft of thought as Angus, or as deft of tongue as Léo, so he could determine what it was that weighed on her.
“It is a relief to be away from home tonight,” he said softly. “To walk with you without worrying who might be watching.”
At that, she paled, though he could not fathom why.
“Aye,” she murmured, eyes lowered.
Silence closed around them again, and he tried once more. “I’ve never had you all to myself.”
At this she looked up, uncertain. “You have me to yourself each night.”
He shook his head. “Not in courtship like this. When I first went to Mull, I would think of what might have been, had you sailed away with me. I would imagine you at my side, your hand in mine… your heart learning to belong to me.”