Chapter Fourteen Vows Carved in Thorns #2
Gavin’s gaze stayed on Caelan. “You got them out.”
“Aye,” Caelan said. “But not without cost.”
Morna felt her stomach twist as Fergus’s face rose in her mind. The innocent prisoner. The accusation. The beating. The man’s eyes, pleading.
Caelan’s voice roughened. “There was a man,” he said, and Morna saw his throat tighten. “Fergus. He paid the price for our escape.”
Gavin’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”
Caelan swallowed. “The diversion required someone to take blame. I named him. I chose him.”
A sharp intake of breath echoed through the hall. Someone muttered a curse.
Gavin’s expression went still, dangerous. “You sacrificed one of your own.”
Caelan lifted his gaze, and Morna saw the rawness there, a wound that would not close. “Aye.”
The word landed like a stone.
Morna’s fingers tightened around her cup so hard the rim bit her skin. She wanted to speak, to explain the impossible calculus of survival, but she knew how it sounded to men who had not stood inside those fences.
Anya’s voice cut through, calm, precise. “What happened after.”
Caelan exhaled, grateful for the return to structure. He described the fire, the chaos, the scramble through fences. He described Valerius’s response, the horn signals, the hounds. He described the pursuit into the forest and how they reached Liam’s patrol.
He did not describe the moment he tried to sacrifice himself again. He did not describe Morna grabbing his hand and refusing. He kept that private.
Morna understood. It was not a detail for strategy. It was for the soul.
When Caelan finished, the hall sat in heavy silence.
Gavin leaned forward, voice lower now. “You have given us what we need. Location, numbers, habits. This camp will not stand.”
A cheer rose, subdued but fierce, then died as Gavin raised a hand.
“But we do not rush into a trap,” Gavin continued. “Roderic wants us desperate. Valerius wants his bonus. We will plan, and we will strike where it hurts most.”
Anya nodded. “We warn the allied clans. If Roderic is building a network of camps, we need to know.”
Liam’s gaze hardened. “And we find the convoy men who did not come home.”
A murmur of agreement spread.
Gavin looked to Elara. Her mother held her hand now, knuckles white. “You will rest,” Gavin told her. “You will be seen by our healer.”
Elara’s chin lifted. “Morna is a healer.”
Gavin’s gaze shifted to Morna again, measuring. “Then she will speak with our healer. If she wishes.”
Morna nodded once. She did not trust her voice.
Gavin’s gaze moved to Ewan. “You stayed with Caelan.”
Ewan straightened, trying to look older than he was. “Aye, my laird.”
Gavin’s voice softened by a fraction. “You did well.”
Ewan blinked hard, then nodded.
Gavin’s gaze finally landed on Ivor, and Morna felt the temperature drop.
“And you,” Gavin said. “Who are you.”
Ivor spread his hands. “I am a man who does not enjoy cages. I helped them escape. You may thank me with a bed and a meal.”
Liam’s hand tightened on his sword hilt.
Gavin’s expression did not change. “You will be given a room with a lock on the outside.”
Ivor’s grin flashed. “Generous.”
“And you will be questioned later,” Gavin continued. “About how you ended up in Blackwood. About what you know of Roderic’s men. About any other camps.”
Ivor lifted his cup. “Ask away. I enjoy conversation.”
Gavin turned away as if Ivor had become irrelevant. “Enough. All of you will be washed, fed, and put to bed. We meet again after you have slept.”
The hall began to move, servants and guards guiding them.
Morna expected Caelan to walk with Gavin, to be pulled back into duty at once, but Gavin stepped toward Caelan and lowered his voice.
“You are not a prisoner here,” Gavin said. “Do not act like one.”
Caelan’s jaw tightened. “I am not certain what I am.”
Gavin’s gaze sharpened. “You are mine. My quartermaster. My friend. You will remember that.”
Caelan’s throat worked. He nodded once.
Morna felt an unexpected sting behind her eyes. Gavin’s words were blunt, almost harsh, but they were a lifeline. A reminder that Caelan belonged somewhere.
Anya approached Morna, stopping a careful distance away. “You are Morna.”
Morna nodded.
Anya’s gaze was steady. “You kept them alive.”
Morna’s shoulders tensed. Praise felt like debt.
“I did what I could,” she said.
Anya’s mouth softened slightly. “That is all anyone can do. If you stay for a time, we will find a place for you.”
Morna hesitated. Stay. The word felt heavy. She had always belonged to herself, to her herbs, to the quiet life of competence. Now she stood in a hall that smelled of power and war, with a man beside her whose hand she still wanted to hold.
“I do not know what I intend,” Morna admitted.
Anya’s gaze flicked to Caelan, then back. “Then rest first. Decide later.”
They were taken to the infirmary first, not to beds. Mairead, the keep’s healer, met them at the threshold, eyes sharp with concern. She directed Elara to a pallet, sent Ewan to wash, and made Morna sit as if Morna were the one limping.
Morna tried to refuse. Mairead ignored her.
“Hands,” Mairead ordered.
Morna held them out. Her fingers were raw, nails broken. Mairead applied salve that smelled of comfrey and honey, her touch firm, practiced.
Morna blinked hard. Being cared for felt strange. She had always been the one doing the mending.
When Mairead moved on, Morna found herself standing anyway, drawn by familiar urgency. She crossed to a man with a shoulder wound that had been poorly bound. She recognized the smell of infection before she even saw the red streaks.
“Sit,” she told him.
He stared at her with the blank obedience of someone who had been ordered too often.
Morna took a clean cloth from Mairead’s basket without asking and began to rewrap the wound, speaking softly so her voice could be a rope pulling him back to himself. She named what she was doing. She named what he would feel. She gave him certainty.
As she worked, Elara appeared beside her, quiet as a shadow.
“Can I help,” Elara asked.
Morna looked at the girl’s face, too pale, eyes too old. “Aye,” Morna said. “Hold this.”
Elara held the bandage steady with careful hands. She did not tremble.
“You should be with your mother,” Morna said gently.
Elara’s mouth tightened. “She is crying. I cannot breathe when she cries.”
Morna understood. Grief filled rooms and stole air.
“Then breathe here,” Morna said.
Elara’s eyes flicked toward Caelan across the infirmary. He sat on a bench while Mairead checked his ribs, posture stiff, gaze far away.
“He looks… empty,” Elara whispered.
Morna’s chest tightened. “He is not empty,” she said. “He is full of things he does not know where to put.”
Elara swallowed. “Did he… do bad things.”
Morna paused with the bandage in her hands.
“He did terrible things,” Morna said honestly. “He did them to keep us alive.”
Elara’s eyes shone. “My father says a man should never break his honor.”
Morna finished tying the knot. “Your father has never been inside those fences,” she said, not unkindly. “Honor is easy when you are warm.”
Elara flinched as if ashamed, then lifted her chin again. “I still want him to be good.”
Morna met her gaze. “So does he.”
Elara looked down at her hands. “Will Gavin punish him.”
Morna’s voice stayed steady. “Gavin will not punish him for surviving. But Caelan will punish himself if we let him.”
Elara’s throat bobbed. “Then do not let him.”
Morna’s heart clenched. “I will try.”
Elara nodded once. Then she slipped away to help Mairead with herbs, giving herself a task because tasks were safer than thinking.
When Morna finally left the infirmary, it was with salve under her nails and a strange sense of belonging in her chest. Not peace, but purpose.
Caelan waited in the corridor outside, as if he had not trusted the walls to hold without him watching.
“You should rest,” he murmured.
“So should you,” Morna replied.
His mouth tightened. “I do not sleep well.”
Morna studied him. “Then you will not sleep alone.”
His gaze snapped to hers, startled by the simplicity of it. For a moment he looked like the man he had been before this war, before Blackwood, before choices that tore holes in him.
Then the darkness returned.
“I do not deserve you,” he said quietly.
Morna stepped closer. “I am not a prize you earn,” she said. “I am a woman who chooses.”
His throat worked.
A guard approached then, bowing his head to Caelan. “The laird requests you,” he said, tone careful. “In his solar.”
Caelan’s jaw tightened, fear and duty twisting together. “Aye.”
Morna started to follow. The guard glanced at her, uncertain.
Caelan’s hand lifted, and without looking at the guard he said, “She comes.”
The words were not a demand for ownership. They were a request for witness.
Morna understood.
Gavin’s solar smelled of smoke and parchment. A single candle burned. Maps were rolled on a side table. Gavin stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back, staring out at the yard as if he could see Blackwood in the distance.
He turned as they entered.
“Close the door,” Gavin said.
Caelan did. The click of the latch made Morna’s skin prickle. Caelan’s shoulders tightened too, just slightly, as if he expected the lock to turn on him.
Gavin watched that, eyes narrowing with something like regret.
“You reported well,” Gavin said to Caelan.
Caelan’s mouth tightened. “It is what I am good at.”
Gavin stepped closer. “And what you are not good at is forgiving yourself.”
Caelan’s gaze dropped. “There is nothing to forgive.”
Gavin’s voice sharpened. “Do not insult me with that. You were taken. You were starved. You were tortured. You were forced into choices none of us should ever face. And you returned with my people alive. That matters.”
Caelan swallowed hard. “Fergus is not alive.”
The name fell like a stone between them.
Gavin’s expression went still. “No,” he said. “He is not.”
Caelan’s voice came raw. “I named him. I watched them take him.”