Chapter 16
Everything was burning.
Flames reached to the sky like lithe, dancing fingers eager to grab anything in their path and bring it to destruction.
The village had darkened. Ash and soot swallowed the sunlight, and the heat in the air was unbearable. Callum felt as if he had stepped straight into the blacksmith’s kiln.
For a moment, he froze, memories of that terrible nightmare flooding through him, cutting his breath short and bringing his thoughts to a sudden halt.
Next to him, Rhea rushed into the village, her cloak billowing behind her as she reached to unclasp it, uncaring of where it would fall—if it would burn, if she would ever find it again.
Around him, the screams of the villagers cut through the air like blades, piercing his ears. Their stomping echoed in the streets, mixing with the roar of the fire to create a blood-curdling, chilling sound.
This is just like… There is nay time for panic.
He had already wasted enough time standing there.
Rhea had already thrown herself into the thick of it without hesitation, while he had allowed his mind to transport him back to that nightmare where he had lost her.
He snapped himself out of it. He was the Laird.
He was the man these people relied on for help in times like this, and he would not let them down.
The acrid smoke burned his lungs as he rushed into the village, barking orders. The villagers were eager, fearless, but also disorganized, all of them running around with buckets of water but no real plan.
“Put out that one first!” he shouted, pointing to a house that was ready to collapse and spread the fire to the one next to it. “Daenae let it spread!”
The villagers heard him, gathering around the house to put out the fire as fast as they could.
Callum stayed with them as he barked more orders, tossing bucket after bucket of water onto the house in a desperate attempt to rescue what little was left of it.
In the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but think of all the damage they would have to fix—all the buildings that had to be rebuilt, all the food stores that had been ruined.
How would he manage to feed them all? Their reserves were being bled dry after the last attack, and he feared that whatever they managed to gather that summer would not be enough to sustain them through winter.
His only option was to turn to their allies for help, especially Rhea’s family. Her father owed him now, more than he could ever pay back, not within his lifetime. Grain would be a small price to pay for all the men Callum had lost in the war.
“Start a line!” he called as the fire consuming that house started to die down. “Women and bairns! Start a line and carry the water down here! And there!”
The women rushed to get the children into straight lines, and he made sure every line led to an active fire. But even as he moved around, giving orders, he carried bucket after bucket of water to help put out the fire.
Sweat dripped down his forehead, falling into his eyes, and trickled down his back, sticking his shirt to his skin.
His eyes and throat and lungs burned from the smoke and heat, forcing him to cough again and again, his ribs rattling with the force of it.
Still, he pushed through, ignoring every pain, every discomfort for the sake of putting out the fire until the village was safe.
Hours passed before the last of the fire was extinguished, and by then, everyone in the village was exhausted.
Callum watched the villagers, especially the elderly, drag themselves on weary feet to the village square, now burned to coal, nothing but the stones on the ground remaining to remind them that it had once been a place of gathering.
The buildings around it had all but crumbled.
The villagers were pale, their eyes red and watery, their skin covered in ash and soot, as if they had just come out of war.
And in a way, they had.
Callum cursed under his breath. This was all his fault, but what was there to do?
He couldn’t let Sienna marry that vile man, especially now that he had shown his true colors.
If Laird Barclay was willing to burn down a village, there was no telling what else he would do.
There was no telling how he would treat his sister.
Violent men were rarely violent toward specific people, after all. And Laird Barclay was nothing if not violent.
Callum’s gaze fell on Rhea in the crowd. Her pale blue dress was stained black, her hair a tangle around her face. In her arms, she was holding a little boy no more than a few years old, cradling his sooty face and hushing him gently.
There was blood on her, thick and dark. Her dress had been ripped in places. Strips of it had been torn off, as if to make makeshift tourniquets.
She didn’t seem to be injured, and yet the sight of her like this nauseated him. Bile rose in the back of his throat, his heart threatening to leap right out of his chest and cease to beat at his feet.
There was something so jarring about seeing her like this, something so overwhelmingly wrong about someone so innocent covered in other people’s blood.
Memories of war flashed through his mind as he stood there motionless. There had been so many people like her, so many soldiers who had been little more than boys. They had trained and trained for years, and yet they had never seen battle, not until he dragged them into it.
The duty of a good laird was to be willing and ready to make sacrifices. Those young men had been the reason why Clan McMahon and Clan McAllister survived. He had to make horrible decisions for the greater good. He had to become a monster himself to defeat the monsters.
And yet the sacrifice still weighed heavily on him. The war was his fault. The men’s deaths were his fault. And now, this… this was his fault, too.
I should never have brought her here.
Someone was talking. Callum was only half-listening, lost in his thoughts. There was mention of an accident and an attack. No one seemed to know precisely what had happened, but he didn’t need to speculate. He knew for certain that Laird Barclay was behind all this.
I should kill him. I should go after him and have his head.
The longer he stared at Rhea, the more this idea solidified in his mind.
Laird Barclay was to blame for all the blood, for all the pain she now carried after trying to help their people.
He was the one to blame for the loss of her innocence.
He was the one to blame for all the pressure she had endured when he had tried to marry Sienna and take over the clan.
Had it not been for Laird Barclay, Rhea and Sienna would have been safe. His people would have been safe. The villages would still be standing, and the grain stores would be full.
But I promised her. How can I leave when I promised her?
Rhea’s eyes seemed to bore into him even across the distance. He had the sense that she knew what he was thinking, that she was judging him for it.
How could he leave for another war when she was looking at him like that? How could he leave her again when he had promised to be there?
No, it was impossible. He would have to find a different way to deal with Laird Barclay, one that wouldn’t require him leaving and starting another war.
But the people… What will happen to the people?
Laird Barclay wouldn’t stop attacking them, not until he either got what he wanted or he was defeated. This was only the beginning of his plan; Callum was certain of it. And the more he attacked, the more his people would suffer.
Callum could already see it in his mind: villages and towns burning, people losing their homes, their possessions, their lives. Laird Barclay would raze the land until there was nothing left of it.
What does this make me if nae a monster?
To let his people suffer, to let so many die because of one woman, because he had promised Rhea that he wasn’t going anywhere and that he wouldn’t start another war just so he wouldn’t put his own life in danger—it was unthinkable.
Rhea was his weakness. She had quickly wormed her way into his life and his heart, and no matter how much he tried to ignore his feelings, he couldn’t control himself around her.
A weakness…
I shouldnae think of her like this. This isnae her fault. It never was.
It made him feel even more monstrous, thinking of her as a weakness. He could hardly bear it, and yet he found himself torn between seeing Rhea as his strength and as his weakness, between leaving and staying, between choosing peace and war.
What peace? There will be nay peace, nae until Laird Barclay is dead.
“Callum.”
Rhea’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He hadn’t even realized she had crossed the distance between them to stand by his side.
Up close, she looked in an even worse shape than he had initially thought. There was blood all over her, even in her hair, though she seemed unharmed. And her voice when she called his name had been rough, strangled by the heat and smoke.
“I’ve been callin’ yer name all this time,” she said when he turned to face her. “Did ye nae hear me?”
He hesitated for a moment. “Nay… nay, I didnae hear ye.”
The strange look she gave him was like a spear to the heart. He was lying to her—by omission, sure, but that was still lying.
She didn’t ask him if there was something wrong, but he knew that it was only because she didn’t want to push him. She surely itched to know, but he couldn’t tell her.
“I said ye should say somethin’ to them,” she repeated, tilting her head toward the people who had gathered in the village square.
Callum glanced at them out of the corner of his eye to see that they had organized themselves, making sure that the wounded were tended to, though there was only so much they could do on their own.
“They’d want to hear from ye,” Rhea added.
Callum wanted to ask what there was for him to say. Any reassurance would be a lie if he refused to go after Laird Barclay. He could give them empty promises, but what good would that do other than calm them for a short while?
What if they hear me promises and think they’re safe? They must be prepared at all times.
Callum cleared his throat loudly and took a step forward, drawing the villagers’ attention.
“I willnae tell ye that it’s all over,” he began, and they all fell silent.
“I willnae tell ye there willnae be another attack, because I cannae be sure of that. I cannae promise ye that. But what I can promise ye is that ye’ll never be left to fend off an attack alone.
From now on, men will be stationed in every village and every town. As many as we can spare.”
It was the least he could do, even if it meant that the castle would lose some of its defenses. A sacrifice like this was necessary if he was to avoid war.
Whispers spread around the square, and he could only catch a few of them. Not everyone was reassured by his words. Not everyone felt safe.
And how could they, when he was so unwilling to fight for them?
“We’ll bring ye grain, too,” he added. “And me men will help ye rebuild the houses. I will come here meself every week to ensure that the work goes well.”
The villagers seemed to be more relieved at that, and that gave him some comfort. While they were too busy talking among themselves, he slipped back and away, into the shadows, where no one would bother him.
He wanted to leave that place. He needed to leave. The longer he stayed there, the more his self-loathing threatened to swallow him whole and drag him into the depths of despair.
But he couldn’t allow that to happen. He was the Laird. He was the one who had to remain strong, even as everything around him crumbled.
Damn ye, Barclay. I willnae let this slide. Even if I cannae go after ye, I will make sure ye cannae hurt anyone else ever again.