Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Alpin stood frozen in the deep shadow of the doorway, his broad frame blocking the pale strip of sunlight from the corridor.
Inside, Grisselle lay pale against the white linen sheets, her chest rising and falling in a slow, fragile rhythm. Her skin was still too muted, her lips lacking their usual quick, defiant color, but the fever had finally broken.
Mòr knelt beside the bed. The old woman’s hands moved with practiced, methodical efficiency, peeling back the edge of the damp cloth over Grisselle’s shoulder to inspect the wound.
Sgàil, the hairless cat, sat glued to Mòr’s heels, his heavy gray chin resting on the floorboards, black eyes tracking every movement.
"The edges are clean," Mòr murmured without turning around, her voice dry like rustling corn husks. "No heat in the flesh today. The poultice did its work. She’ll live, Laird."
Alpin didn't answer. He didn't nod.
He watched Mòr’s hands—wrinkled, spotty with age, yet unnaturally calm as she smoothed the blanket back over Grisselle’s chest. The cat gave a low, submissive whine, nudging Mòr’s skirt, but the old woman ignored the animal, her shoulders hunched in a familiar, stooped quiet.
A cold, sharp memory slid between Alpin’s ribs, severing the immediate relief of Grisselle's recovery.
The morning before I sailed.
It had been pitch dark in the lower courtyard, the mist coming off the loch thick enough to choke on. He had been checking the rigging cables on the lead vessel when a hand had dropped onto his forearm. Soft. Light. Completely silent.
Mòr had stood in the fog beside him, her face obscured by her hood, her voice slipping into the dark. She had spoken of safety, of smooth waters, of small herbs brewed for a peaceful journey—words that had felt like a blessing then, but now felt like a shroud.
Alpin’s fingers twitched against the hilt of his dirk.
His mind dragged him back further into the dusty, forgotten corners of his youth.
The night his father had collapsed in the Great Hall, grey-faced and gasping, his hands clutching at a heart that had suddenly ceased to beat.
Before yer father had boarded his final trading voyage three weeks prior, Mòr had stood in that same courtyard.
She had touched his arm. She had spoken in that same low, soothing, honeyed tone, offering a parting brew for the road.
The air in the bedchamber suddenly felt thick, suffocatingly dry.
Mòr stood up, dusting her apron with two quick pats. She turned toward the door, her faded eyes meeting his. She gave a small, polite tilt of her head, waiting for him to step aside.
Alpin didn't move an inch. He glared down at her, his jaw locked so hard the muscles in his cheek throbbed. He looked at her hands. He looked at the quiet, unbothered stillness in her shoulders.
Sgàil shifted behind her, ears flattening, picking up the sudden, violent spike of tension in the doorway.
"Is there something else, Laird?" Mòr asked softly.
Alpin slowly stepped back, opening a passage in the frame. He didn't speak a word. He couldn't, not without letting the black, suffocating rage in his chest tear loose before he had his answers.
Mòr bowed her head again and passed him, the cat trotting silently at her heels.
Alpin watched her disappear down the stone stairs. The moment her skirts cleared the landing, he turned on his heel and strode toward the armory.
The lower vaults of the keep were always damp, smelling of old iron, wet wool, and oil.
Dougal was sitting on a low wooden bench near the back wall, a long-handled axe resting across his knees, an oilstone gripped in his hand.
The rhythmic shhhk-shhhk of steel against stone stopped the instant Alpin’s heavy boots struck the threshold.
Dougal didn't look up immediately. He kept his head bowed, his knuckles white against the haft of the weapon.
Alpin didn't stop until he was standing directly over the older man, his shadow swallowing Dougal whole. He didn't ask a question. He didn't shout. He stood there, his chest heaving silently, his eyes fixed on the graying crown of Dougal’s head.
The silence between them stretched, heavy and poisonous, until the air felt brittle enough to snap.
Dougal’s shoulders caved inward. The oilstone slipped from his numb fingers, clattering against the flagstones and rolling a few inches before coming to a rest.
"Alpin..." Dougal’s voice was barely a rasp, dry and broken.
"The morning before I sailed," Alpin said. His voice was terrifyingly quiet, void of all warmth, void of all nuance. "She touched me arm."
Dougal closed his eyes. A long, shuddering breath rattled in his chest, making him look suddenly twenty years older than he had five minutes ago.
"She touched me father's arm," Alpin added, stepping an inch closer. "Tell me."
"I couldnae stop it," Dougal whispered to the stone floor.
"Tell me."
Dougal lifted his head, his face pale, lined with a deep, crushing exhaustion that had clearly been eating him alive from the inside out for decades. Tears glistened in the deep folds around his eyes, but he didn't wipe them away.
"It was the poison from the southern weeds," Dougal choked out, his hands shaking as he let the axe drop to the floor. "The ones that take weeks to work. Slowly. Like a rot in the blood that looks like a failing heart."
Alpin’s hand dropped to his sword hilt, his knuckles turning dead white. "Me father."
"Yer father," Dougal admitted, his head dropping into his hands. "She did it for the council. For the elders who thought he was going to sign away the eastern grazing lands to the southern lords. They came to her. They paid her in silver, in protection, in land rights for her kin."
Alpin stepped forward, grabbing Dougal by the wool of his tunic and dragging him up off the bench until they were nose-to-nose.
"And ye?" Alpin snarled, his breath hot against Dougal's face. "Ye were his captain. Ye were me shield."
"I found the vial in her cottage!" Dougal wept openly now, making no effort to pull away from Alpin's grip, accepting the rough handling like a man standing before an executioner.
"I found it after he was already in the ground.
She looked me in the eye and told me if I spoke a word to ye—if I brought it to the clan—she would make sure the same powder found its way into yer porridge before the week was out. "
Dougal’s hands came up, hovering near Alpin’s wrists, trembling violently.
"Ye were nineteen, Alpin! Ye were a boy playing at being a Laird, surrounded by wolves in yer own hall! I kept quiet to keep the cup away from yer mouth! I took the burden! I carried it every damned day so ye could breathe!"
Alpin shoved Dougal backward. The older man stumbled, hitting the stone wall with a thud, slid down it, and sat collapsed on the floor, weeping silently into his dirt-stained hands.
Alpin stood in the center of the armory, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped beast.
The quiet morning before he sailed. The soft touch on his sleeve. The herbs for a "peaceful journey."
It hadn't been a blessing. It had been the beginning of the end.
She had started the process on him, just as she had done with his father, waiting for the right moment, the right political shift, to let the poison finish its quiet work.
And Grisselle—Grisselle had been collateral, pulled into the web the moment she stepped onto their shores.
Alpin turned toward the doorway, his broadsword clearing its sheath with a sharp, ringing shriek of steel that echoed down the dark stone corridor.
The echo of the steel died against the stone walls, but the ringing in Alpin’s ears remained.
He didn't charge down the hall. He couldn't. The sword stayed heavy in his hand, the tip pointing down toward the flagstones as the full weight of Dougal’s revelation settled over him.
It wasn't an invading garrison he had to fight; it was a web of old lies woven into the very bones of his own keep.
He turned on his heel and strode back into the inner passage toward the armory, his boots slamming hard against the floorboards.
Isobel was coming up the corridor, a bundle of fresh linen tucked under her arm. She stopped short when she saw his face; the blood drained from his cheeks and his knuckles white around the hilt of his weapon.
"Alpin?" She set the linen on a stone bench, her dark eyes sharp with sudden alarm. "What has happened?"
"Father dinnae go mad from the sea, Isobel," Alpin said, his voice a low, subterranean rumble that vibrated in the tight corridor. "He was poisoned by inches. By Mòr’s words. By the very hands that brewed his evening tea."
Isobel’s hand flew to her mouth, a harsh gasp tearing from her throat. "Mòr? That cannae…she's served this family since we were bairns."
"Dougal has the proof," Alpin growled, his jaw locked so tight his teeth gritted together. "She laid the words to drive da into the sea and kept the house in chaos. Every shadow in this keep for twenty years... her doing."
"Sweet Lord," Isobel whispered, her eyes shining with sudden, angry tears as she stepped closer, laying a trembling hand on his forearm. "What will ye do, Alpin? Ye cannae strike her down in the hall."
"Nay," Alpin grunted, his thumb tracing the worn crossguard of his blade. "A Laird gives a clean reckoning, nae a murder in the dark. But I need me head clear before I bring the hammer down."
He pulled away from her touch, not out of malice, but because the fire boiling in his blood was too raw to stand still. He needed the air. He needed the freezing bite of the salt spray to wash the rage from his throat before he set his hands to what came next.