Chapter 24 #2
"I’m sorry," Grisselle repeated, her voice steady, unhurried, holding Mòr’s gaze without a single blink. "No woman should have lived the way you lived."
Mòr stared at her, her faded, bloodshot eyes searching Grisselle’s face for a trace of mockery, a flicker of deceit, a condescending tilt of the chin. She found none.
"You were nineteen," Grisselle said softly, taking another half-step closer, her voice carrying a deep, heavy truth that cost her every ounce of her remaining strength to speak aloud.
"You were an orphan girl in a strange keep.
You gave your youth, your body, and your heart to a man who took everything you had and left you to sit in the cold while his life went on around you.
You raised his child in the dark, and you buried her in frozen dirt without a song. "
Grisselle’s breath hitched slightly, a sharp pang in her wounded shoulder making her pause, but she didn't break her gaze.
"It was wrong," Grisselle said, the word ringing clear and undeniable across the stone. "It was cruel, and it was wrong. They used your hands to heal them and forced you to pretend you did not exist."
A thick, agonizing silence settled over the room.
Mòr’s mouth worked silently, her lower lip shaking violently as the words sank into her skin. Grisselle could see that she had not prepared for a stranger, a girl from London who owed her nothing, to stand in the center of the Great Hall and validate the ancient, bleeding truth of her suffering.
"Me daughter," Mòr choked out, her voice barely a breath now, a small, helpless sound escaping her throat. "He dinnae even ken her name."
"I know," Grisselle murmured softly. "And it was wrong."
Mòr’s chest gave a great, violent heave, a fresh wave of quiet tears spilling down her cheeks.
Grisselle didn't reach out to touch her; she did not offer a false comfort, nor did she pretend the dark had not happened. Instead, she stood straight, her chin lifted just enough to carry the full, heavy weight of what had to be said next.
"And," Grisselle continued, her voice dropping an octave, solid as the keep’s foundation, "what you did to Alpin was also wrong."
Mòr went still again, the wet light in her eyes flickering.
"What you did to his father was wrong," Grisselle said, looking from Mòr to Alpin, whose broad frame stood motionless on the floor of the hall.
"You took a boy who wept in your lap, and you fed him poison wrapped in the memory of his grandfather.
You pointed men toward the water, hoping the sea would finish the work your grief started.
You tried to drown the sons for the sins of the father. "
Grisselle took a quiet breath, her hand coming back up to brace against her ribs, her posture unyielding.
"Both things are true," Grisselle said, her eyes locked firmly on Mòr’s cracking, wet face. "The cruelty done to you was real, and it was monstrous. And the harm you returned to this house was monstrous, too. Both things are true at the very same time."
The statement hung between them. It left no room for Mòr to hide behind her hatred, yet it did not strip her of the dignity of her long-buried pain. It laid her life out on the flagstones—raw, ruined, and completely seen.
Mòr stared at Grisselle for a long, agonizing moment.
Her faded eyes searched the young woman’s pale face, tracing the exhaustion around her dark eyes, the faint tremble in her legs, the honesty in her quiet stance.
The silence in the Great Hall stretched, long and deep.
No one spoke. Isobel did not move. Greer held her breath.
Dougal remained hunched on his bench, his hands silent over his face.
Alpin stood with his chest rising and falling slowly, his dark eyes shifting from the old healer to the woman who had spoken the truth none of them had known how to phrase.
Mòr swallowed hard, the muscles in her neck working violently.
She didn't offer an excuse. She didn't spit another curse. She didn't fall to her knees to beg for mercy. The wild, unhinged fire that had fueled her screams five minutes ago had completely burned out, leaving only the quiet, fragile ash of a woman who was simply, profoundly tired.
Slowly, Mòr turned her body toward the cat at her side.
She bent her stooped back, her joints creaking in the silence of the room, and hooked her thin, calloused arms beneath Sgàil’s chest and hindquarters.
The cat, sensing the sudden, absolute shift in its mistress, did not struggle.
Mòr hauled Sgàil up onto her narrow shoulders until the cat’s weight settled across her neck.
She did not look at Alpin. She did not look at Isobel or Greer or Dougal.
She looked at Grisselle one last time—a single, fleeting glance that carried no malice, no triumph, and no defiance. Mòr turned on her heel.
Her small, heavy steps echoed against the stone as she walked down the long center aisle of the Great Hall. The guards near the double doors hesitated, their hands lingering near the hilts of their weapons, their eyes darting toward Alpin for an order.
Alpin did not raise his hand. He did not give a command. He stood frozen, his eyes resting on the floor where Mòr had stood, letting the quiet settle into the stone.
The guards stepped back, clearing the path.
Mòr pushed through the heavy oak doors, the cat draped over her shoulders, and stepped out into the cool, dark Highland night. The heavy doors swung shut behind her with a low, hollow thud, cutting off the draft, leaving the Great Hall in complete, unbroken quiet.