Chapter Four Terms of Fire #3
Eilidh lowered her eyes first, turning back to the parchment in front of her. “There is another matter.”
“What matter?”
“My uncle.”
Kenan’s expression hardened at once. “What of him?”
She smoothed the page once. “If he continues to delay, the council will begin speaking openly against him. Some already do.”
“Some began weeks ago.”
“And if that anger grows, it will make alliance harder, not easier.”
“Your uncle makes alliance harder.”
“Yes.” Her answer came tired, but unwavering. “I know.”
The admission disarmed him more than denial would have.
He said, quieter now, “Why does he send you, if he trusts you so little with authority?”
A shadow crossed her face. “Because he trusts me to soothe where he cannot persuade. Because he knows others listen to me even when he does not. Because if matters go ill, blame travels more easily to a niece than to a laird.”
Kenan went very still.
“That is a cruel bargain,” he said.
A faint smile touched her mouth, though there was nothing glad in it. “Cruel bargains are not confined to war rooms.”
He had no answer for that.
Outside, thunder muttered over the hills.
Kenan looked at the names spread between them, the possible routes, the clans that might be moved by pressure or pride or fear. This too was command. Not just where to place men, but where to place words. Where to spend trust. Where to hold back threat until threat became useful.
Watching Eilidh work did not soften him toward her. It did something more troublesome. It made him respect the ground she stood on.
“You were right earlier,” he said.
She glanced up, wary that insult might follow. “About which thing?”
“About different pressures for different hands.”
Her expression shifted. “That sounds suspiciously like concession.”
“Do not grow vain.”
“Far too late.”
Despite himself, he almost smiled.
Kenan rose to fetch the older boundary roll from the shelf behind him. When he turned back, she had stood as well, reaching for the same map from the opposite side. Their hands brushed over the worn leather case.
The contact was slight.
It struck anyway.
Eilidh drew back first, but not in alarm. More as if she too had felt the current beneath something so small. Her eyes lifted to his. Gray, steady, and for one unguarded heartbeat far too open.
Kenan took the map and stepped back because it seemed the wiser thing. “This one should show the old grazing lines.”
Her voice, when it came, was controlled again. “Then let us see what promises may buy us.”
They spread the map together.
Side by side now, they bent over the faded boundary marks and argued quietly about land memory, clan vanity, and which old grievance could most usefully be soothed.
Their shoulders nearly touched once or twice.
Each time, Kenan became sharply aware of the space between them and of how little it truly was.
At last, when the light had begun to fail and the brazier had burned low, Eilidh set down her quill. “We have enough to make tomorrow’s council insufferable.”
Kenan glanced at the marked sheets. “Only tomorrow’s?”
She gave him that almost-smile again. “I prefer modest ambition.”
A servant knocked then to announce the evening meal.
Eilidh gathered her notes. “I should go.”
“Aye.”
Neither moved at once.
Then she said, “For what it is worth, I am glad Gavin did not send me away.”
Kenan looked at her. The answer that rose first was dangerous in ways he did not have leisure to entertain. So he chose the safer part of it.
“You are useful,” he said.
Her brows rose. “A ringing compliment.”
“It is the best I have at the moment.”
“Then I will treasure it appropriately.”
She moved toward the door, then paused with her hand on the latch. “And you were wrong about another thing.”
He sighed. “There is no end to my education.”
“You thought I would speak as though lives could be moved with words.” Her expression softened, only slightly. “I know words cannot move the dead. I only mean to keep them from being joined too quickly by the living.”
The line settled in him with uncomfortable force.
Before he could answer, she opened the door and slipped out into the dim corridor beyond.
Kenan remained where he was, one hand resting on the old boundary map.
Rain still battered the roof. The brazier hissed low. The room smelled of dust, wet wool, and faint lavender left behind in the air.
He should have felt only relief that the work between them had proved productive.
Instead he felt something more troublesome.
Friction remained. So did disagreement. He still distrusted part of what she believed, and likely she part of what he did.
Yet somewhere between the council table and this cramped records room, that friction had ceased feeling like obstruction and begun to feel like challenge of a kind he did not want to lose.
Kenan stared down at the marked roads and clan names.
War had forced stranger alliances than this.
Then he gathered the papers and blew out the candle nearest her empty chair before the thought could travel somewhere even more dangerous.