Chapter Four The Watchfire #2
Ronan stood there, eyes hard, taking in Liam’s crouched posture and Anya’s lifted face. “So this is it,” he said. “You sit with him like you’re already theirs.”
Anya’s cheeks flushed. “Ronan, stop.”
Ronan’s gaze stayed on Liam. “He wants you as proof we’ll follow. As a leash.”
Liam rose slowly, keeping his voice even because anger would feed the story Ronan already wanted. “I don’t need her as proof,” Liam said. “I need her mind. She sees what I don’t.”
Ronan laughed, bitter. “Useful,” he spat.
Anya stepped forward, voice tight. “If you can’t trust me, then trust that I’m here because I refuse to kneel.”
Ronan’s expression faltered. Beneath the rage was fear, raw and young. “If you’re wrong,” he said, quieter, “we pay. Not him.”
Anya’s gaze softened for a heartbeat, then hardened again. “I know. That is why I have to be right.”
Ronan shook his head and disappeared into the dark.
Silence returned, thicker now. Liam felt it, the unseen eyes of his men, the way scrutiny clung to every interaction. He hated it. He also understood it. In a crisis, clans looked for simple stories: traitor, ally, weakness, strength. There was no room for complicated.
Anya sat again, hands clenched. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“You don’t apologize for another man’s temper,” Liam replied.
“I do when it becomes your problem,” she said.
“It already is,” Liam answered.
He should have walked away. Instead he stayed long enough to say the only thing that mattered. “Tomorrow we work,” he said.
Anya nodded, and the diplomat returned to her posture like armor. “Tomorrow we work.”
Anya was not asleep either. Liam found her near the stream again, kneeling over a small bundle of cloth. When she looked up, he saw she had been rinsing blood from Alasdair’s sock and rewrapping it, keeping the ankle warm.
“You’re making enemies,” Liam said, nodding toward the cloth.
“By washing a sock?” Anya asked.
“By being useful,” Liam replied. “Men hate feeling they need someone they don’t trust.”
Anya’s mouth tightened. “Then they should learn to trust.”
Liam snorted softly. “Trust is not a lesson you can teach by ordering it.”
Anya tucked the cloth beside the fire to dry. “I heard what some of them said earlier,” she admitted. “That I’m a delay, that I’m here to soften you.”
Liam swore under his breath. “And what did you do?”
“What can I do?” she asked. “If I defend myself, I look guilty. If I stay silent, I look weak.”
“You keep working,” Liam said. “Let your work speak until it’s too loud to ignore.”
Anya studied him. “That sounds like patience,” she said.
“It’s strategy,” Liam replied.
She gave a faint, restrained smile. “So it is.”
A sudden shout cracked through camp.
“Riders,” a sentry called from the ridge. “On the lower road.”
Liam moved without thinking, grabbing his sword and signaling men up. Boots crunched. Cloaks snapped. For a heartbeat, the camp was pure instinct.
Anya stood near the fire, face pale but composed. Ronan appeared from the dark, armed, eyes bright with anticipation.
Not an attack. A delivery.
Two riders stopped just outside the camp’s reach and raised their hands. One called up, “Message for the Kincaid commander.”
Liam descended partway, stopping where his voice would carry. “Leave it and go,” he called.
“We’re told to put it in your hands.”
“Then you were told wrong,” Liam replied. “Leave it on the road.”
The rider dismounted and placed a small leather tube on a rock. He mounted again and backed away. The pair turned and vanished into the night.
Liam waited, watching for movement, for an ambush that might follow distraction. When none came, he signaled two men forward.
“Check it,” Liam said. “Carefully.”
The men prodded the tube, then brought it to him. Liam opened it at the fire where everyone could see his hands. Inside was a strip of parchment sealed with red wax stamped in a simple crest.
Liam broke the seal and read.
A summons dressed as courtesy. Lord Roderic invited the Kincaids and MacFarlanes to send representatives to a parley at the gate the following afternoon, to discuss peaceful terms and rightful administration of the pass.
Calum let out a low laugh. “Rightful administration,” he repeated.
Ronan spat into the dirt. “He thinks we’re fools.”
Anya’s gaze stayed on Liam. “He wants an audience,” she said softly.
“He wants a stage,” Liam corrected.
“If we refuse, he says we’re unreasonable,” Anya said. “If we accept, he tries to control the story.”
“And if we accept on our terms?” Liam asked.
Anya’s eyes sharpened. “Then we take his stage and change the script.”
Liam felt his old wound press, the memory of a meeting that promised safety. He forced himself to breathe. “We do not go blind,” he said. “We go ready.”
The men dispersed slowly, tension easing back into wary routine. Liam sent extra eyes to the ridge, then returned to the fire where Anya remained, hands clasped, expression thoughtful.
“I think he’s testing who leads,” Anya said. “He wants you defined by his terms.”
“Ronan will explode,” Liam said.
“He is already halfway there,” Anya replied.
Liam studied her, then asked quietly, “Why does he not listen to you?”
Anya’s gaze dropped. “Because if he listens, he must admit fear,” she said.
A quiet settled again. Anya flexed her fingers inside the worn gloves he had given her.
“You kept them,” Liam said.
“I said I would,” she replied. “It felt foolish to give them back.”
Liam’s throat tightened at the simple truth of it.
“If we go to that parley,” Anya said, “we must decide what we want from it beyond proving we are not afraid.”
“We want information,” Liam answered. “Who he brings, what he hides, what he thinks we cannot see.”
Anya’s lips curved faintly. “That sounds like diplomacy,” she said.
Liam huffed once. “That sounds like war with fewer arrows.”
“Perhaps they’re closer than either of us wants to admit,” Anya murmured.
Liam stood, forcing practicality into his spine. “Sleep,” he told her. “Tomorrow will be hard.”
Anya rose as well. “So will the day after,” she said, nodding toward the unseen gate.
Liam looked toward the dark hills and felt his loyalty tighten like a cloak. Protect the clan. Hold the line. Do not be drawn into an enemy’s story.
Yet as he watched Anya turn toward her bedroll, he realized something he had not expected when Gavin gave him this mission.
If Roderic’s sharpest weapon was division, then the most dangerous thing Liam could do was begin to see a MacFarlane as partner instead of problem.