Chapter Thirty-Six
The air smelled faintly of wax and leather. Maps covered the central table—more than before. Updated. Marked.
Claire moved quickly now. Her eyes scanned the parchment for routes, timelines. Positions shifted across the Highlands like slow-moving storms.
Her breath caught. Raven’s Berry marked, not as a distant target, as a point of pressure.
Encircled, not fully, not yet, but close, too close.
“They are tightening the net,” she whispered.
Her gaze darted across the map, tracing the lines. Supply caravans. Reinforcements. Staging points.
If Lachlan moved blindly, he would walk straight into it.
Her thoughts raced, she had to warn him. But how?
Her eyes flicked to the edge of the table to a small stack of sealed dispatches.
An idea sparked. A risky idea, but certainly necessary.
She reached for one.
“Curious?”
The voice came from behind her.
Claire froze. Slowly—very slowly—she turned.
Her father stood in the tent entrance watching her not with surprise, not with anger, but with an interested tilt of his head. He had expected this or something like it.
“You always did have a mind for patterns,” he said.
Claire set the dispatch back on the table with deliberate care.
Alasdair moved from behind him and gathered the maps and missives on the table. He nodded at her father and left without speaking a word.
“I was looking,” she said calmly, “to understand what you have already set in motion.”
“And now that you do?”
She met his gaze. “I understand why you needed me here.”
A faint tilt of his head. “Do you?”
“You did not bring me to control me,” she said. “You brought me to watch me.”
Silence. Then a slow smile curved his mouth. “Very good.”
Claire’s stomach tightened. “You wanted to see where my loyalties would fall,” she continued.
“And?”
She held his gaze. “They are exactly where I said they would be.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Approval. Again, always approval when she proved herself.
Even now.
“You are honest,” he said.
“I am clear.”
He nodded and moved to the large chair on the opposite side of the table. “And yet,” he said softly, “you came here.”
Claire’s voice did not waver. “I came to stop you.”
The words hung between them.
Her father reached to pour a dram of whiskey. “You believe you can?”
“I believe I must try.”
“Come,” he said.
Not a command, not quite an invitation, but something in between.
Claire hesitated only a fraction of a second, then followed.
They walked beyond the center of camp to the edge where darkness stretched wider and the land fell away toward the valley below.
The moon had broken through the clouds. Silver light spilled across the hills.
Her father stopped. “Look,” he said.
Claire did.
The Highlands lay beyond—shadowed, vast, untamed. Beautiful.
“Do you see what I see?” he asked.
“No.” She saw beauty and she knew he saw a land to be conquered.
A quiet, impatient exhale. “I see potential,” he said. “Land unclaimed. Power unstructured. The region could be more—if only it were brought into alignment.”
Claire’s jaw tightened. “You see something to own.”
He gazed at the vast land before them and she could see his mind working, calculating. “I see something to shape.”
Frustration and anger curled through her like a vine choking a plant. “You see people as obstacles.”
He shrugged. “I see them as variables.”
She turned to him fully, gripping her hands into tight fists so she would not strike him. “They are not variables,” she said with an icy tone. “They are lives.”
“They are both.” The simplicity of it chilled her. “You cannot build order without sacrifice.”
“And who decides the cost?” she demanded.
His gaze did not waver. “I do.”
“No,” she said and shook her head. “Not anymore.”
Silence stretched. The wind shifted, carrying the scent of earth and distance.
Her father turned and studied her, his gaze intense, probing. “You have changed,” he said.
“I have become myself,” she said simply, encouraged by her newfound bravado. How it invigorated her, gave her purpose.
For a moment, something almost like regret passed through his expression. Gone too quickly to be certain.
“Then we are at an impasse,” he said.
Claire did not look away. “Yes.”
He shifted his attention back to the Highlands. “Return to your tent,” he said.
Claire blinked. No punishment. No restriction tightened. No immediate consequence.
Suspicion curled low in her stomach. “And the maps?” she asked.
His gaze flicked toward the camp behind them. “They are where they are meant to be.”
A warning. Or a test.
Claire inclined her head slightly. “Good night, Father.”
He did not respond.
She hesitated a moment to see if he had a response for her. When he remained silent, she went back to her tent. Nervous energy filled her and Claire did not lie down. She moved immediately to the small table.
Took a scrap of parchment and began to write, not plainly, never plainly. Her father would expect that.
Instead, she wrote as she had been taught. The way a lady would speak pleasantly when delivering an unpleasant message. Kind words cloaked within true feelings. In layered meaning and subtle shifts. In patterns disguised as something else. A message hidden inside something harmless.
Her hand moved quickly and confidently.
When she finished, she stared at it for a long moment. Read and reread. When she was satisfied, she folded it and sealed it with wax.
Claire exhaled a long breath, trying to rid her body of the tension coiled as tightly as a snake in her gut.
Now, how to send it and ensure the missive landed in the right hands.
Claire moved to the tent flap, Outside, the watch shifted again. She listened, waited a moment, then stepped into the night once more. This time not to observe, but to act
# # #
He watched from far beyond the camp, unseen in the dark by any guard or his bastard brother, Alasdair.
A lone figure watched from the ridge. Waiting, obviously watching.
And when the faint flicker of movement caught his eye, he smiled. He turned his horse toward Raven’s Berry. The game had changed.
And Lachlan Cameron had just received his first sign Claire was still fighting.