Chapter 15 #2
Nandag stood up. Her body ached with a bone-deep weariness, every muscle heavy from hours of hauling water, tearing linens, and kneeling on cold flagstones. She walked slowly toward the small vanity table near the window, the soft rustle of her linen shift the only sound in the silent room.
She reached up to loosen the ribbon binding her hair, letting the dark waves tumble over her shoulders.
Reaching for her wooden comb, her eyes caught the leather sketchpad resting on the sill, its corner still smudged with charcoal from the afternoon.
The memory of Fearchar sitting on the low chest—his broad shoulders stiffened into a ridiculous pose, his grey eyes glinting with suppressed humor—brought a faint, tired smile to her lips.
A floorboard creaked behind her.
Nandag froze. The sound was faint, barely louder than the settle of the stone walls, but it came from the threshold, not the window.
"Fearchar?" she called out softly, turning as she unlaced her sleeve. "Did ye ferget—"
The word died in her throat.
Standing in the shadow of the heavy bedpost was a man.
He wore the soot-stained wool tunic of a villager, a bandage wrapped awkwardly around his forearm, one of the men she had helped carry up from the lower ford.
She had noticed he had kept to himself all evening.
His eyes were not wide with terror or dazed with pain.
They were cold, flat, and tracking her every move with terrifying precision.
In his hand, half-hidden by the folds of his cloak, gleamed a narrow, unsheathed iron dirk.
"Ye shouldnae have brought us inside, Lady Chisholm," the man said, his voice a low, raspy whisper that carried no regional accent of the glen.
Nandag’s heart slammed into her ribs, her blood going ice-cold. "Ye..." Her fingers instinctively reached backward, searching the surface of the vanity. "Ye're Robert's man."
"Robert sends his regards tae the daughter of Strathglass," he hissed, stepping forward with lethal swiftness.
Before Nandag could open her mouth to scream, the man lunged.
Instinct took over. Nandag snatched the heavy bronze candlestick off the table and swung it with all her strength.
The heavy metal struck the man's forearm with a dull thud, knocking his blade off course.
The sharp iron grazed her shoulder, slicing clean through the linen shift and stinging like fire, but the blow missed her chest.
The assassin grunted, his shoulder crashing into her as he drove her backward. Nandag hit the edge of the washstand, the ceramic basin shattering on the stone floor with a deafening crash. Water and broken pottery sprayed across the room.
"Guard!" Nandag screamed, her throat raw, but the man’s heavy hand slammed over her mouth, pinning her back against the wooden frame.
She bit down hard into the meat of his thumb.
He cursed, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second, and Nandag drove her elbow upward into his sternum.
He stumbled back, gasping, and she scrambled across the wet floorboards toward the heavy oak door, her lungs burning, her feet slipping in the water.
He recovered instantly, grabbing a handful of her dark hair and yanking her backward. Nandag cried out as her head snapped back, her hands tearing frantically at his thick wrists. He dragged her away from the door, spinning her around and pinning her against the side of the heavy carved bedstead.
He raised the dirk high, the iron catching the faint amber glow of the dying hearth fire.
Nandag grabbed his wrist with both hands, her teeth grit, every ounce of her strength focused on keeping the point of the blade from sinking into her throat.
The iron quivered inches above her collarbone.
His weight pressed down on her, the smell of damp wool and copper thick between them.
Her arms shook violently, her fingers slipping against his sweaty skin.
"Die quietly, girl," he growled into her ear, pressing his body harder against hers, driving the blade down quarter-inch by quarter-inch.
Bang.
The heavy oak door didn't just open, it exploded inward, smashing against the stone wall with a crack like thunder.
Fearchar stood in the doorway.
In a single glance, his eyes took in the shattered basin, the blood on the floorboards, and the blade pressed against Nandag’s throat. A sound escaped his chest, not a shout, but a low, guttural roar of pure, lethal fury that sounded barely human.
Fearchar crossed the room in two terrifying strides.
Before the assassin could turn, Fearchar’s broad hand clamped around the back of the man's neck like a steel vise.
With a surge of brute force, he ripped the assassin off Nandag, launching him across the chamber.
The man crashed heavily into the vanity table, shattering the wood into splinters before hitting the floor.
Nandag collapsed against the bed frame, gasping for air, her hand clutching her bleeding shoulder.
The assassin scrambled to his feet, wiping blood from his nose, his eyes wild as he raised the dirk toward Fearchar. "Chisholm."
Fearchar didn't draw his broadsword. There was no room for fencing, no patience for steel. He stepped inside the assassin's guard, ignoring the strike of the dirk that grazed his leather doublet, and caught the man by the throat and wrist.
Fearchar slammed the assassin backward into the stone fireplace mantle with a sickening crunch. The man gasped, his grip loosening, and Fearchar twisted the assassin's arm violently until the dirk clattered uselessly onto the hearth.
With a brutal, fluid motion, Fearchar drove his iron-wrapped elbow into the man’s jaw, followed by a heavy blow from his fist that lifted the assassin off his feet. The man hit the stone wall and slumped into the corner, motionless, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle.
Silence fell over the bedchamber, sudden, suffocating, and absolute.
Fearchar stood over the body, his chest heaving like a bellows, his fists clutched tight, blood dripping from his knuckles onto the stone. The lethal, terrifying light in his grey eyes flickered, his gaze sweeping frantically around the ruined room until it landed on Nandag.
The rage vanished from his face, replaced instantly by raw, naked horror.
"Nandag!"
He dropped to his knees beside her, his broad hands hovering over her trembling frame, afraid to touch her, afraid he might break what was left. His eyes fixed on the crimson stain spreading across the white linen of her shift at her shoulder.
"Nandag, sweet Christ, Nandag..." his voice cracked, rough and desperate, completely stripped of the laird's calm authority.
Nandag looked up at him, her chest rising and falling in sharp, ragged hitches.
The adrenaline that had sustained her crashed all at once, leaving her shivering violently in the cool night air.
She didn't look at the body in the corner. She looked only at Fearchar’s face, seeing the pale terror in his eyes.
"Fearchar," she choked out, her voice barely a whisper.
She reached for him.
Fearchar didn't hesitate. He pulled her into his arms, gathering her up against his chest, wrapping his heavy plaid and arms around her like a shield.
He held her so tightly she could feel the frantic, terrified thudding of his heart against her ribs, his cheek pressed hard against the crown of her head.
"I have ye," he breathed into her hair, his hands trembling as he smoothed her dark, tangled locks. "I have ye, lass. Ye're safe. I'm here."
Nandag buried her face in the crook of his neck, her fingers digging deep into the thick wool of his doublet.
A shuddering sob tore from her throat, the realization of how close the blade had come finally crashing over her.
She clung to him with all the strength left in her body, burying herself in his warmth, his scent of rain and steel anchoring her to the world.
Fearchar held her, his eyes locked on the dead assassin across the room.
The hearth embers cast long, dark shadows over the blood-stained floor. The realization settled into his chest like a block of ice: Robert Cameron had not just attacked a border village. He had planted a blade beneath their roof, past their guards, and inside the sacred sanctuary of their own home.
Fearchar tightened his arms around Nandag, kissing her temple again and again as she wept softly against his neck.