Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
“The outriders are mounted,” Hamish said, stepping up beside Sebastian in the damp courtyard. “Ye’re truly lettin’ her walk out that Gate?”
Sebastian kept his eyes fixed on the stable doors. “She made her choice, Hamish. I gave her time enough to ken her own mind, and she's made it up."
“Aye, and I wager ye spent the seventh day acting the brute,” Hamish muttered, adjusting his sword belt. “Look at the yard. Half the village is out here. They ken what’s leavin’.”
The heavy oak doors of the Hall groaned open, cutting off Hamish’s grumbling. Alba stepped into the grey morning light, walking a pace behind her cousin Margaret. She wore a dark traveling mantle, her hair bound in a tight, severe braid that left her sharp profile entirely exposed to the wind.
Brian was moving with her, his small fingers buried deep in the wool of her skirts.
“Alba, daenae go,” Brian pleaded, his voice carrying over the crunch of the ice. “Ye said we were goin’ to see the hounds today. Ye promised.”
“The hounds will still be there, Brian,” Alba said, her voice smooth and carefully leveled. “Yer uncle will take ye.”
“But he doesnae ken their names!” Brian cried, his small boots dragging in the mud. “He doesnae give them the sweet biscuits!”
Sebastian walked down the stone steps, his long strides breaking through the gathering crowd. The tenants moved aside, clearing a path until he reached the side of the lead carriage.
Before Alba could reach the door, Callum, the old MacLaren guard, stepped forward with three of the village elders. They bared their heads to the freezing rain.
“We came to give ye godspeed, me Lady,” Callum said, bowing his white head low. “The valley willnae forget what ye did for us.”
Alba stopped, her hand lingering on Brian’s shoulder. “Thank ye, Callum. See to it that the grain registers are kept weekly.”
“We will, me Lady,” Callum replied, his voice thick. “Ye kept the hearths hot and the bellies full while the Castle was without a leader. We’ll do our duty now that Laird MacGregor is here.”
Sebastian’s jaw locked so hard his teeth clicked.
Without a leader.
He looked at Alba’s rigid spine, waiting for her to snap, waiting for the fierce, commanding woman from the ledger room to put the old man in his place. But she just stood there, taking the insult like a blow she had been expecting.
“She was the leader,” Sebastian growled under his breath, the words meant only for Hamish.
“Then tell her,” Hamish whispered back sharply. “Before she gets in the bloody box.”
Sebastian could not move. His throat felt as though it were filled with dry peat smoke.
He looked at her pale skin, remembering the heat of it against his palms hours ago.
He remembered the intoxicating taste of her mouth, the desperate way she had trembled at his touch, her silly jests in the kitchen, and the fierce authority she carried when she ordered his own hardened warriors around the Hall.
He wanted to reach out, wrap his hand around her arm, and pull her flat against his chest. He wanted to tell her she was not going anywhere, that the Castle was a tomb without her.
Instead, the iron in his chest held him fast.
Margaret MacKenzie paused at the carriage step, turning her sharp hazel eyes onto Sebastian. “Ye look like a man watchin’ his own execution, Laird MacGregor.”
“The roads are slick, Lady Margaret,” Sebastian said, forcing his voice into a flat, professional clip. “Watch the ridges near the Tail.”
“We ken how to guard our own borders,” Margaret said, her voice dropping into a dangerous purr. “It’s a pity ye daenae ken how to keep what’s already inside yers.”
“Margaret, please,” Alba said softly, her hand finally loosening Brian’s frantic grip from her dress.
“Alba, nay!” Brian sobbed, reaching for her again. “Daenae leave me with him! He’s too big, and he doesnae ken the stories!”
Alba knelt straight into the black mud, entirely unbothered by the ruin of her hem. She pulled the boy into her arms, burying her face in his neck. “Yer uncle kens all the stories, wee man. He kens the ones about the Northern Fires and the ancient kings. Ye must listen to him.”
“Will ye come back when the snow melts?” Brian asked, his small shoulders shaking against her cloak.
Alba’s throat worked once. Her gaze lifted past his head, finding Sebastian across the yard and holding his gaze for a brief moment before it dropped back to Brian’s tear-streaked face.
“When the snow melts,” she said, her voice cracking just enough for Sebastian to hear the wound inside. “Ye will be a great Laird here, Brian. I ken it.”
She stood up, her face instantly turning back into stone as she turned toward the carriage door. She did not look at Sebastian. She did not look at any of them.
Sebastian stepped forward, his boots heavy in the mire, stopping just two feet from her. The scent of her hit him again, suffocating him.
“Safe travels, Lady Alba. Lady Margaret,” Sebastian said, the formal titles sounding hollow and dead in the quiet yard.
Alba paused, her hand gripping the iron handle of the carriage. “Thank ye, Laird MacGregor. The keys to the Lower Cellar are with Hamish.”
“Please daenae forget to give me message to Laird MacKenzie,” Sebastian added quickly, his voice rising, desperate to keep her from stepping inside. “It is crucially important.”
Alba turned her head slowly, her dark eyes locking onto his face for one long, agonizing second. “The message regardin’ Malcolm Kerr?”
“Aye,” Sebastian said, his knuckles whitening against his belt. “Tell Fergus to double the scouts on the Southern Pass. Kerr willnae stop for the weather.”
“I will deliver it,” Alba said.
She looked at him for one heartbeat more, searching his eyes for the words he was too proud to say. Finding nothing but the warlord’s mask, her mouth thinned into a pale line.
She stepped into the carriage, and the heavy door slammed shut between them.
* * *
He felt wrong without her.
Sebastian realized it by the second day. The Castle was eerily quiet, the air heavy with a flat, stagnant weight that nothing seemed to penetrate. Without her quick, sharp voice breaking through the drafts, the Great Hall felt less like a stronghold and more like a tomb.
Brian sat on his tall stool, his wooden spoon left in the dirt by his boots. He was wandering the Halls sulking openly, refusing his supper entirely.
“Eat the beef, Brian,” Sebastian said, his own voice sounding heavy and gravelly in the quiet room. “It’s what’s on the trencher.”
“It’s dry,” Brian muttered miserably, pushing a cold piece of turnip around his plate with his thumb. “Alba would have made honey cakes tonight. With the sweet cream.”
“She isnae here.”
“Because ye chased her away!” Brian said, his small face twisting into a scowl as he looked up. "I heard the Solar door slam last night, hard enough to shake the sconces. And Alba dinnae smile once at breakfast. Nae once. Ye did something."
Sebastian stared down into his whisky instead of answering. The golden liquid reflected the dim torchlight, completely still. He did not deny it. He could not.
Across the high table, Hamish shifted his weight, the timber bench groaning under his bulk. He looked from the boy to Sebastian, a deep, knowing frown settling into his beard.
Even the servants seemed duller somehow. The maid who brought the bread had not smiled once, and nobody laughed near the kitchens anymore. The entire Keep had gone completely still, reverting to the cold, bloodless military outpost it had been before Alba ever dragged her ledgers into the light.
“Go to bed, Brian,” Hamish said gently, breaking the silence. “The Cook will find somethin’ better for breakfast.”
“I daenae want breakfast,” Brian snapped, sliding down from the stool with a sharp thud. “I want Alba!”
He did not wait for permission. The boy turned and marched out of the Hall, his small leather boots slapping loudly against the stone until he got to the corridor.
Sebastian took a slow, deep swallow of the whisky, the burn doing nothing to clear the thick, suffocating knot in his throat.
“This is foolish,” Hamish muttered eventually, slamming his tankard down on the table.
Sebastian rubbed one hand roughly down his face, the stubble scraping against his palm. “Aye.”
“The Castle looks like it’s mournin’ a corpse, and the boy is starvin’ himself,” Hamish said, leaning forward until his chest pressed against the edge of the timber.
“We survived three years in the North without a woman’s touch, Sebastian.
Why does it feel like the roof is fallin’ in after two days? ”
“Because she held it up,” Sebastian said, the admission raw and bitter on his tongue. He set his cup down, his fingers tightening around the clay. “The people daenae look at me, Hamish. They look past me. Lookin’ for the ledger.”
“They’re lookin’ for her,” Hamish corrected bluntly. He paused, his sharp eyes scanning the nearly empty Hall before he leaned in closer. “But that’s nae the only thing rottin’ yer gut tonight. Ye havenae looked at a single border report since yesterday.”
“I am thinkin’ about Kerr,” Sebastian rumbled, his gaze fixing on the salt cellar between them.
“Aye?” Hamish pulled a small, grease-stained map from his belt and threw it onto the table. “I still think Kerr will strike north first. I have been lookin’ at the pass alignments.”
Sebastian’s attention sharpened instantly. He dropped his hand from his face, his dark eyes locking onto his commander. “Explain.”
“Look at the terrain,” Hamish said, his thick finger tracing a jagged line across the parchment. “Kerr is ruthless, but he hasnae got the numbers to take this Stronghold by a straight siege. Nae with our men on the walls.”
“He kens that,” Sebastian murmured, his mind working through the tactical lines. “He wouldnae risk a direct assault on the Gates.”
“Exactly,” Hamish nodded, his voice dropping into a hard, professional whisper. “If Kerr believes MacKenzie Land shelters ye, if he thinks ye’ve sent yer alliance and yer future lineage south to hide behind Fergus, he’ll strike there first to cut yer legs out from under ye.”
Sebastian shook his head, his jaw locking. “Fergus MacKenzie has more than three hundred spears at his back, Hamish. Alasdair MacRae is holdin’ the Western Ridge. Kerr wouldnae dare risk the retaliation. It’s suicide.”
“Wouldnae he?” Hamish looked up, his expression turning grim under the torchlight. “Think like the monster, Sebastian. If he strikes the MacKenzie borders, he doesnae have to win a war. He merely has to shed enough blood to bring ye out.”
Sebastian saw it then.
The realization hit him in the sternum, the pieces of the puzzle falling into a terrifying, seamless alignment. The air left his lungs in a sharp, cold rush.
“He wouldnae come here anyhow,” Sebastian whispered, his eyes wide as he stared at the map. “He wouldnae risk the passage through the Valley.”
“Nay,” Hamish said, his finger stopping at the narrowest point of the mountain trail. “He wouldnae.”
“He would force me into the Dragon’s Tail,” Sebastian said, the words cutting through the quiet room like a blade.
Cold settled heavily into Sebastian’s stomach.
Because now he could see it clearly. He had spent the last two days worrying about contracts, about pride, and about the way her lips had felt against his in the dark Solar.
He had let her ride away because his own stubborn dignity would not let him tell her he needed her.
And all the while, he had sent her straight into the trap.
Malcolm Kerr did not care about Fergus MacKenzie’s spears.
He did not care about the MacRae alliance.
Even if Fergus would defend his land with every man he owned, Malcolm Kerr would burn everything between them with the sole purpose of draging Sebastian out into the open.
He would turn the Dragon’s Tail into a slaughterhouse, and Alba was sitting in a slow-moving wooden box right in the middle of his path.
“She has six outriders,” Sebastian said, his voice rising, the panic finally breaking through his discipline. “Six, Hamish.”
“And a baggage cart,” Hamish added, his face pale. “They’re movin’ at a nursery pace because of Lady Margaret’s condition.”
Sebastian stood abruptly from the table, the movement so hard and violent it shoved the heavy oak chair backward until it hit the stones with a deafening crash.
“Prepare horses,” Sebastian commanded.
Hamish blinked once slowly, his hand freezing on the edge of the map. “For how many?”
“Ten men,” Sebastian snapped, already turning on his heel and reaching for his sword belt where it hung from the peg behind the high seat. “The fast mounts. Nay heavy armor.”
“Sebastian, the men are tired from the watch,” Hamish warned, though he was already sliding his own legs over the bench. “And the Pass will be black as pitch by the time we hit the tree line.”
“I daenae care about the darkness,” Sebastian growled, slamming the iron buckle of his belt into place with a fierce, decisive snap.
His hands were shaking slightly—not from fear, but from the sudden, roaring rush of adrenaline that had completely cleared the whisky from his brain.
“If Kerr’s scouts are on that ridge, they’ll hit them before they reach the main Gates at MacKenzie Land. ”
“Where are we goin’ then?” Hamish asked, his voice hardening as he followed his Laird toward the doors. “The Border Stone or the Lower Valley?”
Sebastian did not stop. He threw the heavy timber doors open, the cold night wind hitting him as he looked out into the dark courtyard.
“MacKenzie’s,” Sebastian said. “We ride until we catch the carriage.”