Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Great Hall at MacKenzie Castle felt almost peaceful. The storm outside was a distant, rhythmic hiss against the heavy stone walls, a sharp contrast to the stark, quiet tension that had occupied her mind for the past two days.
Lilly slept curled beside the massive hearth beneath a mound of thick woolen blankets, her breathing soft and undisturbed. Near the orange flames, Margaret sat in a low oak chair, her head bowed as she carefully stitched tiny white shirts for the new babe growing inside her.
Alba took a slow sip from her cup, trying to focus entirely on the warmth of the spiced liquid.
His lips…
She blinked rapidly, clearing her throat to drown out the sudden, unbidden memory of the dark solar.
“How is the ale?” asked Fergus.
“I have to admit the MacGregor ale has a far heavier body,” Alba said aloud, her voice tight but forced into an easy, conversational rhythm. “Yer brewers put entirely too much water in the mash this season.”
Fergus scoffed from across the long trestle table, setting his heavy wooden tankard down with a solid thud. “Too much water? Alba, ye’ve been locked in that northern fortress so long yer tongue has gone completely numb. The MacKenzie brew could cure a winter fever. It has twice the malt.”
“It tastes like river silt,” Alba countered, leaning back and forcing a small, mocking smile to hide the frantic pace of her own thoughts.
His hands…
The memory of those thick, scarred fingers gripping her wrist, pressing into her jaw, and sliding into her hair flashed behind her eyelids with agonizing clarity.
“River silt?” Fergus barked a short, rough laugh, throwing his hands up in mock offense toward his wife.
“Margaret, listen to yer cousin. She spends less than a week with the Blackthorn Beast, and suddenly she’s a connoisseur of pitch and iron.
I suppose Laird MacGregor filters his brew through the skulls of his enemies? ”
“I am merely statin’ an administrative fact, Fergus,” Alba said, laughing softly at his frustration, though her chest ached with every breath.
His eyes.
Dark, heavy, near-black in the moonlight. Staring down at her with that silent, suffocating intensity just before he shattered her world with a line about winter stores.
Stop it.
She squeezed the silver rim of her cup until her knuckles turned white.
Just stop it.
“If the MacGregor brew is so grand,” Fergus continued, leaning forward with a teasing glint in his eye, “why did their outriders empty three of me casks before the horses were even unhitched?”
“Because they have spent three years drinkin’ melted snow in the Northern Wastes, Fergus,” Margaret interjected without looking up from her sewing, a small, knowing smirk playing at the corner of her lips. “They would drink ditch water if it had a bubble to it. Do nae let her bait ye.”
“She isnae baitin’ me, she’s insultin’ me cellars,” Fergus grumbled, though his expression softened as he looked at his wife. “Though I suppose if she prefers the taste of iron, we cannae force a MacKenzie vintage on her.”
Then, the castle horn sounded once.
A single, long, piercing blast ripped through the quiet of the Hall, tearing the peaceful atmosphere to absolute ribbons.
Fergus was already on his feet before the second blast could echo through the rafters, his hand instinctively dropping to the space at his hip where his broadsword usually hung.
Lilly bolted upright beneath her blankets, her wide eyes darting toward the high timber doors.
Margaret’s needle stopped dead in the fabric.
The heavy oak doors burst open with a loud slam against the stone. A guard rushed inside, his face pale under the torchlight, his breath coming in ragged, desperate gasps.
“Troops!” the guard shouted, his voice cracking with panic as he pointed toward the gallery. “On the North Ridge!”
Every ounce of warmth vanished from the Hall instantly. The cozy heat of the peat fire felt suddenly distant, replaced by a cold, sharp dread that spiked straight through Alba’s ribs. She rose from her stool so fast the wood scraped violently against the floorboards.
Fergus lunged toward the wall, grabbing his heavy broadsword from the iron brackets beside the hearth. “Whose men? Speak clearly, man! Are they MacRaes?”
“Nay, me Laird,” the guard panted, wiping rain and sweat from his brow. “Kerr banners. Dozens of ‘em. Movin’ fast along the High Trail, bypassin’ the Lower Valley entirely.”
Silence crashed through the Hall like a falling timber.
Alba looked toward the dark, rain-streaked windows, the blood roaring so loudly in her ears she could barely hear the wind outside.
Kerr banners. On the North Ridge.
Sebastian.
Dear God.
Kerr was not launching a siege on the MacKenzie Gates.
He was not risking a battle with Fergus’s spears.
He was circumventing them completely. He was going straight back to MacLaren Castle.
Straight for the stronghold Sebastian had just emptied to ride south, half his garrison gone and no Laird behind its walls to answer for it.
“Get the gates shut!” Fergus ordered immediately, his voice booming over the sudden chaos as more guards began rushing into the hall. “Muster the spears in the lower courtyard! I want the battlements manned before the rain stops! Move!”
“Aye, me Laird!”
Alba did not think. Every piece of logic she had prized for three years evaporated under a sheer, blinding wave of panic. She moved at once toward the heavy doors, in a frantic sprint.
Margaret caught her arm instantly, her grip surprisingly fierce, her fingers locking onto Alba’s forearm like iron. “Where are ye goin’?”
“Back,” Alba said, her voice shaking as she pulled free sharply, ripping her sleeve from her cousin’s fingers. “I have to warn Sebastian.”
“Absolutely nae,” Margaret snapped, stepping directly into her path, her face pale but unyielding. “Look at the yard, Alba! The wind is risin’!”
“Margaret, let me pass,” Alba hissed, her hands trembling with a volatile mixture of fury and fear. “Kerr’s men are already movin’. If they hit the valley before the MacGregors can form a line—”
“Ye’d ride directly into a war!” Margaret’s voice cracked with panic now, her eyes bright with terror for her cousin. “The North Ridge is crawlin’ with scouts! Ye wouldnae make it past the first watch!”
“If Kerr reaches that Stronghold before Sebastian kens he’s been spotted…”
“Sebastian can defend the Castle!” Margaret shouted back, her fingers gripping Alba’s shoulder to force her to listen. “He is the Beast of Blackthorn, for God’s sake! He has two hundred hardened men behind those stone walls! He does nae need a woman on a pony to tell him how to fight!”
“That’s nae what frightens me!”
The words escaped her mouth before she could stop them, raw, loud, and bleeding with a truth she had spent days trying to bury under ledger entries.
Silence followed immediately. Margaret froze, her lips parting as she stared at Alba’s frantic, tear-bright eyes. The confession hung in the damp air of the Hall, heavier than any treaty.
Alba was not afraid of the Castle falling. She was not afraid of the MacLaren name being erased. She was afraid of him dying. She was afraid of a world where those dark, suffocating eyes never looked at her again.
Before Alba could bolt past her toward the courtyard, Fergus stepped between them, his towering frame completely blocking the exit. His massive hands gently but firmly grasped her shoulders, anchoring her in place.
“Let me go, Fergus,” Alba whispered, her teeth chattering from the sheer force of the adrenaline. “I am goin’. I have to go.”
“Listen to me, lass,” Fergus said, his deep voice remarkably calm as the shouts of his captains echoed from the yard outside. “Sebastian sent word.”
Alba blinked, her mind refusing to process the statement. “He said nothin’ of it. He told me himself the trail had gone cold.”
“He daenae ken for certain,” Fergus said, reaching into his heavy leather doublet.
He pulled out a creased, heavy piece of parchment, the wax seal broken but still visible, and thrust it before her face.
“But a man like him doesnae wait for certainty before he prepares for the worst. He asked me to double the watch along the Ridge Road, in case Kerr came lookin’ for a way around yer walls instead of through them.
One letter among a dozen precautions, I’d wager. ”
Alba stared at the dark red wax, the coiled MacGregor serpent.
His message.
The crucially important letter he had commanded her to deliver to Fergus before she left.
“He warned ye,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “And said nothin’ to me.”
“He warns everyone of everythin’, lass. That’s the soldier in him,” Fergus said, his grip loosening slightly but remaining steady. “It doesnae mean he isnae standin’ there right now with three men and a locked gate, hopin’ he guessed right.”
“I cannae sit here,” Alba said, the words catching in her throat as she looked from Fergus to the parchment. The image of the small boy sneaking through the corridors, of Sebastian standing alone against a man who burned villages out of spite, burned away every ounce of Fergus’s reassurance.
What if he’d guessed wrong? What if Kerr had more men than any letter could account for?
“Alba, please,” Margaret pleaded from behind her. “Listen to reason.”
“Nay,” Alba pushed Fergus’s hands off her shoulders with a sudden, violent surge of strength. “Maps and letters are nae the same as iron on the Ridge. He expects me to sit here like a ledger on a shelf while he decides the efficiency of his own survival. I will go.”
“Alba, ye are bein’ a fool!” Margaret cried out as Alba vaulted past Fergus. “The Pass is a slaughterhouse!”
“Then I will ride faster!” Alba shouted back over her shoulder, already sprinting down the narrow stone corridor that led toward the lower stables.