As they climbed, he did his best to remain in the calm, detached bubble that he entered before a battle, a bubble in which no emotions could reach him. He almost succeeded.
Yet that calm shattered when they finally climbed up to the gates of Dun Cator and a familiar voice called, “Kai? Kai Stewart? Is that really ye?”
A tawny-haired man with a scar down his face came hurrying towards him. The man wore the Douglas plaid with the orca sigil sewn onto his breast.
“Rannoch?”
He had known Rannoch since his days as a young warrior. They’d spent many an hour drinking together, playing chess and discussing philosophy. Rannoch had been a simple guardsman back then. If the sigil on his breast was anything to go by, he was a captain now.
Rannoch reached out to clasp Kai’s arm in a familiar gesture before embracing him tightly. “Kai! It’s so good to see ye again, my old friend.” He grinned widely as he stepped back to get a better look at him. “What brings ye here?”
“Naught good, my friend. I have grave tidings for the lord of the keep.”
Rannoch took this in stride. He was a warrior to his core. “Lord Alasdair is unwell,” he said. Then he glanced at Kai’s companions, his expression wavering slightly. “But I...um...can take ye to Lady Lorna and Lord Tobias. They serve in the lord’s stead now.”
Rannoch’s discomfort was clear. Kai beat back a surge of annoyance. First Magnus and Conall, now Rannoch. Did none of them think he could handle this? Did they all think him so weak?
He deliberately didn’t look at Caitlin. He knew he would see questions in her eyes, questions he did not want to answer.
“Lead the way then, Rannoch,” Kai said, his voice steady.
Rannoch gave a stiff nod before turning and leading the way into the keep.
As they walked, Kai couldn’t help but feel the weight of the past bearing down on him. He had been happy here once. Happier, perhaps than he ever had been in his life. But then—
He gritted his teeth and pushed such thoughts aside, focusing on the task at hand.
Finally, they reached the great hall, a chamber so familiar to Kai that entering it was like stepping back in time. The tapestries were the same, the well-used benches and tables looked exactly as he remembered them.
And the woman seated at the head table looked the same, if a little older. Same dark hair, same piercing eyes that seemed to spear him to the core, same full lips and shrewd expression. But she was different in all the ways that mattered.
Now, she was flanked by her husband.
She rose as he entered the room. Forgetting all protocol, she gasped in a shocked voice, “Kai?”
He refused to respond to the welcome in her voice or give in to the tingle it sent through him. Instead, he bowed stiffly, formally, before Lady Lorna and Lord Tobias.
“My lord, my lady,” he said, his voice low and measured. “I bring grave news from the south. Leif Snarlsson, the Norwegian mercenary and pirate, is on the move. He has already attacked a fair south of here. We believe ye to be his next target.”
Lorna said nothing, only stared at him, her eyes shining as if she’d not heard his words at all. Kai couldn’t bear to meet her gaze so instead, he focused on her husband.
Tobias Kenworthy, an English baron, had filled out in the years since Kai had last seen him. The young, pompous lordling had become a thick-set, bearded man with sharp features and an even sharper expression. That expression was fixed on Kai right now and he could almost see the man’s thoughts churning behind his eyes, trying to decide if Kai was a threat and what he should do about it.
Maybe this had been a bad idea after all. Perhaps heshouldhave let Magnus and Conall handle this as they’d suggested. The last thing he needed was his presence to cause more trouble than it solved.
But then Tobias inclined his head. “Leif Snarlsson? That is a dark name indeed. I doubt me there’s a lord along the whole northern coast who hasn’t heard it. And you think he’s coming here? Why?”
“That is what I hope to explain if ye will hear me, my lord?”
Tobias glanced at his wife. Lorna blinked, gathered herself, tore her gaze away from Kai, and met her husband’s eyes. Something passed between them, something intimate that made Kai’s stomach twist with unexpected fury.
“Very well,” Lord Tobias said. “Speak then. Tell us everything.”
***
CAITLIN STOOD WITHMagnus and Conall as Kai told his tale. She’d been introduced briefly and whilst Lady Lorna and Lord Tobias had given her welcoming smiles, all of their attention had been fixed on Kai. Especially Lorna’s. From the first moment Kai had walked into the room she had all but bounced on her feet, trying and failing to keep her pleasure from showing. Caitlin scowled. She didn’t know what was going on here but she didn’t like it.
Kai, for his part, looked tense. As he relayed everything that had happened at the fair and why they thought Dun Cator was Snarlsson’s real target, his shoulders were hunched and a vein throbbed in his temple. He kept his gaze very firmly fixed on Tobias, and didn’t look at Lorna.
