For my truth can no longer wear disguise.
My heart lies not with women born to bear heirs, but with the man who’s stood beside me in battle and in peace.
My man-at-arms.
My true love.
Bought, aye—but never owned. His soul is mine, as mine is his. Since the days of my father’s house, he’s been my solace and strength.
No more masks.
No more pretending.
We have been bound for many seasons, Ciarán and I, and the wife I took was but a veil—woven to conceal truth in a world blind to love between men.
The church would damn me, for the flesh I choose is not their ordained path. But I chose willingly, chose wholly, and I chose him.
Ciarán Begbie is my heart’s desire, and I will not soil the sanctity of our bond with false affections for another. Though I be no saint, I made my covenant—not before clergy, but beneath the heavens—in the courtyard of my own keep.
There, I vowed to him that in life, and in death, we are one.
The marriage to Ceit was a cloak, fashioned to shield us and bear an heir to the Granndach line. My duty demanded it.
That duty… is complete.
And that, my soul cries, is all I am required to do.
The union served the church’s watchful gaze.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
I bore love for Ceit, aye, but not the kind that nourishes. When I named her task—an heir and appearances—her fury was swift.
I understood it, in truth.
Yet let us not forget that she rose in station through me.
Her clan, Darragh, was nothing more than a house mired in debt. Through her dowry, her father’s burdens were lifted. Oison sold me a golden egg, and both sides profited.
She gained silks, halls, and heraldry. I gave her dominion she’d never claim alone. My lineage was earned—from my father, and his father before him.
Not bought like Oison’s.
She was granted the role of Lady—palatial grounds, noble title, and a life beyond her birth.
And yet… her final act shattered the very illusion we crafted.
Her fall from the tower became a spectacle. A selfish exclamation from one whose story was never hers alone.
Had my heart not lain elsewhere—had I not yearned for the embrace of a man—perhaps she mighthave flourished. But Ceit was still young, unready for the storm she waded into.
When Oison offered Catherine first, a child barely ten, I recoiled. Such things of foulness were not for me the mingling of blood and innocence. I took Ceit, older, sixteen—a compromise of necessity, not desire.
To soften the insult, I gave her land, coin, and safety. She thrived on the edge of my sword’s success.
Her death—supposedly for being cast aside for Ciarán—rings hollow. She knew from the start what we were.
