Lachlan knelt and pushed aside the layers of wood, ash and dirt that had been matted down by rain since the fire and found what had tripped him. An unburned panel of wood. Cleaning the debris from it, he discovered the entrance to a root cellar dug into the ground. He pulled on the edge and it came free, sending him careening off balance. He regained his stance and stared into a hole of darkness.
If he could get to the cellar, he thought he might survive.
When he regained consciousness, he lay on the floor of the blazing cottage. The flames crept up all the walls. The rough sod roof would do nothing to stop them. The door was blocked and he could not push his way out.
Somehow, he managed to find the opening in the smoke that burned his eyes and throat. Pieces of wood dropped like flaming ingots on him as he tugged open the wooden panel, jumping into the space. But the smoke followed and filled the cellar around him. Coughing and gasping, he waited as long as he could before trying one last escape. Hoping that the less-than-sturdy cottage walls were gone now, he pushed up, intending to rush through the remaining flames.
He felt the ungodly heat around him as he climbed out, trying to avoid the worst of it. The flimsy walls still burned but Lachlan saw a path to the window. He crouched low, trying to see his way when an ominous crack sounded above him. With no more warning than that, the roof came down on him, trapping him there.
He screamed …
Lachlan’s throat convulsed against the terror and the scream that would not come now. He fell to his knees as his stomach heaved and he vomited up the meager meal he’d eaten.
He remembered nothing before waking there and nothing after the roof caved in on him. Somehow, though in God’s Holy Name he could not figure how, he’d survived and made it out. The brothers hadn’t given him a specific location where he’d been found, but Lachlan knew it had to be close to here.
As he stood, he realized something else. He didn’t know himself when he’d woken up amidst the fire. His identity was gone from him already, taken by. … Reaching up, he felt the back of his head. A deep gash had been there. The brothers said his skull had been damaged by a blow. They suspected that had been the cause of his memory loss.
He’d been struck from behind before the fire began. Whoever set the fire, did it knowing he was inside and unconscious. Knowing he would perish.
Lachlan felt the change in the winds. The threatening storms were closer. A surreal sense of control filled him as the information he’d discovered took hold. The memories began to return. He had kith and kin. He had a place he belonged.
He had someone who’d wanted him dead.
Ailis’ words of confession echoed in his head now.
I admit it to ye and confess my guilt, Lachlan,she’d said.I beg yer forgiveness, Lachlan. For lying to ye. For bringing ye here when it was not safe. For … all of it.
It made no sense. Whenever she’d mentioned or thought on him, he’d seen only grief and loss. Considering her words now, had he misinterpreted her expression?
He kicked the dirt and headed back into the forest where he’d left his horse. Mounting, he headed north, back to Dun Ara, back to Ailis.
Lachlan would discover the truth before he let her go. If he let her go. … For now that he knew who he was and that the visions of her, of them, were memories and not the imaginings of a pain-crippled mind, Lachlan wouldn’t give her up easily, if at all. He didn’t doubt the rest of his life would return to him.
Virtue. Mine. Honor.
The words of the MacLean motto seemed appropriate as he rode to take back what, who, was his.
