Prologue
Wolvesley Castle
On the North Sea
Autumn, 1314
WOLVESLY HAD NEVERtruly been quiet.
Even when it had been nearly desolate, stripped down to stone and sea and the wind hollowing at the cliffs, it had never known silence. Isabel remembered those days well—the years when the yard had stood empty of laughter, when the hearth burned low and watchfires were kept more out of habit than hope. Even then, Wolvesly had breathed. The sea had continued its endless attack on the rocks below. The gulls had cried. The wind had found its way through every crack and crevice.
In those lean seasons, quiet had meant absence, death, but not peace. It had meant listening too carefully for sounds that did not come, counting days by the creak of gates left untouched and the footfalls of too few souls crossing the yard. Isabel had learned then that stillness at Wolvesly was never restful.
Now, years later, the place was alive again—full of voices and laughter, and the rhythm of ordinary days—but the memory lingered in her bones. She could still feel the way the stones had seemed to hold their breath back then, as though the keep itself understood what was at stake and would not relax until it was no longer a tomb.
Possibly, it was during those early, awful years when she had become so attuned to sound. Why the scrape of a boot out of place or the groan of old wood under a child’s weight could pull her attention so swiftly.
Today, its voice was loud and blessedly familiar. Steel rang in the training yard. Liam’s commands cut clean through the air. Laughter rose and fell closer to the keep. The sounds of life pressed against the stone walls and filled the space where silence had once lived. And somewhere between the clang of swords and the creak of an overburdened oak branch, Wolvesly carried on as it always had, neither quiet nor gentle, but enduring.
Isabel sat on the bench near the outer wall, sunlight warming the stones at her back as she worked a needle through a tear in Michael’s tunic. It was a task she had done a thousand times before, her hands moving easily, her attention divided between the cloth in her lap and life unfolding around her. There had been times when she had watched all of it with unguarded delight, marveling that such a place could belong to her, that she’d found such joy. That was before the years began to mark themselves not by births and harvests, but by departures.
Liam had been coming and going for most of their marriage, summoned by necessity and by the slow gathering of men, the MacTavish army, until finally there were enough to make a difference. Scotland had bled for decades before the call to arms truly took hold here, before Wolvesly could offer more than scattered resistance. But once they could, once there were men enough, arms enough, resolve enough, there had been no turning back. Campaign followed campaign, marches stretching farther each year, alliances shifting like sand beneath their boots.
She had learned to dread the greening of the hills.
Spring brought longer days and firmer ground, and with it the sorry fact that war moved more easily in fair weather.Summer followed, bringing clear passes and long days, when there was little to slow an army once it set its mind to move. Isabel had learned that fair weather did not make war kinder—only swifter. Autumn was no comfort either, for it brought its own urgency, the last push before winter forced pauses that never felt like peace.
Only winter, harsh and unyielding, ever kept Liam truly home.
Now even that small mercy had begun to slip away. Their sons were no longer boys content to spar at the edges of the yard, pretending at bravery with blunted blades. Alexander stood taller each season, his shoulders broadening with work and training, his questions growing sharper. Michael’s restlessness had teeth in it now, a hunger for movement that Isabel recognized all too well. They watched their father with the same fierce attention she once had but for different reasons, measuring themselves against his stride, his voice, the quiet authority he carried even in stillness.
Soon, they would follow him.
The thought settled heavily, but Isabel did not allow it to bend her spine or still her hands. She had learned long ago that strength did not always announce itself. Sometimes it was nothing more than stitching torn cloth while listening to the sound of men preparing for battle, and refusing to look away.
She finished the seam, tied it off neatly, and folded the shirt in her lap, lifting her gaze back to the yard. Whatever Wolvesly demanded of her—whatever Scotland demanded of her family—she would meet it as she always had: standing, steady, and uncomplaining, even when her heart braced itself for the next turning of the year.
Liam’s voice cut across the field in front of her at that moment, sharp and unmistakable.
“Again,” he barked, pacing the line of men with the restless energy that likely would never abandon him. “Ye’ve nae time for second thoughts once steel’s drawn.”
A few of the younger lads shifted, their smirks cheeky but dying quickly when Liam turned his gaze on them. Isabel smiled to herself. More than a dozen years had softened some things in Liam, but not his expectations and certainly not his often stormy temperament.
Her gaze followed Liam, and she chewed on her lower lip. He moved with a formidable grace that was simply part of the man, broad shoulders squared, his voice carrying easily over the clash of steel. Watching him now—so certain, so entirely himself—Isabel felt the same quiet pull she had known since girlhood, a reminder that time had tempered their bond but never dulled it. A small, pleased smile curved her lips.
Coming from inside the gates, Dougal passed at an unhurried pace, his seat easy despite his age, getting on six decades now. He turned his head as he rode by and caught Isabel’s eye, lifting his hand in a brief salute that carried far more history than the sparse gesture suggested. The grin he gave her was familiar—wry, unapologetic, unchanged by years or battles—and for an instant, she felt the echo of a younger self, newly arrived at Wolvesly and utterly unprepared for the horrors and joys that would follow.
Dougal called something irreverent toward Liam as he neared, the sort of remark only Dougal would dare, and earned a sharp retort and a curled lip as reply. Dougal laughed and rode on, unbothered, bound for where Isabel had no idea. Isabel watched him go, a warmth settling in her chest that had nothing to do with longing and everything to do with gratitude. Wolvesly had given her many things over the years, but Dougal’s steadfast defense—once fierce, once absolute—had been among the first, and she had never forgotten it.
Life, in all its familiar order, she thought, her smile lingering still.
A creak of old wood pulled her attention away from the training in front of her.
Isabel looked up at once, her needle and Michael’s tunic forgotten. The oak just outside the gate, on the south wall, had stood longer than any of them, its branches worn smooth by children who had climbed higher than where good sense ought to have stopped them.
Elena was far too high.
Her eight-year-old daughter clung to a branch with all the confidence of someone who hadn’t yet paid dearly for her daring, one thin arm stretched toward a wool-stuffed doll wedged just beyond her reach. Her face was set not with fear but with her usual determination.
