I looked down at my daughter, at her earnest face upturned to mine, then back at the solemn gathering. Their silence held weight, as if each person carried a stone they were waiting to place at my feet. The truth, or what they believed was the truth.
The rage that had driven me moments before had receded, leaving me hollow and off-balance. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. My uncle’s warnings about conspiracies, James’saccusations against my aunt, Murieall’s claims of hearing the dead—they swirled in my mind like leaves dancing on the wind, impossible to grasp or dismiss.
“Verra well,” I said at last, the words falling heavy from my lips.
Fergus stepped forward first, his weathered hands cradling a rusted dagger as if it were made of gold. His eyes, usually sharp and assessing, now swam with unshed tears as he raised the blade for me to see. “This belonged to my da, Laird,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “He hid it beneath the stables before riding to battle, where he fell. Ye ken how long ago that was.”
I nodded.
Fergus cleared his throat. “The lass, Murieall, found it and brought it to me. She told me my da wanted me to ken he’d kept his promise to leave me a blade on my naming day.”
I stared at the dagger, noting its ancient design, the worn leather hilt. “How could she have known of this?” I murmured, more to myself than to Fergus.
He shook his head. “She could nae have, Laird. ’Tis how I ken what she claimed is true.”
As Fergus stepped back, Nessa moved forward, a yellowed parchment clutched in her trembling fingers. “My mama’s recipe,” she said, holding it out for me to see. “Hidden behind a loose brick in the hearth for five years since she passed. The lass found it yesterday, told me Mama wanted me to have it for my wedding feast. Said the secret was a touch of cinnamon.” Her voice broke. “Laird, nae a living soul kenned where this recipe was, but my mama.”
My throat tightened as Nessa retreated, only to be replaced by Mary from the kitchens. She held a locket up. “My mama’s locket. Passed down from mama to daughter for ages. When my mama died, it was nowhere to be found.” Mary wiped away tears rolling down her cheeks, and my own throat grew tight.“Murieall found it and gave it to me,” she finished, stepping back. Then someone else came, and then another person.
With each tale, something shifted inside me, a crack forming in the wall of my certainty. I had been so sure that Murieall’s claims were madness or manipulation, yet here stood my own people, good, honest folk who had no reason to lie, all testifying to the impossible.
I glanced at my daughters, who watched the proceedings with solemn faces. Had I been so blinded by grief and suspicion that I’d failed to see what was right before me? The thought scraped raw against my pride, against everything I’d believed to be true.
As the last clan member stepped back, James moved to the center of the room, his gaze steady as he faced me. “This morning, Murieall and I sought out Francine, the chambermaid who assisted yer aunt during George’s birth.”
“What of her?” I asked, James’s words of George not being stillborn, echoing in my mind now.
“She confessed to us that she heard George cry,” James said. My blood started to roar in my ears. “A weak cry,” James continued, “but unmistakable. She was outside the birthing chamber when it happened.”
The room tilted slightly, the faces around me blurring as his words sank in. “If that were true,” I said, my voice strangely distant to my own ears, “why would she nae have spoken of it?”
“Because Magdalene threatened her,” James replied. “Caught her lingering by the door, grabbed her arm, and swore she’d be driven from clan lands with naught but the clothes on her back if she ever spoke of what she’d heard. The lass believed her and kept silent all these years.”
James moved toward me and clasped my shoulder as a terrible coldness spread through my chest, numbing me from within. “Munro, I vow on Isabella’s grave that I believe Gordonand Magdalene have been plotting to take the lairdship from ye. They poisoned ye against me, against Murieall, against anyone who might stand in their way, and I fear, well I fear, Magdalene may have done something unspeakable to George.”
My mind spun with the horror of it. George, my son, alive and then—what? Silenced by my own aunt’s hands? And Isabella had refused to accept Magdalene’s lie. Had she confronted Magdalene? The bruises on her wrists flashed in my mind. Then the torn cloak.
“She knew,” I breathed, the realization crashing through me. “Isabella knew what Magdalene, maybe my uncle as well, had done to George.”
James nodded grimly. “I fear it to be true. And now ye’ve sent Murieall with Gordon, who has claimed loudly to hear Isabella’s ghost.”
A raw, wounded sound tore from my throat as I staggered back against the wall. “God’s blood,” I gasped. “What have I done?”
The faces surrounding me blurred together, their expressions of concern and fear barely registering through my panic. In that terrible moment, another truth revealed itself, one I had been too blind or too stubborn to acknowledge: I loved her. I loved Murieall, with her fierce determination, her gentle way with my daughters, her courage in the face of my disbelief. I loved her, and I had possibly condemned her to death.
“We have to find them,” I choked out, pushing away from the wall. “Now, before it’s too late.”
Without waiting for a response, I bolted for the door, James close at my heels. We tore through the corridors, past startled servants and guards, my heart hammering with a fear more profound than any I’d known in any battle. If we were too late, if my uncle had already—
No. I wouldn’t let my mind travel that path. I would find her. I would. I couldn’t be too late again to save the woman I loved.
Chapter Twenty-Two – Murieall
I bolted through the undergrowth, my lungs burning with each desperate gasp. The forest floor betrayed me at every turn. Roots reached up to snag my ankles, and branches clawed at my face. Isabella’s warning rang in my mind. My skirts tangled around my legs, threatening to topple me with each frantic stride, but the fear of what lay behind me proved stronger than any obstacle before me.
The memory of Gordon’s face when he’d dragged me from James’s chamber pushed my feet faster still. There had been something in his eyes I hadn’t seen before. It was a cold calculation that chilled my blood more thoroughly than the morning air.
The ground sloped sharply beneath my feet, sending me stumbling down an incline littered with slick leaves and loose stones. I caught myself against the rough bark of an ancient pine, the scrape against my palm barely registering through my terror. Blood pounded in my ears, drowning out the forest sounds that might have warned me of pursuit.
