Her eyes welled with tears, and she swooned a little before catching herself on the door. Her father moved to help her, but she glared at him, and he recoiled. Her father usually would have been appalled at the disrespect of her glare, but it was the guilt that made him shrink back.
“And just how, ma, would ye feel if ye realize that Torcall is nae at all the killer?”
Something flashed in her mother’s eyes. Insecurity. Despite her words, there was still a tiny “what if,” and Ceana saw it, so she twisted the knife deeper.
“I wonder, ma, how ye will put yer head to sleep when Torcall is killed, and another murder happens. Whoever is killed will nae be able to stop even after Torcall’s death. It would take just one more vulnerable young woman.”
There was total silence, and her father froze. Besides her, he was the only one in the room who knew the truth, and the reality of her words hit him. Fear. He had two daughters of his own.
“I wonder what ye would say when--”
“Enough!” her mother thundered, angrier than Ceana or Alina had ever seen her before. “Ye selfish girl!”
“Regina—” Connor tried to stop his wife, but she would not be stopped.
Alina, the observer, could see the rage in her mother’s eyes but there, behind it all, she was afraid. It wasn’t of the killer or of anyone else. It was fear that she had lost her mother. She was a woman fighting with all she had to save her drowning daughter.
“Ye will do as I have told ye, and there will nae be a word of argument from you! Ye will marry Scott, and ye do nae have a choice.”
“I willnae!” Ceana cried, tears finally breaking free. “Ye will bury me first!” and with that, she fled out of the room wailing.
* * *
It was later in the evening that Alina slipped into her sister’s room. The tensions in the home were saddening, and everyone walked around on tiptoes.
Her mother had taken to bed with a headache, and her father had stormed out of the house for the first time in her life. He had looked tormented, and Alina had sat in her bedroom thinking to herself. If his daughter was making a bad decision and his wife had “agreed” with him to betroth her, why was the look in his eyes filled with torment?
Alina had only seen her father like that once in her life. When there had been an assassination attempt, he had to leave his family to save the king. When he heard that Alina had been harmed, there had been guilt in his eyes, and whenever she cried out in the fever that ensued, the tormented look had been in his eyes.
One night, as she lay in bed, trying her best to sleep despite the fever that was wreaking havoc, her father had come into her chamber. They had all feared that she would die, and it was a legitimate worry.
He had put his hand on her boiling body and sat in the chair beside the bed, buried his hand in his face and sobbed.
“What was I to do?” he had groaned. “‘Tis me duty to protect me clan chief. I swore it. But in doing so, I neglected me daughter, and now she may die. However will I live with meself and me guilt?”
And there, he had sobbed.
It was perhaps what had made her so determined to get better. She couldn’t bear to see her father in such torment.
She had understood the look then but not now. Why was there torment in his eyes and, dare she say, guilt?
Alina knew she couldn’t depend on her emotions. She had to be pragmatic, and that was why she snuck into her sister’s chamber.
Ceana didn’t even turn as she entered and closed the door behind her. Neither did she when Alina called out to her.
So, Alina spoke louder. “Ceana!”
“What do ye want?” Her voice was tired.
“I want to talk to ye.”
“I have naught to say to ye.” The bitterness slipped in.
“I’m sorry,” Alina said, but the words did no good.
“For what,sister?” she asked in a way that made it clear that she thought of her as anything but a sister. “For nae believing me? For not having me back?” she laughed bitterly. “If it was ye who said that ye saw the army of the English raining from the skies, I would believe ye.” She stood and wiped tears from her eyes. Then she faced her sister. “I would believe, and I would fight with anyone who said ye were a liar. If ye said ye saw pigs flying, I would say I saw it too, so if ye were ridiculed, I would be too.”
“Ceana—”
