He gestured toward the horizon. “I was watching the road.”
“Are they coming yet?”
“Soon.”
She joined him at the wall, her shoulder nearly brushing his. For a moment they stood together, the vastness beyond the walls pressing close.
“I hadnae realized how much I needed tae see ye,” she admitted quietly.
His hand shifted, close enough to warm hers without quite touching. “Nor I, it seems.”
The sky darkened another shade.
“Baird,” she said his name like a prayer.
He did not look away from the darkening road, but she saw his jaw tighten, which was a familiar sign that his thoughts were marching ahead of him into tomorrow’s bloodshed.
“Dinnae trouble yerself so,” she continued. “Ye are nae standing alone out here, nay matter how it may feel.”
At that, he turned to her.
She met his gaze without flinching. “Everyone inside those walls, every child asleep, every villager wrapped in a blanket, everyguard on watch, they are here because of ye. And they will stand with ye when the Sinclairs come.”
He exhaled slowly. “I ken me duty.”
“And ye carry it well,” she reminded him of something he already knew, but sometimes forgot. “But victory daesnae come from one man’s strength alone. It comes from trust, from people believing in the one who leads them.”
She gestured back toward the keep, where torchlight flickered warm and steady. “They believe in ye, Baird. And ye have given them reason tae.”
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then his hand covered hers. “Ye have given them reason,” he said quietly. “More than I have.”
She smiled faintly. “Then we are even.”
His thumb brushed over her knuckles, a small, intimate motion. “If we are victorious,” he said, “it will be because we stood taegether, inside these walls and upon them.”
“That is exactly why we will be,” Davina replied without a shadow of a doubt. “Because nay Sinclair force can break a keep held not just by stone and steel, but by people who willnae abandon one another.”
The wind swept along the battlements, carrying the distant hush of night. Davina felt the tension in him still humming beneath the calm she had coaxed back into place. It sat in the way his shoulders refused to fully lower, in the way his gaze kept drifting back to the darkened road.
“Come,” she said gently. “Focus on something else.”
He huffed a quiet breath. “Such as?”
She tipped her chin upward. “Look.”
He followed her gaze.
The sky had cleared completely, as the last scraps of cloud was torn away by the wind. Stars spilled across the darkness in startling abundance, as though the heavens themselves had leaned closer to watch.
“I forget,” she said softly, “how many there are until I take the time to see them.”
Baird was silent for a long moment. Then he leaned back against the stone, with his eyes lifting fully at last. “Me maither used tae tell Malcolm and me their names,” he said quietly. “She said it ought tae remind us how small our troubles truly were.”
Davina smiled at the gentleness threaded through the memory. She eased down beside him on a small bench, her shoulder resting lightly against his arm.
“Which one is that?” she asked, pointing.
