Filib laughed in a broken, hollow sound. “I dinnae care. I’d dae it again if I had tae.”
That was the moment Baird broke. His hand moved before thought, before breath, before mercy. He drew his blade. The steel flashed in the torchlight.
“Baird, nay” Kenny shouted, wrestling forward.
But Baird didn’t hear him. He heard nothing but the roaring in his ears; saw nothing but the memory of Malcolm’s body collapsing beside the altar. Davina’s face appeared before the eye of his mind, in the moment when the intruder had seized her, frightened and alone.
And beneath it all, he could hear the cold and poisonous voice of his father.
Weakness lets traitors live.
Weakness lets blood be spilled.
Weakness destroys clans.
Baird raised the blade. Filib shrieked, scrambling back and knocking over a chair as he fell to the floor.
Kenny lunged for Baird’s arm, but he missed by an inch. “Baird! Stop! Stop!”
But Baird was beyond stopping. He saw nothing but betrayal. The blade swung and Davina’s voice cut through the fog like a crack of lightning in the darkest of nights.
“Baird!”
Everything inside him halted. The blade froze mid-swing. His heartbeat crashed into silence. Terrifyingly slowly, his headturned toward the doorway. Davina was standing there, pale and trembling, her eyes wide with horror and fear.
“Baird…” she whispered, her voice on the verge of breaking. “Please, dinnae.”
The room held its breath. And for the first time since he learned the traitor’s name, Baird felt the weight of what he was doing.
CHAPTER 26
It was her voice that pierced the madness. It was her voice that found him and brought him back.
His shoulders heaved once, sharply, like a man dragged from drowning. The dagger in his hand trembled not with weakness, but with the terrible force of everything he fought inside himself.
“Baird,” she said again, more softly now. “Look at me.”
He did, with eyes that still burned like embers cooling under ash. Davina swallowed, stepping closer though her own legs trembled. She knew every eye in the hall was on them. She knew that Baird’s pride, his control, his very identity were hanging by a thread.
But she also knew, perhaps for the first time, that he needed someone to steady him, to anchor him, to remind him who he was beneath all the rage and pain.
“Yer people are here,” she whispered. “Watching, depending on ye. They need tae see their laird show restraint… and good judgment.”
She held his gaze.
“This man will answer fer what he’s done,” Davina continued, feeling her voice gain strength. “He will. But ye must dae this the right way, Baird. Throw him in the dungeon, fer now. Let justice come when yer head is clear, nae when yer blood is high.”
He didn’t say anything, but his grip on the dagger loosened. Davina dared one more step. She could feel his pain thrumming through the air between them.
“Show them the laird ye truly are,” she murmured. “Nae the manhe,” she cast a cold glance at Filib, “tried tae make ye become.”
Finally, something broke behind Baird’s dark eyes. And then, he released the dagger entirely. Kenny seized the moment, yanking it fully from Baird’s grasp.
“Guards!” Kenny barked. “Take Filib tae the dungeon.”
The room erupted into movement of armored footsteps, of Filib screaming as men dragged him away, of councilmen whispering in shaken clusters and servants ducking their heads as if afraid the walls themselves might collapse.
But Davina saw none of it. She watched only Baird. His hands curled and uncurled as if unsure what to do now that the blade was no longer in them. Then, he lifted a hand to his temple, as though the very weight of the hall pressed against him.
