“Let go your rancor,” Campbell growls. “This is over.”
Hamish’s laugh, theatrical and nonchalant, cuts through the room. “Not completely over, I’m afraid. Or have you forgotten the reason we’re here? There is a thief among us.”
“I told you,” I snarl. “I’m the one who took your stupid apples.”
The laird is losing patience, but Hamish doesn’t seem to care. He approaches me,tsking. “Most of the apples were already picked. Those that remain grow only on the highest branches.”
“So?” I demand.
Hamish gives me a patronizing smile. “I can hardly believe that you, a girl in skirts and slippers, climbed the tree.”
I want to scream,I could have. I spent my childhood climbing trees. Gender has nothing to do with it. I hate that he has a point about the clothes—I barely made it up a ladder in this getup. I open my mouth, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation, but I take too long.
A menacing smile twitches Hamish’s lips. “As I thought. Callum is the guilty one. Clan law must be obeyed.”
Donag is screaming, but she sounds far away. My every sense—the entirety of my being—is focused only on Callum. He’s somber but resolved. He’s not fighting this, he’s accepting it. For me.
“No,” I shout, waiting for this to stop, for something to change, for people to come to their senses. I want to slow everything down. I can’t process it. This can’t be happening. “No, you have to let him go. I told you, the apples were for me.”
Clan law.And Hamish relished every gruesome detail when he told me how they punish thieves.
Hamish nods at the guards. They move, wrenching Callum’s arms behind his back.
“No!” I drop like a puppet with cut strings, crashing to my knees. “Please. You said I have your protection.” My voice is breaks. “It’s my fault.”
Hamish tilts his head, mock-thoughtful. “Your fault,” he muses. “But not your crime.”
I whip toward Campbell, desperate. “Please, we?—”
“Nae.” The laird lets out a long sigh, heavy and final, then lifts his chin, decision made. His voice is leaden as he pronounces, “My son speaks truly. The law is, thieves must die.”
Chapter
Thirty
Callum is going to die.
The thought haunts me as I crouch in the shadows of the kitchen garden. The freezing ground digs into my knees, and my breath clouds the air. I rub my hands for warmth and consider my options. But it’s no good. Panic keeps shattering my focus.
I need to get him out.
But how? I don’t know this land, these people, their laws. I don’t even know where they’ve taken him, how many guards there are, if I even stand a chance.
What if I make things worse?
I press a fist to my heart, forcing the fear back down.No. Think.I can do this. Callum doesn’t know it yet, but I’m not leaving him to die. I just need to find a way.
After the guards dragged him away, I clutched the laird’s hand, begging, pleading for him to punish me instead. But the old man only sighed, his voice leaden with finality.It’s the bog for the lad come morning.The words loop in my head like a curse.
Aoife bursts into the garden. “Mo thruaigh! There ye are. Aire! Donag says if the lad’s to die, so will you. She demands blood for blood.”
I get to my feet, gaping at her. “She wants, like…myactualblood?”
Aoife gives me a pitying look. “Vengeance is duty here, lass. ’Tis the Highland way.” She pulls a worn coin from her bodice, rubbing a thumb over the faded inscription. “Look. ’Tis written on the king’s own shilling.”
I squint at it. “I can’t read that.”
She sounds it out anyway. “Nemo me impune lacessit.”
