Chapter 1
The Luxury Of Forgetting
One Month Previously
The fire had spread fast. Una wondered whether they could see it from the convent, and if so, what it looked like. A wall of fire, perhaps, advancing towards them. The stone walls of the convent wouldn’t burn, at least.
She wiped her forearm across her face, smearing away ash, grime, blood, and sweat. She had a cut across the outside of her upper arm, and it was stinging, blood oozing out. She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten it. Somewhere in the melee, no doubt.
The battle was nearly over. There were a few pockets of enemy Dickson soldiers fighting here and there.
Do they even know that the battle is over?Una wondered idly. The last of her strength was gone. She clutched her sword with a grim determination—letting go of it meant death in battle, she’d seen that—but her limbs hung numbly by her side. She wasn’t sure if she could lift her sword arm, not even to save her life.
Smoke drifted across the battlefield, stinging her eyes. Men and women ran here and there in varying levels of urgency. She could hear voices but couldn’t make out the words. It didn’t matter, did it? The enemy had been slaughtered or driven away. The convent at their backs, the Priory of St. Deborah, was safe for now, as were all the people within it.
It’s not over, though. The battle’s won, but what about the war?
Una became dully aware that her name was being shouted. She blinked around her, frowning, and a man materialized out of the smoke. He lurched towards her, coughing and limping heavily. She recognized him as Finnegan, the whip-thin Irishman who’d helped to train most of the army, Una included. It was odd seeing him without his friend, the hulking Janson.Hewas the one who’d insisted on putting a sword in Una’s hand and sending her to fight along with the infantry instead of with the archers.
A pang of fear rolled through her. Finnegan was trying to say something to her, but her ears still rang, and she couldn’t hear him. Lurching forward, she grabbed his shoulder and squeezed.
“Where is Janson?” she yelled. “He isn’t… He’s not…”
“He lives,” Finnegan confirmed, nodding. “He survived. Of course he did—it’ll take more than a few Dickson warriors to kill a man like Janson.”
This was faintly reassuring, but Una had a new fear.
“And…” she paused, licking her dry lips. Suddenly, she was so thirsty that she was tempted to drop to her knees and slurp up water from a puddle at their feet, thick with mud and blood and worse. She didn’t, of course. “And Thomas?”
“Thomas is well, too,” Finnegan assured her, giving her a wry smile. “Dinnae ye fret.”
Una let out a long, ragged sigh. Finnegan eyed her curiously, then cleared his throat.
“I believe he wants to hurry back to the convent to find the Abbess and assure her that all is well. And to find Kyla too, of course,” he added.
Una didn’t bother to respond to this. She guessed that Finnegan thought that she was in love with Thomas, on account of all the time they’d spent together training.
Well, she wasn’t.
While it was true that she admired him,lovewas out of the question. Besides, Thomas was clearly head-over-heels with Kyla, a girl who’d lived at the convent with the nuns for quite some time now. Kyla had enough worries of her own.
Kyla’s father had sent the army to destroy them after all.
It had been a shock to learn that her friend’s father was none other than Laird Dickson, a man determined to crush all rebellion to his rule out of the Highlands, but Kyla’s parentage could offer them an advantage, too. Not much of an advantage, but it was something.
Wordlessly, she and Finnegan began to trudge through the mud. Bodies littered the ground, so soaked in mud and blood that it was impossible to tell whether they wore Dickson or some other tartan. Back at the convent, Una imagined that politics was being discussed. Some Highland lairds stood up to Laird Dickson and his warmongering, resisting his attempts to invade and his constant, viciously violent raiding parties.
But Laird Dickson ruled the largest piece of land in the Highlands. He had the most powerful armies, the latest war weapons at his control, and what was more, he had his son at his side. Sometimes, Una thought that Struan Dickson was feared as much as his father.
She should know. She’d spent countless years as a slave in Keep Dickson.
Una let her eyes flutter closed. She wouldnotallow herself to think of those days. The Abbess had told her once that if shewished to banish unpleasant thoughts, she could do so if she trained her thoughts.
“Think of a wall, lass,” the Abbess had said. “Think of that and nothing else.”
Una frowned. “What sort of wall?”
She could hear the older woman’s laugh even now.
