"What?"
"They claimed the men were only there to help protect the land whilst your father was ill, but then they started to take over the patrols, to push out Henderson soldiers... They were taking the castle by subtle force before Anderson arrived."
"Anderson?" Belle had heard that name before but in the mad panic of their escape, she could not place it. She was too focused on making sure she did not trip over her own feet or collide with anything that would make a noise.
"Laird Anderson of the South," Coira confirmed, stopping again to check the next turning. "He arrived only daylight hours after the Hunter militia. They've been fighting for a while."
So ithadbeen fighting that she had heard. A fight to liberate the castle and her father from the clutches of the Hunters.
"Wait!" Belle suddenly drew Coira to a stop, tugging on her arm and looking out toward the west wing. "My father, the laird...is he alright? Has he been rescued?"
Coira's face was one of strained apology. She was loyal to her laird and clearly struggling with her abandonment of him.
"I do not know, my lady. I can only see to what I can. My task was to retrieve you."
"Your task?"
Coira's face brightened.
"Sir Munro. He told me to find you."
"Henry is here?"
"Is he here? Mistress, he'sleadingthe charge!Heis the one who brought Laird Anderson! I don't know how he got there and back so quickly—the man must have angel wings on his feet—but it’s him, sure as I know my own name. I was on the grounds when the attack came upon us, and he found me by chance. I was told to reach you and get you out."
Belle did not need to listen further. She was instantly running.
"Wait, my lady!" Coira called after her, sprinting in her wake.
"I cannot leave a sick man to be murdered in his own bed, Coira! I'm getting my father, and then I'm finding Henry!"
How she planned to carry an invalid from the grounds, Belle had no idea, but she would work it out as she went.
"Mistress, we were told to leave!"
Dangerous energy was flooding Belle's body, causing her to laugh as she darted around the far corner blind, leaped over a fallen suit of armor, and continued charging onward.
"Henry knows I don't do what I'm told, Coira!" she called over her shoulder.
By the time they got to her father's ailment room, the noise of battle had grown much louder. Cries of the injured and the dying seeped in through the windows, and a mighty crash somewhere in the center of the building told Belle that they had just stormed through the front doors.
Throwing her shoulder against the door to the laird's room, Belle came up short when she found the chamber empty.
Coira, rushing into her back and stumbling to a stop at her shoulder, gasped in Belle's ear.
"He's gone!"
"Henry must have him."
"What?"
"Henry will have him!" Belle repeated. Spinning on her heel again, Belle rushed out of the room, down the hallway, and headed straight for the main staircase in the foyer. "Quickly, Coira! He cannot carry my father alone. He'll need help!"
Battle or no battle, the front gates were the closest path out of the building.
"My lady, wait! You do not know that for true! You cannot just go running into the fray!"
Such reason was entirely lost on Belle. She had ignored her instincts once before when she signed that agreement. She would not do so again. And her instincts told her that Henry had her father. Two rescue missions, carried out by two people who were neither dressed nor armed as soldiers. He had sent Coira for her, and he had gone for her father. It was the logical choice. The most efficient plan. She could read Henry in every choice of it.
