Her hand shook as she reached forward, but Flynn steadied her wrist.
“Slow, lass. Let it come to you.”
The first bundle slid forward easily, as if Fiona herself had placed it there yesterday.
Heather rested it on her lap.
Inside the chamber, the torchlight skimmed something else—
A small iron box, plain but sturdy, with edges softened by age.
Flynn reached in, lifting it with both hands.
“Feels heavy,” he muttered. “But not… coin-heavy.”
“Maybe not the gold,” Heather whispered, heart racing. “Maybe something that leads to it.”
Flynn set it gently beside her. “Open the linen first.”
Heather swallowed hard, sliding her fingers under the cord. It snapped like old straw. She unwrapped the cloth layer by slow layer—her breath shaking, torch trembling.
The last fold fell away, and her vision blurred.
Inside lay a cracked leather map case, a bound packet of letters sealed with red wax stampedCM, astrip of tartan cloth,green and blue and black—Mackenzie colors—singed at one corner, and a folded parchment labeled in delicate 18th-century script:
For my daughter. And for her daughter. And for the daughters who follow.
Heather’s throat closed.
“Fiona had a daughter,” she whispered.
Flynn brushed her back. “Aye. And she wantedyouto know.”
Her tears hit the cloth, darkening the tartan.
“Open the parchment,” Flynn said softly.
Heather did.
The handwriting was unmistakable—
Fiona’s.
Heather read aloud, voice breaking:
To the lass who bears my name or my blood,
If these words have reached you, then the world has lasted longer than our battle. You are proof that the line endured when all else failed.
The hope we kept is still yours to keep.
If the thistle endures, follow it home.
— Fiona Cameron Mackenzie
Heather covered her mouth with her hand, shaking.
The loops and slants of the ink were impossibly familiar. Eilidh’s handwriting had carried echoes of this. Heather’s breath trembled.
