Heather’s pulse ticked louder with every step.
Eleanor leaned close and murmured, “This place feels like it should come with a ghost child and a warning.”
Flynn snorted softly, but his eyes were already scanning—exits, corners, shadows.
They moved deeper.
The back room sat beyond a narrow doorway, marked by a rusted sign:
TACK & EQUIPMENT — 18th Century MacDonald Estate
Heather stopped breathing.
Flynn went in first.
The room was small, lit by a single bare bulb that hummed faintly overhead. Saddles and bridles lined the walls; some hung openly, others were protected behind thin glass.
But one display case stood alone in the center.
Heather knew before she reached it.
Her body knew.
Her blood knew.
The case was long. Rectangular. The glass fogged at the corners with age.
Inside—
A saddle.
Massive. Darkened with time. Rawhide reinforced in a way that wasn’t just decorative.
And there, faint but unmistakable beneath the wear—
The Glenoran thistle.
Heather’s knees nearly buckled.
Flynn’s hand came to her back, steady and sure.
Eleanor exhaled. “Christ.”
Heather leaned forward until her forehead touched the glass.
Fiona had sat beside this.
Harris had ridden with it.
Dubh had carried it across glens and blood and exile.
Flynn crouched, eyes sharp. “See the stitching?” he murmured. “Reinforced, but not for weight-bearing.”
Eleanor leaned closer. “Hidden panel.”
Heather swallowed hard. “Fiona didn’t put everything in the hearth. Some of it—”
“—was never meant to be found there.”
