The paper crackled under her hands. Good stock, careful script, but the words themselves…
She frowned. “This isn’t… Gaelic.”
The letters looked wrong. Harsh angles, unfamiliar pairings. Some lines ran almost like poetry.
Her gaze snagged on a repeated phrase, the rhythm tugging at her memory though she’d never seen the language before.
“Is that… Norse?” she asked slowly.
“Aye,” he said. “Old tongue. The Prince has a fondness for old songs and older codes.”
“Of course he does,” she muttered. “Princes are never simple.”
She squinted, lips moving as she sounded out a line. “‘Galleys with good oars… sail tae distant shores…’”
She stopped, skin prickling.
“It’s a verse,” Harris said quietly. “An auld one. Means more than it says.”
“To who?” she demanded.
“To the man readin’ it,” he said. “To ‘H.M.’”
He tapped the initials at the bottom of the page, scrawled in the same hand as the rest.
Her breath caught. “That’s you.”
He didn’t deny it.
“What does it mean then?” she asked, voice steady now. “Beyond the riddles.”
Harris read the message again, thumb pressed hard against the crease.
“It means,” he said at last, “the Prince is headin’ for the sea. For Skye.”
Her heartbeat kicked up. “Skye.”
“Aye. I’ll go on west through Arisaig. Then across.”
She nodded once. Decisive.
“Good. I’ll pack the horse.”
Harris stilled.
“Fiona…”
Warning. Weariness. Something else?
She arched a brow. “What? Ye think I came this far to turn back now?”
“That’s not what I—”
“I followed ye from Inverness,” she cut in. “Tracked ye through the Highlands, stitched ye up and dragged your heavy carcass out o’ that cursed loch. I’m not done.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
She could almost see the arguments forming, dying, reforming behind his eyes.
