“What? What knife wound? Who attacked ye?” Logen surged out of his chair, knelt beside her and put a hand on her arm. “Perhaps ye’d best tell me everything.” His concern swamped her. She pulled away and he allowed it, rising and resuming his seat.
Coira sighed. Could she? Recalling her past was like thinking about another person. A hateful person who had nothing to do with her.
“I...I’ll try. What did my Lathan escort tell ye?”
“That ye were ill and involved in an incident, but everyone was well. That they sent ye home to heal. I thought they meant from illness, no’ from a stab wound.”
“We didna ken each other, ye and I, before ye went to foster, then to war.” She saw him wince at that word—war—but the horror that swept through him nearly made her swoon. Her stomach roiled at the misery he radiated. Too late, it occurred to her, Logen had survived Flodden. His wounds, from what he’d been through, were deeper than hers. Yet here he was, trying to help her.
“Oh, Logen, I’m sorry.” She reached out and took his hand, heedless of her need to block his anguish. She held her breath as the anguish turned to agony. It was too much like what she had felt before the Lathan Healer had saved her. Her fists clenched, as did Logen’s, his grip crushing her hand. But the pain of the bones in her hand grinding together brought her out of their shared thrall. She fought down the pain, trying to breathe slowly to ease the discomfort.
His jaw muscled jumped, and she felt his iron control clamp down on his pain, sending it...away. How did he do that? Or had she?
“I am sorry.” He gently kneaded her hand, soothing her tensed muscles, then released it. “My demons are my own. I regret inflicting them upon ye.”
“Ye didna do it for spite, Logen.”
“But I did it. Ye felt what I feel. That’s naught a woman should ever bear.”
Despite the remnants of Logen’s pain still coursing through her, her lips twitched with amusement. “We women are stronger than ye ken.”
“Perhaps,” he answered drily.
Coira frowned at his skeptical tone.
“Go on with yer story.”
“Ye dinna believe me? Listen, then, and perhaps ye will.”
At his nod, she took a breath and continued. “I used to be a different person. Vain, quick to anger, ambitious. I think the laird who took over after...”
Nay, she would not say Flodden and bring his anguish back to the surface. “Well, he despaired of making a match for me here, and sent me to foster with the Lathans.”
Logen would understand what she meant, that most of the men were gone forever. And among those left, who would want a difficult woman?
“Of course, I presumed I was intended to wed the new Lathan, Toran. I was there for more than two years, but still he didna offer for me. Every day that passed saw me angrier and more desperate, but also more haughty. In my mind, I was already the lady of the clan. It was my destiny.
“Toran was away from the Aerie visiting another clan when a lowlander army attacked. Injured while helping defend the neighboring clan, Toran was taken prisoner. The lowlander Healer, Aileana Shaw, cared for him. He…saw in her something he wanted, so he stole her away from the lowlander army when he escaped, and brought her back to the Lathan keep with him.
“His fascination for her was evident to all and insulting to me. On the day they wed—handfasted, actually—something inside me snapped.”
“It must have been difficult for ye.”
The fact that Logen felt sympathy for what she’d been through—what she’d inflicted upon herself—surprised her, but gave her the confidence to continue on with her tale. “So much so that the rest is too shameful to relate. I was crazed. Not myself. I felt I had nothing to lose.” She paused, considering. But his patient concern was like the calm of a tidal pool. Dared she disturb it? Yet she owed him the truth if he was to trust her. She wanted his trust. “In the end, I stabbed the Healer. To halt my attack, the arms master, Donal MacNabb, stabbed me. Toran only held his blade to my throat. The wound Donal inflicted was mortal, but the Healer wouldna let me die.” Coira rushed ahead now, to get the words out before fear choked her. “She made them help her stop her own bleeding so she could save me—the woman who’d just tried to kill her.”
“Ach, lass—”
She ignored Logen, determined to finish. “I think she sensed my anguish and healed that, as well. And left me with this ability. A gift? Or a punishment? I canna say.”
Logen’s silence unnerved her, but her other sense told her there was no disgust or dismay in his reaction. Thoughtfulness, mostly. Curiosity.
“What have ye no’ told me? I must ken it all if I’m to protect ye.”
“If ye ken it all, ye willna wish to protect me.” Fear coiled in her gut again. Fear and shame. “Instead, ye’ll wish to throw me from the cliff top and let the sea carry me away.”
“I dinna believe that.”
“If the Lathans didna tell ye, then I wish to leave all that behind me, there. Can I no’ start fresh here? I wish to believe that is what the Healer intended when she gave me this...gift.”
