“Ye think they care about that? All these people can think about is their empty bellies and their barren harvest. They say that my parents should have had better control of Laura, that they should never have allowed the two of ye to become friends. I have to say, I agree.”
Taryn’s hands shook. It was too much. It was all too much.
James glanced down at her, as if he was truly noticing her presence for the first time since he started this awful tale. He nearly smirked when he saw her weakened stance. She supposed that this was his form of retribution, and it had its desired effect, there could be no doubt about it. Taryn swallowed hard and tried to steady herself, but all she could think about, all she kept seeing, was Laura having to face the Baron on her own.
She had thought that what she needed was the truth. She thought that if she could only understand why James was acting so strangely, that she could convince him to change his ways. Now, it was clear to Taryn that there would be no changing James’ mind. She wouldn’t even try.
“Ye wanted answers and now ye have them,” he bit out. “Allow me to make one more thing clear.”
James stepped forward, closing the gap between the end of the sword and his neck. He didn’t bother to flinch as the tip cut into the thin skin, leaving a trail of bright red blood dripping from it. It was a gruesome sight that shook Taryn to her core. She never thought that she would be one to draw blood from him, yet there she stood, unmoving.
“Ye must kill me and kill me now, Taryn,” James ordered. “Because if ye dinnae, I will never stop coming after ye. I will follow ye, track ye down, nay matter where in the world ye may go. There will never be anywhere far enough away from me to stop me from coming after ye. I will find ye and I will take yeback to the Baron if that is the last thing I do. I will see my sister free, even if I have to fight ye every step of the way.”
With every word he spoke, her heart shattered all the more. Her best friend was imprisoned in a house of horrors; the man she had once thought she loved was giving her an ultimatum between his death or her own, and her entire clan was in ruin because of her own selfishness.
“I will keep coming for ye as long as I live. So escape if ye must, but trust that I will find ye again.”
Tears started to blur Taryn’s vision. The weight of her choices sat so heavily upon her shoulders that she wasn’t sure how she was still standing.
“I will see to it that ye pay for all ye have done to my clan and my family.”
Slowly and then all at once, the tears fell from her eyes. She did nothing to stop them, her desperation for things to be different too consuming to even try. She had been right; James was still a good man. It was only a good man who would go to such lengths to save his sister, to protect his family. She understood him now completely, just as she understood exactly what she needed to do.
Unfurling her fingers, Taryn stumbled back a step or two and let the sword tumble to the ground. The snow dampened the sound of the metal hitting the earth, but from the startled look on James’ face, it might as well have been a canon going off.
“What are ye?—”
“I will nae run, James,” she told him softly, the tears still streaming down her face. “I will nae fight ye. I will nae make ye chase after me. I will nae make anyone else suffer for my mistakes any longer. I am done running.”
Three years of exile, three years of always looking over her shoulder, wondering who was out to get her came to an end right then and there. Taryn was resigned to her future. She knew thatdeath was all that awaited her, she only hoped that she would be able to make it right for her clan, for Laura. She hoped that Sorcha and Aila and the children would one day understand. But even if they didn’t, she was done running.
“I will go with ye willingly. I will give myself over to Baron Dudley. I will do whatever it takes to save Laura.”
