“Aye, ye did.”
“Oh, well, I must have trusted ye, then.”
He gave a quick, approving nod and turned toward the door.
Out in the hallway, a few torches were lit to light the way. Even so, with darkness falling outside and a clouded sky obscuring the moon, the halls were exceptionally shadowy. Darkness pressed in eagerly between the torches. Corners held deep pools of black, where somebody with an overactive imagination might see something terrible.
Skye did her best not to look at those shadows. She focused on Evander’s broad back ahead of her, finding his way with ease through the halls.
“Have I been to the council room before?” she asked when the silence grew oppressive.
“Oh, aye,” he responded, glancing back over his shoulder. “Ye insisted on sitting in on all the meetings. Some of me councilmen werenae pleased. Andrew Kane, for one. He was afraid ye would spy for yer braither, or for yer cousin.”
“Did he nae like me? Leah told me that he was helpful the night I disappeared.”
“That he was. He organized searches when I was too frenzied to think straight. He didnae dislike ye, lass, but I daenae think he trusted ye. Still, he will be pleased to see that ye have returned. With ye gone, war has been inching progressively closer to our doorstep, and any good councilman would want to avoid that.”
They took a sharp right and then a narrow corridor that opened back up onto the Great Hall. Skye shrank back at the expanse of darkness. The torches, occasional braziers, and the flickering candle Evander was holding did little to ward off the shadows.
The ceiling, already vaulted so high above their heads, was a mass of darkness. All around them, shadows flickered. A few soldiers stood in the pools of light, smothering yawns. They blinked and straightened up when Evander walked by, watching him expectantly as if hoping to be commended on their diligence.
“Here is the council room,” Evander said, stopping outside a tall, wide door. He fished out a rusted brass key from his pocket and turned it with an echoing grate in the lock. “There’ll be no lights in here.”
The door opened, as he’d promised, into blackness. He set the candle down on something, and she shuffled after him into the room, blinking around.
As her eyes adjusted to the dark, lit only by the candle, she began to remember.
There is the councilmen’s table. It’s round, so that no councilman feels above the others. The large chair belongs to the Laird. I had an ordinary chair set beside him; I remember that. Nothing special, just a chair, but I insisted that I would sit beside him, at the table, and nae be shunted off to the side.
In the middle of the table, a detailed map of the Highlands was pinned in place. Reading the names and finer details was impossible in the weak candlelight, but Skye ran her fingers over the parchment anyway, sounding off the names of clans and counties in her mind.
She glanced up to find Evander watching her.
“Ye remember this place?”
She nodded wordlessly.
“Good. This is where we signed the marriage contract. Then we showed it to the councilmen the next day. Andrew Kane was the one who looked it over.”
“I’ve met him, but we’ll have to sit down for a proper meeting sometime.”
“I’m sure he’ll insist on it.” Evander chuckled. “He told me that he would stay away until ye had recovered. For fear that ye would remember all the arguments ye two had had, he said. Yer recovery is the most important thing here.”
Skye gave a wry smile. “That was thoughtful of him.”
“Aye, he’s a kind man. Come, this is the storage room.”
Picking up the candle, he led her through the chamber to where a smaller, narrower door sat deep in the wall. Skye stepped away from the table with reluctance.
Memories came back thick and fast. There she was, arguing with a man over the importance of feeding the poor.“Nay,”she had said.“It isnae too much. These people are starving.”
She remembered Evander lounging at her side, staying silent. That was until one of the councilmen spoke too sharply to her, and he fixed the man with a long, level look.
At once, silence fell, and the man wilted, sinking back into his seat.
“Get carried away, did ye?”echoed Evander’s voice in his head.“Apologize to Lady Skye. She’ll be Lady Bryden soon enough. Daenae pick holes in her motivations. This will be her clan, and she wants the best for it. Now, leave so we can review the marriage contract.”
And they did,Skye thought, swallowing hard.As for me, I saw all the improvements I could make and how I could bring peace between all three clans—MacCrimmon, Bryden, and MacColl. I had a plan. Is that why I married him?
