Page 36 of Trapped By the Exiled Bastard

Elin stood at the boundary for a moment, transfixed. Because she knew where she was.

This wasn’t just any village, but one she’d seen not too long ago.

It was Caldershore, the place where the friendly tailor, Stephen, had complimented her, where Keir had saved her. And now it was burning. Someone screamed, and she snapped out of it, rushing forward to help without knowing how she possibly could. She reached a group of women hoisting water from the saltwater loch in buckets and she joined them, carting the heavy water to and fro as she tried to douse the flames of one house after another. It was torturously slow work, but as soon as one building went out, she ran to the next.

She was further into town when she saw the Grant men standing over a huddled group of people. Bodies lay off to the side, wide-eyed and emaciated, some burned and some wounded, and the guards grabbed another man by the shirt, forcing him to stand. Even through the smoke, Elin recognized the tailor instantly. His face was bruised and his arm hung at an odd angle, but Stephen stared defiantly into the face of the soldier who was holding him.

“Look at yer people!” the soldier spat. “All of ye, look at what has become of this village. Ye, who would harbor enemies of the Grants. Ye, who would protect the traitors who call themselves the Broken Blades! Until ye give them up, we will kill ye one by one. The men first. Then the women. Then the children. Is their pathetic rebellion really worth the lives of yer friends? Yer families? Yer town burns around ye, and yet ye continue tae hide them!”

“We’re nae hidin’ anyone!” a young voice screamed from the crowd. Elin looked and saw a boy there, no older than fifteen, pleading desperately. “Please, we dinnae ken where they are. If we did, we—”

His words were cut off in a grunt of pain as another soldier kicked him hard in the stomach. He fell to the sides while the men laughed and some of the other villagers gathered around him. “Speak when ye’re spoken tae,” the soldier said coldly.

Stephen went slack in the first soldier’s grip, staring back at the boy. The Grant man shook him by the shirt and forced him to look back at him. “Yer turn,” he said. “Ye get one chance. Where are the Broken Blades? Theon MacKenzie. His bastard brother. Their followers. Where are they?”

“I dinnae ken,” Stephen said, his voice low and clear. “But even if I did, even if any of us did, we’d tell ye tae go tae hell. This is our village!”

A cheer rose up. The guard snorted, then, in a flash, he’d plunged a knife into Stephen’s side. He released him, and the tailor collapsed to the ground.

“Nay!” screamed Elin, running into the fray before the guards could turn on the rest of the villagers.

She threw herself down on her knees at Stephen’s side, ignoring the shock of the soldiers and villagers alike, and turned him so she could see his wound. It was deep, but she let out a small sigh of relief as she saw that it hadn’t hit anything vital. He would need care to survive it, but he wasn’t dead yet. She tore off a strip of her skirt and bound the wound tight. All she could do was stop the bleeding. She’d need a healer to do the rest.

The soldier who had stabbed Stephen grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up. “What’s this?” he demanded, sweeping her hair out of her face. “A wee prize for us?”

Another of the men swore. “Andrew, that’s her. His whore.”

Elin bristled and gritted her teeth. The soldier holding her, presumably Andrew, relaxed his hand and peered at her face for a moment, then laughed. “By God, so it is! What are ye doin’ here, wee Ella?”

“Me name is Elin,” she retorted furiously. “Why are ye hurtin’ these people? Why have ye burned their village? They dinnae ken anythin’ about the outlaws ye’re after. Why can ye nae leave them alone?”

Andrew snorted. “For what? Tae let them go back tae lives of misery? Tell me, Elin, do ye weep whenever we shoot a rabbit for supper as well? This is Grant land, and these people are nothin’ but Eamon’s game. Ye ken that.”

“They’re people,” Elin snapped.

“This village is an eyesore. If they’re hidin’ the outlaws, more the better. If nay, we’re tae rid the world of it so that we can build something new,” Andrew said. “Those are our orders, and we will obey them.”

Ice trickled down Elin’s spine and pooled in her stomach at the casual cruelty of the words. For it wasn’t this Andrew or the rest of these men from whom it came, not really. They echoed the words of their leader, the man they would follow to the grave. Eamon. These had been Eamon’s orders. This had been Eamon’s doing. Every death, every loss, every house crumbled to the ground. Eamon had ordered them without even the slightest thought of pity in his heart. Perhaps he had never had a heart at all.

Something left Elin then. She was no longer angry or scared, no longer upset or pulsing with adrenaline. She felt hollow, as though the only thing holding her together had at last been torn away. She’d been wrong about Eamon, so wrong for so long.

She’d known him callous, but she’d thought that he was a decent sort amongst the lairds and their sons, the kind who was cold, but not cruel. She’d thought of him as a protector, even when she was disgusted with some of his other behavior. In her own way, she’d encouraged him, agreed with him, and been behind things like this happening again and again. How many other villages had he burned? How many other lives had he taken while she had been sharing his bed?

“Let these people go,” she said flatly. “Let them tend tae their wounded and extinguish their houses and bury their dead. The Broken Blades arenae here, and ye ken it as well as I do. Leave them tae hold on tae what little remains of their lives. If ye do this—if ye promise the people of this village will be safe from any further harm—I will give ye somethin’ that Eamon will value more than eradicatin’ any eyesore on his land.”

“Oh aye?” Andrew asked. “And what would that be?”

She took a deep breath. “Me,” she replied. “I’ll give him me.”

Keir had been tracking the footsteps and other signs for so long that he wasn’t even sure where he was headed, but when drops of blood started to join the crushed leaves, he renewed his efforts. What remained of his heart was still screaming in agony, but he refused to acknowledge it, refused to think of her at all, until he’d found his brothers.

It didn’t matter what happened to him, not now, but he could not rest until he knew that at least some of them were alive and safe. He’d hoped to find Nightwind’s hoofprints and try to understand why Theon and Briana had abandoned them, but it had proven impossible. Instead, he was trailing someone who had staggered through the woods, and he prayed to God or anyone who was listening that it was Graeme who waited there.

He emerged into a clearing as the blood drops congealed into bigger splatters and saw a figure collapsed right at the center wearing familiar torn clothing. With a sharp breath, he rushed to the still man’s side and gently turned him onto his back.

It wasn’t Graeme. It was Noah. And he was breathing.

Keir swore to himself, partly in fear for the extent of Noah’s wounds and partly in shock and relief that his friend’s chest was still moving, ever so slowly, with lifegiving breaths. He set to work at once, launching into the woods to find whatever he could to try to help. He remembered walking with Elin as she told him about the plants she’d use to treat the girls at the orphanage, and while her memory pained him, he forced himself not to forget. This leaf. That flower. Perhaps, even though she had betrayed them, she could still help him save Noah’s life. Surely she owed them at least that much before she went back to her comfortable life.