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“Aye, I’d never forget. Not ever.” His voice comes low and raw. The way he says it—soft but weighted—means much more than the words being said.
Then he starts.
The sound is shaky at first, but it steadies as he continues. It’s a tune I remember from countless nights when fever or nightmares kept us awake—the melody of a mother’s love, now carried by the brother holding me together.
As the sharp edges of pain fade, so do I, the darkness taking me gently this time.
All that remains is the thrum of Casey’s heartbeat beneath my cheek, and the sound of sweet, familiar humming—leading me where I hope the pain can’t follow.
Finn
While Triona is in a deep slumber, I kneel beside her, carefully pulling back the fabric dressings covering her wounds. I’m prepared to change them, prepared for the pain I might find beneath, but the sight before me stills my hands mid-motion.
The wound is healing—far too quickly, impossibly so—and for a moment, all I can do is stare, disbelief rooting me to the spot.
“Callan,” I call out, my voice low, but urgent. “Ye need to see this.”
He strides over, his scowl deepening as he takes in the sight. He crouches beside me, his sharp gaze assessing her back.
The gashes, raw and angry just hours ago, are now pink, shrunken, and scabbed, as if days—no, a week—has passed since the injury. The physical truth is undeniable and jarring.
“How is this possible?”
“I dinnae ken,” I mutter, brow furrowed. My fingers hover over the wounds, careful not to touch. “This... this shouldna be happenin’. Not like this.”
“Da warned us,” he says, his tone clipped. “Said we’d encounter things movin’ forward that might make little sense—things like the body healin’ quicker than humanly possible.”
“That, and that the answers to what’s ahead lie in the mind of someone we’re meant to meet in Portugal.” He meets my eyes, and I can see the scepticism in their depths.
“Which begs the question. What’s waitin’ in Portugal, Finn?”
I stiffen, his implication stirring something akin to fury. “Why d’ye think I know?” I ask.
His expression hardens. “‘Cause ye’ve just come back from there,” he says, his voice growing cold. “So ye must ken something ye’re not tellin’ me.”
The words hit like a slap, and I recoil, his doubt carving deeper than I care to admit. My voice lowers, tight with frustration. “Have I ever lied to you, Cal?”
His refusal to answer unsettles me. Frustration laced with something darker rises, pushing me to reveal just enough of the truth I’ve been burying for years. The truth about why I never wrote, why I let my poison stay locked away, kept from spilling onto pages I could never send back to them.
“The past three years were far worse than any torment my bastard of a father ever put me through,” I say, my voice quiet, but steeped in emotion sharp enough to cut stone. “Some places Bran and I were in—there were no allies there, Callan. No kindness. No mercy. Every hardship found me, and not one spared me. So dinnae suggest I’d keep things from you now, when we need to be aligned, now more than ever. I’d never ask of you what was asked of me.”
My voice cracks slightly, but I push through, my gaze steady, even as the weight of my memories threatens to pull me under. “If I knew what was waitin’, I’d bloody tell you, you stubborn arse of a man.”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just watches me, as if he’s still deciding whether to believe me or break something. His scowl is carved from stone, but it softens—barely. No apology comes. Of course not. He’s Callan. And apologies don’t come easy to men who’ve spent their lives building walls out of pride and pain.
Instead, he shifts his attention back to Triona, but the tension between us still pulses like a wound left open.
“We need to keep movin’,” Callan mutters, voice rough. “Because whatever’s drawn to this”—his gaze lingers on Triona’s unnaturally healed skin—“it might not be far behind. And it won’t come gently.”
18
No Home, No Haven
Finn
Sunday, 4 May 1823
Just Outside of Inverness
