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Prologue

Foulis Castle, Scotland

November 8th, 1716

Steel sang in the training yard. The sound had once been music to Gavan Munro’s ears. Clean strikes, sharp grunts, boots grinding against earth, and the faint hiss of breath in cold air. It was the language of men who knew their place in the world. The only language that had ever made perfect sense.

Now it felt like mockery.

Sunlight spilled over the eastern ridge, gilding the walls of Foulis Castle in pale gold, and the frost in the bailey shimmered as if the ground itself had been strewn with crushed glass. Two young warriors sparred at the centre of the yard, their blades flashing brightly in the morning light. They moved with the hunger of youth, quick, fearless, and eager to prove they belonged among the men.

Gavan stood just beyond the ring of watchers, arms crossed tight over his chest. He should have been there. Inside the circle. Sword in hand. Blood pounding hard and steady. He should have been correcting their footwork with a barked order, showing them how to land a strike, how to keep a man’s blade away from their own ribs.

Instead, he watched.

His shoulder throbbed beneath his plaid, a deep ache that reminded him of the truth no one dared say aloud. He was not whole.

Not yet.

The scar that had pierced his shoulder had healed, but it was the inside that betrayed him. Muscle that refused to obey the way it once had. A stiffness that came without warning, sharp as a bite. A weakness that had no business living in a Munro.

He flexed his hand, feeling the faint tremor in his forearm. Anger rose . . . hot, familiar, and as steady as an old friend. Though he refused to show it. The men of Foulis watched his brother, their laird, Cameron. They watched his other brother, Kenzie. But they watched Gavan, too, as if waiting to see whether his injury had carved out the iron at his core.

It had not. If anything, it had forged it harder. A blade could be reforged after fire. So could a man.

One of the sparring warriors overreached. His opponent caught the mistake with would-be brutal efficiency, sweeping his blade aside and tapping his opponent’s chest with the flat of his sword.

“Dead,” someone murmured.

The young man flushed, jaw tightening in humiliation. He reset, more cautious now, less prideful.

Gavan almost smiled. Pain made men wise up quickly, if it did not kill them first.

A bootstep sounded behind him.

“You will wear a trench into the earth if you keep pacing like that,” Cameron said.

The warmth in his voice was familiar, but it did little to soften the sharp edge of Gavan’s mood.

Gavan did not turn at once. “If I were pacing, you would hear the stones complaining about the weight of my temper.”

“Aye,” Cameron said, coming to stand beside him. “They already do most days.” The quip earned him a faint huff of laughter, unwilling but real.

Cameron had always been able to slip a hand beneath Gavan’s guard with nothing but a few words, always been able to remind him that there was still more in life than battle and bitterness.

Cameron’s gaze drifted toward the sparring men. Then, to Gavan’s shoulder. “How does it feel this morning?” he asked, voice lowered.

“Fine,” Gavan lied.

Cameron arched a brow.

Gavan’s jaw tightened. “Not useless,” he muttered. “That is the best I can give you.”

Cameron made no attempt to hide his knowing expression. “You came back from a very serious wound.”

Gavan’s mouth went hard. That night lived in him like a lodged splinter. The crack of the pistol. The shock of impact. Heat and burning and sudden wetness. The world lurching beneath him. The taste of blood. The roar of fury in his ears.

And that face . . . Wide eyes. Fiery hair. The moment before the shot, when she had looked not like a murderer, but like a cornered animal.