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A faint shadow crossed his face. “Aye.”

“But you stayed.”

Gavan’s gaze drifted briefly towards the courthouse behind them, where guards still moved through the lingering aftermath of the fire. “Once,” he admitted quietly, “I would not have.”

The honesty of it tightened something painfully tender inside her chest.

He looked back towards her then, and in the quiet space between snowfall and the afternoon light, Sorcha realised the trial had changed more than William’s fate. It had changed the man standing before her as well. And perhaps it had changed her too.

“Come with me,” Gavan said, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.

Sorcha frowned faintly. “Where?”

“The tailor’s shop.”

Surprise flickered across her face. “Now?”

A faint shadow of warmth touched his expression despite the long day behind them. “I have a surprise for you.”

Without another word, they descended the courthouse steps together and crossed into the narrow streets of Dingwall. Guards followed at a distance behind them, close enough for protection but far enough to leave the strange quiet between them undisturbed.

The town had grown hushed beneath the snowfall. Their boots pressed softly through fresh snow as they walked side by side. They turned at last onto a quieter lane where a modest shop sat tucked between a cobbler and a candlemaker. Warm gold light spilled through the windows, illuminating bolts of fabric displayed carefully behind the glass.

Gavan pushed open the door, allowing Sorcha to step inside first. Warmth wrapped around them immediately, carrying the scents of wool, cedar, and lavender soap. Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, stacked neatly with folded cloth in every shade imaginable. Near the hearth, a man looked up from pinning a hem.

“I was hoping you would arrive soon,” the older man said, setting his sewing aside as his gaze landed fully upon Sorcha. His expression shifted to pride. “Ah. These will fit you nicely.”

Before Sorcha could question his odd comment, he disappeared briefly into the back room and returned carrying several carefully wrapped bundles in his arms.

“For you,” Gavan said simply as he accepted them and placed one of the bundles into Sorcha’s hands.

Her brow knit faintly as she looked down at the parcel. Slowly, almost uncertainly, she unfolded the first layer of cloth.

Rich green wool spilled into view, deep and elegant, the colour catching the firelight in a way her old gowns never had. Beneath it rested another gown worked in warm gold, subtle rather than extravagant, yet radiant all the same. Her fingers moved reverently across the fabric as though confirming it was real.

“These are—”

“Yours,” Gavan said quietly.

She looked up at him immediately, uncertainty flickering beneath her composure. “You did not need to do this.”

“I did.” His voice roughened slightly. “Not because you lacked. Because you deserved more than what was left to you.”

The words struck somewhere deep inside her.

“This is not charity,” he added more softly. “Nor obligation.”

When her eyes lifted to his again, something warmer lingered there now. “I know,” she whispered.

The tailor, likely sensing the need for privacy, suddenly announced he needed to check the stitching in back and vanished through the curtain without waiting for a reply.

Sorcha looked down again at the gowns in her hands, then towards the worn blue-grey dress she still wore. For one suspended moment, she stood caught between two versions of herself. As she stood there, holding the rich green wool against her chest, warmth from the shop fire brushing her skin while snow whispered softly beyond the windows, something inside her shifted quietly into place.

Not because of the gowns themselves, though they were beautiful beyond anything she had expected. And not because Gavan had purchased them for her. It was the way he looked at her. Not with pity. Not obligation. Not the guarded suspicion she had once seen in his eyes whenever her name was spoken beside her brother’s.

He looked at her as though he saw more than the woman who had arrived at Lemlair exhausted, hunted, and uncertain of her own worth.

For the first time in longer than she could bear to measure, Sorcha felt as though someone looked at her and saw not merely what she had survived, but what she might yet become.