Chapter 44

A wicked wind blew against me, threatening to knock me sideways. My cloak snapped around me, the wool knocking against my leather boots. Wool and leather squelched in the ankle-deep snow. Locks of my hair pulled free from my braid and stuck to my face with clinging wetness. A dull, hot blaze settled into my toes; the confusing sensation of burning as my feet succumbed to frostbite.

Standing at the top of a stony overlook, peering down across the lowlands, I wait. I watch. It is futile. In the blizzard conditions, I could hardly see my hand in front of my face, let alone the dark outline of trees visible between gusts of swirling flurries.

"Eilean!" Someone's voice is a distorted howl in the wind.

"Eilean?" The cry came again, more confused as if my pursuer lost sight of me.

"Here!" I shouted, sparing a glance over my shoulder.

A heartbeat later, Alex stood by my side, huffing. His cheeks were rosy and raw. He grabbed my arm, pulling and twisting, forcing me to face him.

"Get inside, now." He shouted over the storm. "Darkness is falling. You will catch your death out here!"

The wind ripped all sound from his words. Snow crystalized in his beard and he held his hat on his head with a mittened hand. The brim flapped, ready for flight.

I stole one last, lingering look down over the lowlands before admitting defeat, nodding my head. I allowed Alex to guide me back to the castle, our steps slow and plodding over the deep drifts.

Once inside, I rush to a porter standing near the main door.

"Please! Has there been any news?" I asked, frantic.

"No, ma'am." The boy answered, his face grim. The kid could not be any older than fifteen, but he straightened his shoulders and looked at me in the eye. "I will send word as soon as we hear, my lady."

I nodded, pulled along by Alex.

"Eilean, come on, you need dry clothes."

In my rooms, I sat dazed as Alex stripped off my sodden boots, socks, and pants; rolling dry, warm stockings up over my chilled legs. He pulled off my wet cloak and remaining clothes, passing me a flannel nightgown that had been hanging before the fire. It slipped over my frozen skin like a cocoon, bringing warmth back into my body.

Alex held my face tenderly in his hand, brushing back the curls that still clung to my cheeks. Deftly, he swept my hair back, braiding it and pinning it into a bun high on my head.

I might have fallen asleep, might have succumbed to the cold deep in my bones, the icy wet that still clung to my chilled flesh like a sticky resin. For, the next thing I realized, I was coming out of a trance by a too-hot fire. I held a mug of tea I did not remember accepting and a heavy blanket rested on my shoulders. Alex sat beside me, staring into the fire, as still as a statue.

Raising the cup to my lips, I drank, grimacing as the tea scalded my throat. I welcomed the pain, welcomed its warmth and soothing herbal familiarity. My movement was enough to pull Alex's attention away from the flames.

"Warm?" He asked, watching me carefully.

"Sweating," I admitted, pushing the blanket off my shoulders. "What time is it?"

"Nearly seven, they'll serve dinner soon." The hollowness of his voice was confirmation enough that nothing had changed.

I bit the inside of my cheek, worry overtaking me. It had been twelve hours, then.

The entire estate had been in turmoil, waiting for the return of a hunting party. They had left before dawn with plans to return by mid-day. The weather this morning had been bright, clear. Cold, but quiet. Around lunch, a violent storm blew in, blanketing the sky in darkness and dropping multiple feet of snow in less than an hour. The accumulation was relentless, helped by a cruel wind into drifts that could swallow a person whole. Landscapes, trails, roads — all obscured. In shoring up the castle, I had fallen into a drift myself, sucked into a shoulder-deep tomb of wet snow.

At first, no one worried. The party was only hunting in the nearby lowlands. Then one of the hunters returned. Windburn and frostbitten, the girl was surprised to find that none of the others had made it back. She had been separated from the group in the whiteout, attributing her successful return to nothing more than luck.

A heated discussion had begun about whether we should send out a search party. After a few rounds of terse debate, Angus, Alex, Innis, and I decided it was far too dangerous. Our only hope was to wait and rely on the skill of the hunters.

I blanched again at the thought of them, mere children who had grown up without the benefit of their huntsmen fathers to teach them the survival and navigational skills that might need to save their lives. Another terrible legacy of the war exposed.

~

The evening passed in tense apprehension. Alex and I, reluctant to be anywhere but with our people, ate dinner in the kitchens with the servants. Usually a bustling, raucous meal, it had been still and silent. Knives and forks scraped across plates in a way that made nerves tight. More than one person was cursed at for chewing too loudly or coughing.

After dinner, all of us lingered in the kitchen. There was comfort in numbers that night. Innis held my hand, her leg bouncing. Alex frowned at the nothingness outside the window, sitting on top of one table. His knee pressed into my shoulder, anchoring me. Eventually, the servants left to sleep. Angus went to check the guard towers for the twentieth time that night.

"The only bright spot in this day is that the mail came before the storm," Innis whispered. "My father's henchmen died at sea. Their boat capsized." She tittered a brittle, nervous laugh.

I marveled at her, shaking my head. A scrape of a laugh rasped out of me.

With a frosty smile, she squeezed my hand and made her excuses to leave.

Only Alex and I remained in the kitchen. Remained on watch. Soon, it was well past midnight. The candles and fire burned low, making the room dance with tall, flickering shadows. A bitter wind found entrance through chinks around the windows and doors. The sound was mournful and fierce. It needled my nerves into a sharp point.

Occasionally, a servant would shuffle through, whispering, "Are they back?"

We had no news for them.

Sitting at a well-worn table in the middle of the room, Alex watched the embers of the fire give up their life in a swirling, majestic death dance. I watched him, memorizing the sorrow on his face, the deep crease forming between his brows. I reached for him, laid my hand atop his. It was dry and hot under my own clammy skin.

"It's possible they made a shelter. They're just waiting it out. Hunters are smart, they understand the elements." I repeated the sentiments that had been intoned all day. A lulling rationalization that was half comfort, half persuasion. A repetitive and desperate prayer.

Alex jumped at my voice and turned to look at me, blinking a few times as if he had forgotten my presence. "You're right," he said, forcing a smile. His eyes were clouded and distant. Unseeing.

I tried to smile, but I couldn't force my face into the correct shape.

"I never realized how much I could care," I whispered. To him. To myself. To the empty room. It didn't matter who heard.

"You employ them, work beside them. Together, you build a life. Watch as they grow up, marry, have their own children, and suddenly... they're a part of you. Your heart. Your soul." I bowed my head. A tear slipped free and ran down my cheek.

They weren't just hunters. They were Thomas, and Rolfe, and Mary, and Eliza. Michael, Ana, Gabriel, and Matthew. Men and women I had sweated and starved with. Bled and tilled the earth beside. Danced with, drank with, laughed with. Children I had educated. And it wasn't just the hunters, it was the maids, the cooks, the farmers, the teachers, the midwives. Every member of Stormway, every citizen of Ellesmure. My family.

I no longer had a family of blood. I was a rootless tree. The Islanders were my family. They helped me, pushed me. Ellesmure had become a place where I knew everyone, understood their bloodlines, and they knew me. A place and people that had formed into a collective unit. Once, because we had to work together to survive. Now, because we were driven by pride. No famine, no war, no blizzard could stop us.

Alex said nothing, but I knew he felt the same. He, a Mainlander who might have been my greatest enemy, was my greatest support.

My thumb rubbed against his callused palms. I could read his commitment to my land, my people, on his body as easily as I could on my own. The sunburns and blisters. The strength of muscles.

Overcome with emotions both lovely and harrowing, I stood. I added a few logs to the fire and stoked it until it burned bright and hot. I stood, watching, allowing the warmth and crackling sounds to wash over me. A gust of wind sent a sharp shiver down my spine. The cry of the air sounding like a desperate plea: marry me.

My heart hammered in my chest and I stilled.

Did I say it? Did he? Had I imagined the voice? The sigh might have been a trick of the wind. It might have been my voice begging for release.

I turned, finding Alex close behind me. Deep need blazed in his eyes.

I swallowed, fearful of speaking lest I detour fate.

Alex pressed his forehead to mine, caught my hands, and pulled our fists against his chest. "Marry me, Eilean."

He was begging, I realized. His eyes were closed, his voice soft. A hint of a sob broke as he said my name, voicing this forbidden plea.

The sound of a thundering storm filled my ears and my mind went blank. My eyes widened in surprise, and I wanted to laugh with delight. I almost whooped for joy. My heart lept into my throat and tears sprang to my eyes.

Alex closed the final distance between us, his lips pressing against my own. A question. An invitation.

My body was prepared to give its answer.

Alex's hands swept to the back of my head, fisting in my hair and pulling me closer. His beard was soft and prickling against my chin.

I wrapped myself around him.

It was a kiss unlike any of the others we had shared. This was no kiss of impatient passion or of frustrated, stolen moments. Not a kiss of comfort or friendship or support or surprise. There was no forgiveness in it, no teasing. Nothing withheld. This embrace, this moment, sang with permanence. Absolution. It spoke of the future. Of destiny. Of truth.

His mouth traveled along my jaw and he nuzzled into the bend of my neck, his lips tickling the alert skin where my collar gave way to my shoulder.

My body roared with desire.

We clung to each other, a writhing mess of limbs and panting. The weight of his body was like an anchor, holding me in place, prohibiting me from destruction.

Slowly, luxuriously, I slipped my fingers through his brilliant, shimmering curls. Down his arms, up under his shirt, across the hard planes of his back.

The slam of a window shutter being blown open broke the spell of the moment and we jumped apart. Startled, self-conscious, far too aware of the monumental shift that had just occurred.

I had not given an answer. He had not renewed his suit. But we were changed.

I went to the window, the icy wind blowing the heat off of my body, cooling my cheeks. I closed the shutter, double-checking the latch was secure.

When I turned, the length of the room stood between Alex and I. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I couldn't decipher his expression.

Before the bubble of regret and loathing forming in my throat could give way to words, he shook his head.

"Why?" Alex asked, barely a whisper. Barely a word.

"You know why."

The invisible shadow of darkness between us fell again, killing the happiness we might have.

Alex took a step toward me. "I'll give it up. All of it. The Fist, my title... I already have, in a way. I haven't been Lord Leslie in a long time."

A new heaviness settled over me, strangled me. I couldn't ask him to do that. I wasn't worthy of that.

"Let me be your subordinate, your consort. Let me be anything so long as I am yours." The tears in Alex's eyes glittered in the firelight.

I swallowed, forcing back the panic that made me tremble as it sunk its claws into my hopes and dreams. As it consumed the vision of what life could be that sprang to existence behind my eyes.

"I couldn't live with myself if I asked you to do that," I said, my voice scratchy.

"I'm not asking. I'm offering."

My breath came fast and ragged. I felt caged, cornered. The kitchen was enormous and Alex still stood several feet away, but I felt boxed in. The air pushed against me, squishing me into nothing. A demanding sensation would not let me accept this gift, this blessing, this joy. My very blood seemed to scream that it was wrong, wrong, wrong. That I was not deserving. My heart raced, my vision darkened. I thought my very chest would explode. My fingers and toes tingled with a million pinpricks. I was useless and stupid and ugly and nothing. The thoughts raced and raced. Alex was good and kind and lovely and brilliant. The only thing I was good for was shunting to the side. Being Forgotten. Left behind. Abandoned.

"You'll leave! Everyone leaves!" I cried, my voice scared and childlike. The words punched out of me with a force that bowed me over. I hugged myself and sobbed. "Everyone leaves me!"

That thread of pain, that festering, horrible wound that lived in my chest and mind like a dark abyss had surfaced — now, of all moments. I understood it sat last, and it was hideous. The edges of my vision were fuzzy. It felt like the room was spinning, but when I looked at my hand, to see how fast I twirled, it was flat. Steady. Aching sobs contracted my lungs, made my ribs bend and collapse.

Alex, devastation raging across his face, strode toward me, arms out, ready to hold me together.

I threw out a hand, halting him. The blackness inside of me became all-consuming. The rotten canker that had always lingered between us. The original sin. That dreaded nothingness.

"You left before," I accused, shredding my soul with each word. I grabbed at my chest, my heart fluttering. It was hard to breathe, to think, to look at him.

"Everyone leaves me," I panted, my vision collapsing to a pinprick. The light was hazy and cloudy in the room. "And I will not lose you. Not again!"

It was a reverse of his argument months ago. A backward part of my mind hissed at me, told me I was being illogical; stupid, even. I ignored it. Nothing made sense except that I was falling. Spinning. Sweating. Falling more. Shattering into pieces.

With a final gasp, my body desperate for air, I slammed to my knees. I collapsed forward. The shock of stone bit into my cheek and shoulder as the world went black.