Chapter 51

Alex and I found Ian first, idling in the great hall, picking at the remains of his lunch. Calum sat at the head table with him. My friend lounging in the Laird's seat like an indulgent prince and watching my brother intently. He raised his eyebrows at me as I walked in.

"Calum?"

He swung his legs off the armrests and back onto the floor. "Forgive me for keeping watch. All is not well in paradise," he said archly.

"Then we're having a similar day." I quipped.

Calum narrowed his eyes and nodded.

"Was there some kind of... commotion?" Alex asked.

"John had a fit," Ian said, his voice dead and dull. He hadn't looked up at us as we entered, but he was clearly conscious of our conversation. The double meaning of our words.

"A fit?" I asked. Damn me, but I looked to Calum for an explanation and not my brother.

"A sort of... hallucination? I guess? He thought he was back in the war. Screaming at everyone, throwing plates around." Calum explained.

"Have you seen this in your own men?" I asked under my breath.

Calum shook his head, "No, fair lady." His expression was troubled. Dark brows low and furrowed, an uneasiness in his black eyes. "This is something unique."

I looked at Ian, recognizing that he was in bad shape. His posture was stooped and his eyes unseeing, but I needed answers and he would have to talk. In a way, I was glad it was Ian. Of all my brothers, I had the best relationship with him. Or I had. With his medical training and extensive knowledge, he seemed like the person most capable to explain.

"Ian," I said, pulling over a chair and sitting in front of him. "We need to talk about some things."

Alex sat down beside me. Calum moved a few seats down to sit by Ian's side.

Ian looked up sluggishly. Turning his honey-colored eyes toward me with a slow, tired roll. He was past thirty now. The face that high cheekbones and quizzical brows had once defined was now gaunt. Those lovely cheeks sunken in and tight against his bones. A jagged scar ran across his jaw, bright red, and angry it stretched from his ear to his chin. I hadn't noticed it yesterday, but he had taken the effort to shave and now it was on display. Up close, his crooked nose looked worse than it had in the courtyard. Battered, busted, flat against his face — a feeble platform for his glasses. His hair, which used to gleam like a bright fire, was now the color of dull rust, streaked with gray. It hung shaggy and misshapen around his chin as if he had hacked the ends of it off out of need, not style. Once brilliant, teeming with energy, he now seemed detached. Lost.

I swallowed back my shock at seeing him so changed. I forced myself to stare at his eyes and his eyes only, to resist the temptation of roving up and down his form to uncover other scars — physical or otherwise. What had the war done to my family if it could take so greedily from one man?

Alex rested his hand on my knee. When I looked at him, his face was somber.

"Eilean," Ian drawled, looking at me without feeling. Without recognition. He scoffed and brought his fork down hard against the plate, spearing a half-eaten sausage with brute savagery. "Did you need something?"

I let out a breath, accepting the thought that my brother might be... confused as my father was. Everything I thought I knew about Ian went out like a match.

"It's about Father," I said, watching as Ian stabbed the sausage over and over. "Does he seem... or rather, have you noticed that..." Gulping, I could not finish my question. I was too embarrassed. For myself, my father, and the once-whole brother now broken in front of me.

Alex, sensing my hesitation, spoke. "Ian, has your father been ill? Perhaps for some time? Blurring reality with the past? He just asked to speak with Thomas, and he confused Eilean and your mother. His mood seemed to turn without warning."

Calum met my stare and mouthed an apology. I shook my head and looked down.

Ian laughed and stabbed his knife into the table, giving me a half-crazed look. "We're all touched, sister. Though, I think we all thought we could hide it longer than half a day."

I retreated, pushing against the back of the chair, frightened by the coldness in him. The desolation behind his eyes.

Ian took the sausage in his fingers and bit into it, his brows flattening as he chewed. For a moment, there was a respite, and his face softened. He smiled, and it was so close to who he had once been that my heart ached.

"Father lost his grip after Thomas died," he answered. "That's when we went into the woods." A shudder ran down Ian's body.

Reaching under the table, I held Alex's hand. Finally, I might learn the secrets of my family's long disappearance.

"We heard you were lost," Calum said, his voice gentle. "What happened? Can you tell us, Ian?"

Ian held Calum's stare for a long moment as if sizing him up. "I met you," he said, his voice childlike.

"You did. You sent me a riddle so that your sister might trust me when I came to Stormway." Calum said with an encouraging nod. He rested his hand on Ian's shoulder. "I thought you were a fine man. Your sister is a great credit to you, too. Eilean told me how you were responsible for her schooling."

Ian looked at me, at Alex, and then laughed to himself. "What is the Lord of the Fist's weakness?"

Calum smiled, a dazzling, beautiful smile. His focus never left my brother. "I think we all know."

"Aye," Ian said with a dark chuckle. He turned back to consider Calum, to weigh the support and compassion in his eyes and the softness of his features.

Watching Calum in action, seeing the way he could foster trust and understanding with a mere stranger, made my heart swell. This was my spy, the man fighting for my legitimacy. The Laird who had seen promise in me and never doubted my ability. I loved him for it, his undying friendship and goodness.

Ian saw what he wanted in Calum's face and he nodded. Turning away from the other man, his vision seemed to go somewhere far, far away. His jaw relaxed. Staring down at his plate, he seemed to struggle between what he wanted to say and the memories behind his eyes.

When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. "There was a storm. The likes of which I have never seen before. It was at the capital. There had been a massive battle, the largest one yet. The mud in the field was six inches in blood and the flies feasted on the blood and shit that dried on our skin. Everything itched. But the storm... the winds were so strong that it whipped through the ash and debris of the battlefield. Bodies, and parts of bodies, flew on that evil wind. The battle had backed us up against The Blackwood Forest and the storm came on so suddenly that we couldn't see anything but ash and smoke and rain and gore."

I swallowed. My imagination of it was already too brutal to bear.

"One minute we were standing on a battlefield, knee-deep in hell, and the next everything was gone. Washed away by rain and wind. A messenger told us the army was retreating through the forest." Ian looked up, shaking his head. He looked at Alex, bafflement writ across his features. "But that can't be right."

Alex explained to Calum and me, "No, that can't be right at all. No one goes into The Blackwood. No one who wants to live, anyway."

Ian grunted. "They say it's haunted by a menagerie of wicked beasts."

"And the wild clansmen," Alex added.

When Calum and I looked at him, Alex explained there was a large population of people who lived in the Blackwood. They were crafty and bloodthirsty. Men and women who refused to be governed by the Mainland. Before the first Lords built their castles, they had run into the forest and claimed it as their own. An uneasy truce remained between them and the Mainlanders. Stay out of the woods and stay alive. "If you're foolish enough to go hunting in The Blackwood, you stand little chance of ever coming back out again."

I lifted a brow. "Truly, Alex? Fairy stories and ghost tales?"

He acquiesced my suspicion with a wry smile. "We use the stories to keep little children from wandering too far into the woods. But The Blackwood extends quite extensively into my own territory and we've had our fair share of... incidents."

"Aye, incidents," Ian shivered again. "One night in The Blackwood was enough to make me believe in your so-called fairy stories and ghost tales, Eilean. The shadows, the howling of creatures, the way the moonlight and wind play tricks on your senses. The muffled sobs of the man sleeping next to you wake you in the dead of night. In the morning, you realize his heart has been carved out of his chest, the organ nowhere to be found. His stunned, frozen stare is the first thing you see when you wake." Ian shook his head, "There is evil in The Blackwood and you only survive by luck."

"How long were you in there?" I asked.

"The whole time." He gulped. "Four years, apparently. When we wandered out and spoke to some farmer a few months ago, we could gauge the time based on his knowledge of the battles. We retreated in the thick of battle and came back to peace. Not only that, we went in at the Capital and came out on the eastern fringe of The Fist."

Alex inhaled sharply. "Hundreds of miles!"

"You could have told me I was in there for an eternity and I would have believed you. A lifetime or a matter of seconds, it doesn't matter in The Blackwood. There is no day and there is no night. Just survival."

We sat in silence, the horrors of my brother's tale chilling us to the core. Ian took a long time before he spoke again.

"We lost half our men in the woods alone. Father cracked up early on. He was one of the first. Muttering and raving while the rest of us tried to keep our wits about us." Ian shrugged. "Maybe it was grief. Maybe one of our nighttime visitors poisoned him. I don't know. None of us truly survived. We're alive, but... at what cost?"

"Was there combat? With the clansmen?" Alex asked.

"Things... happened in the woods. Terrible things. Call it combat if you want." Ian looked down at his plate.

Tears slipped down my cheeks. I was heartbroken for the shattered promise of who my brothers had been. The damned remnants of them that had returned.

Ian fell into himself, pulling back further and further into a dreamscape that was no doubt preferable compared to this conversation. He hummed a marching tune and swayed back and forth to the beat.

With a nod at Alex and Calum, I stood, walking out of the great hall with some urgency. I would spare my brother's dignity enough to keep him from seeing me fall to pieces in his state.

In the hall, I trembled, shaking from head to toe. The brightness and sunshine amazed me. I had forgotten the normal world. Was that a laundress walking across the courtyard with a posy in her hair and a smile on her face? Did she understand the horrors and tragedy that now infested this house?

"Are they all like that?" I gasped at Calum, barely able to breathe.

Calum inclined his head, "The displays at lunch were concerning."

Alex shook his head, cursing and kicking at the floor.

Outside, in the open air, it was easier to breathe. I clung to the routine and order that had been my lifeline so many times before. The purpose that numbered my days and made it possible to endure the unimaginable. I looked at Alex and Calum, suddenly clear-headed and determined.

"We change nothing about how we run the estate. Let my father think he is calling the shots but..." I ran my hands through my hair, "... we are ruined if we leave things in his hands."

Alex agreed, the line of his mouth taught. "It's for the best."

I could only stare into his piercing gaze, the one that asked if I was going to be fine. The look that needed to know what was happening in my head. I didn't have an answer for him.

"In that case, I will get to the fields," he said, observing me carefully.

I sighed, thankful for the work, the distraction that a day's labor would be. "Yes, perfect." I looked to Calum, "I suppose we should go visit Innis in her libraries and see what she can find as a cure? Angus will need to step up security, too."

Calum offered me his arm. I took it, glad for his steady support.

"See you at dinner," Alex said, kissing me. He shared a tense nod with Calum. "If you need me, I'm here."

"I'll keep her steady," Calum promised, patting my hand.

"Let's get to work," I said with a firmness that I didn't feel.

"There she is, the taskmaster," Calum laughed, his smile and his tone a touch too bright to be real.

"I can't wait to hear her rave about the cost of the welcome home party," Alex grinned. "The miser."

Their reassurances were like a tonic, soothing me, distracting me. Pulling me from the dark promise of my brother's story. Somewhere, somehow, there was a solution. My heart lifted, and I was glad to know I was not alone.