Chapter 54

"First things first, you are not unnatural," Calum swore as we burst into the courtyard.

The night air held me, smothered my skin with its sticky caress.

"Has she always been like that with you? Bess mentioned it, but I never thought it was that bad." Walther said. Bess elbowed him in the side and shook her head.

"She's cocked half to hell if she thinks any of us are in a state to run Ellesmure." Rupert slapped me on the back. I buckled under the force of it. "Sorry, old girl"."

"Do you mean Mama or Eilean?" Robert asked.

"Eilean, of course. You piece of —"

"What's interesting to me," Ian said, cutting Rupert off, "is how divided the court is. I've felt the schism since we've been back, but tonight serious cracks showed."

"Right," Alex said, "the women and children left behind see Eilean as the rightful Laird. The returning soldiers still back Malcolm."

"Happily, for us, those women and children are the solider's families. We could use the influence of their experiences under Eilean to change minds." Calum's eyes sparkled as the challenge opened before him.

Ian smiled at both of them with delight, enjoying the puzzle. He seemed alert, familiar. The Ian I had once known.

"I say you abscond with her," Robert suggested to Alex. "There are boats in the harbor. You could be out to sea within the hour if you don't care to take anything with you. She did once brag about retaliating against us all as Lady Leslie. Make an honest woman out of her, Alex. Give her the gift of her wildest dreams come true."

I opened my mouth to respond to that, but Bess cut me off.

"Eilean can't leave us to deal with you lot," she hissed. "We need her. She'd never forgive herself."

"Are any of us fit to rule?" John said, scratching his chin. "I was going to renounce my title, anyway. I hate this castle. All those people. The stone walls. I rather liked the wildness of the war. Meredith and I want to find some raw country and put this all behind us."

"Fitness notwithstanding, you'd have to kill your father or lobby across Ellesmure for the men to pledge fealty to someone else at the Gathering," Calum said.

"Do that," Innis growled. "The killing."

Everyone laughed at her. Their amusement was uneasy and grim.

It was extraordinary how they could talk and think for me while I stood amongst them. Had I been in a fitter state of mind, I might have railed against them with all the venom and violence raging in my heart. I might have taken hold of the conversation and proposed my own solutions, but I felt defeated. No master plan, no simple way out made itself known to me. Spent, I let them talk. Their voices swirled around me — I heard and understood none of it. Fighting to keep myself from falling into shattered pieces, I wrapped my arms around my torso and pressed my lips together. Inside I wanted to scream until my throat shredded to a pulp.

Eventually, Innis noticed my reticence and placed her hand on my shoulder. "Eilean? Can I speak to you? Alone?"

Nodding, I let her pull me to the side of the courtyard. My entire body was numb. Cold, despite the oppressive summer heat. Her hand was so hot against mine, which had turned to ice. The moonlight fell across her face with brutal clarity and she looked at me, frowning.

"Are you alright?" She asked.

A scream ripped from my chest through my throat and I howled in anguish. Any restraint or composure vanished, and I cried as if my very soul were breaking apart. The group on the other side of the courtyard fell silent. I could feel their eyes on me. They watched with varying degrees of concern.

"I don't want to think anymore," I sobbed. "If I cannot think, I cannot be angry. If I cannot think, then I cannot be sad or ashamed or livid or defeated."

I covered my face in my hands and shuddered through my tears. I felt ripped apart and broken. Unnatural, indeed; always feeling too much, saying too little. Never right. Never what someone wanted.

"Eilean, look at me," Innis said gently.

Refusing, I continued to hide behind my hands. "I wish they had died. I've wished it so many times I'm surely doomed to hell." A sob hiccuped through my chest. "I hate them as much as they hate me and yet... Dying would have been a far kinder fate than this."

I ripped at my shirt, tearing at my heart. If only I could split it from my body. Separate the feelings from where they hacked into my soul. What good was pain? What good was love? It was nothing but torment.

Innis wrapped her arms around me. Nothing needed to be said. She understood. The people we had known left for war, never to come back. In their place returned shadows of a family we did not understand. People we could not recognize.

"There is no glory in this. No honor. Not in the annihilation of their lives and my own. We're all held prisoner, now. Jailed by the memory of what might have been our futures."

Innis let me cry myself out, caught me in her arms as my legs gave out and I sank to the ground. She smoothed my hair and let me babble. When I wiped my nose on her fine silk skirt, she didn't flinch. I composed myself and tried to untangle my limbs from her hold. Alex, Calum, and Rupert rushed forward, but Innis stopped them with a shake of her head. She smiled at me, a sad smile of shared burdens.

"I ran away," she whispered. Her lips trembled and tears sparkled in her eyes. "I wasn't brave like you. I didn't stick around and fight for my home, my people."

"Your father was going to kill you," I said, shuddering as my breathing calmed down.

She shook her head, her expression full of self-loathing. "So what? Do the people of Crags Mist deserve to live under a man who would kill his daughter just to prove his dominance?"

"You can't fault yourself for staying alive, Innis."

Pressing her forehead to mine, she nodded, "And you're allowed to look at your family and hate them."

A strange calm settled over me. An acceptance. My shoulders sagged, and I felt free. "I don't hate them."

"I know," she said. "You're everything I couldn't be, Eilean. Brave and selfless. Loyal. I'd curse you for it if I didn't respect you so much."

We shared a soggy chuckle. I wiped Innis' tears from her face.

She inhaled, her breath shaky. Looking at me she bit her lip as if deciding what to say. "If it's worth anything... because I would want someone to tell me after... after what happened in the great hall."

Innis held my face in her hands and stared straight through me, urging me to listen. "You're not impossible to love, Eilean. You're very easy to love. And all of us here, in the courtyard, know that. Need you to know how much we love you."

Some final barrier inside of me broke, and I bent forward, burying my face in her skirts. The lace and silk wrinkling under me — the peach fabric ruined forever from the ground and the tears.

I needed to hear her words. I needed to be told. Her remarks, the presence of the others in the courtyard, I applied them like a salve over my broken heart. I'd patch myself back together again, knowing I was not alone.

"Hate them, love them, ignore them, coddle them. Do what you have to endure this. Runaway, if that's what you want. But you're not alone." Innis gestured to Stormway, "Everyone in that castle has your back."

I nodded, believing it. Letting the hope take root in my soul, to flower and grow and heal.

Innis laughed, "And if you ever tire of crying on Alex's shoulder, you can always come cry on mine."

"What about revenge?" I asked, hopeful. Playful. Feeling like myself again.

She smiled with all the calm of an avenging warrior. "Revenge is always acceptable."

"Thank you," I said, wiping my cheeks with my shirt sleeve.

Innis stood and did what she could to hide the spoiled knees of her skirts. She offered me a hand up, which I accepted.

"Haughty Innis McClurkin, so soft under all her frippery."

She pinned me with a withering look under flat eyebrows, "And don't you dare tell anyone."

I laughed, my heart lighting. "Your secret is safe with me,"

"Are you done crying yet?" Rupert shouted across the darkness, shifting back and forth on his feet.

The others laughed uneasily.

"No rush, of course," he added, rubbing the back of his neck.

"What? Have you settled on a half-cocked plan to save our lady, yet?" Innis shot back with nary a blink. Her disinterested, indifferent persona sliding over her like a cool breeze.

I looked at her sideways, "Are you sure you're not a MacLeod?"

Eyes heavenward, she thanked the gods she was not.