Page 134 of Laird of Flint
He let the scroll fall from his fingers.
Carenza was saying something to him. But he was deaf to everything but the clanging of that name upon his armored heart.
Gellir.
Gellir.
Gellir.
He was beyond hurt. Beyond betrayal. Beyond rage. Beyond feeling.
Slowly, as if he moved through muck, he shouldered his axe and pushed through the doors of the great hall.
The sky was black. The clouds hung low. It was raining again. But he felt neither the wet nor the cold.
Anger burned low inside him like a glowing coal.
He strode across the courtyard, through the gates, past the road, over the rain-slick sward, climbing higher and higher, until it seemed he might be swallowed up by the clouds.
There, at the top of the mountain, all his pain and fury sparked to life. He raised his axe and, like a dragon breathing fire, bellowed in rage at the heavens.
An instant later, the god of his ancestors replied, sending down a bolt of lightning to kiss the blade of his axe.
Hew released the weapon just before the wood handle exploded and earth-shaking thunder rumbled down. Current crackled in the air all around him as he staggered back from the snapping whip of Thor.
When the storm receded, Hew was left among the black and smoking shards of his weapon, clinging to the crushed and broken pieces of his heart.
He looked toward Kildunan. He supposed the monastery would serve as his home now until the king found a bride for him. He wouldn’t return to Dunlop. And he didn’t have the stomach to speak to his treacherous Rivenloch kin.
His mouth turned down at the unsavory thought of marriage. He would rather take a vow of chastity than settle for a bride who wasn’t Carenza.
One last bit of mockery awaited him. As he took his first steps toward Kildunan, he found a charred piece of his axe handle at his feet.
The remaining runes said Love conquers…
His words and his laughter were bitter. “Love conquers…nothing.”
He crushed it beneath his heel as he walked toward an uncertain future.
Carenza wept every night.
For her lost love.
For the king’s thoughtless decree.
For the Laird of Rivenloch’s poor judgment.
For the cruel hand of fate.
For Hew, whose heart she’d surely broken, despite the fact that he’d left without a backward glance.
And aye, even for the man she was to marry, for though Sir Gellir might claim her hand, he would never possess her heart.
But weeping upset her father and troubled the clan, so she kept her sorrow to herself. By day she was kind and sweet, patient and charming. If the sparkle in her eyes was dimmed by the mist of melancholy, only the animals could tell. Hamish came to the gate for a scratch when she was near. The courtyard squirrel shared her litter of kits. And Troye followed her around the keep.
The clan was mostly excited about the Dunlop-Rivenloch union to come. Everyone had heard of Sir Gellir, the tournament champion of Scotland. It was truly an honor to be chosen to be his wife. To carry on his name. To bear his offspring.
She’d been thinking a lot about bearing offspring lately. She’d always kept close track of her courses, and she was supposed to start her menses today.
