Page 61 of A Highland Healer Captured
The yard took them back with its ordinary racket—bunting arguing with wind, boys chasing each other with reeds like swords, a woman scolding a hen that refused to admit the coop was safer than pride. Skylar kept her cloak tight and her face set, because the world did not need to be shown what lived in her hands.
Zander paused at the foot of the inner stair and grabbed the bags of supplies they had gathered that she was holding. “A word more.”
“Ye’ve a store of them today,” she said, but softer than her mouth made it sound.
He didn’t smile. “I’m grateful,” he added, roughly. “Grateful ye’ve stayed still, grateful ye saved him when I had nothing.”
“I ken it,” she said. Gratitude pressed against her skin. She wanted to shrug it off, and she wanted to keep it. Both working at once made her throat sore.
They climbed the main stair. In the passage, where the stones held other folks’ footsteps, he halted and reached into his belt. “Also, here,” he said, and put a weight in her palm.
A dirk. His. The hilt worn smooth by his hand; the blade clean and honest. It wasn’t ceremony.
Skylar stared at it, at the sheen where light caught the edge, at the scuffs on the guard that meant it had lived work, not display. “Yer givin’ me a blade?”
“Aye,” he said. “A small one. But sharp. A guest in me house should nae go without a tooth.”
“Are ye nae worried I’ll use it against ye?” she asked, testing the weight as if the question could be measured the same way.
“Nae even in the slightest, Skylar,” he said coolly. Her name on his lips sent a not so slight shiver through her body.
Heat climbed her throat, treacherous and sweet. She sheathed the blade and tucked it under her cloak, feeling its shape against her ribs like a new bone. “What else,laird?A key to the keep?”
“Aye,” he said, and her mouth went dry like a field.
“What?”
He nodded toward the passage that led down to the surgery. “The wee room beyond—stillroom, if ye’ve the will for it. It’s a midden the now. By nightfall it’ll be limed and aired, shelves up, table strong enow to hold what ye must. Ye’ll have a lock. The key’s yers. I willnae use the door without knocking.”
Skylar blinked fast and hated the heat behind her eyes. He had spoken her language without asking for a translation: space, order, a door that was hers to open or close. “Why?” she asked, and made it sound like a challenge because gratitude frightened her more than blade-work. “Why the knife, the room? Why the telling? Why the day out?”
“Because the clan owes ye,” he said. “And I owe ye more than the clan does.” He looked at his hands; at the knuckles she had bound.
The corridor tilted. She steadied herself with anger because it came quicker than joy and cost less to spend. “Owe me?”
“Ye can leave, lass,” he said, plain as a map. “I’ll nae chain ye. I’ll send riders to bring ye safe to yer kin. But I’ll ask ye—ask, nae steal— to hold a handful of days while we catch the hand that’s hurt him. If ye stay beyond that, it’ll be because ye choose it. If ye go, the door will nae lock behind ye.”
Her mouth shaped Ariella without sound. The name ran an old path in her chest, wearing it deeper with every pass. Duty bit; love bit too. She could feel both teeth and not pull free of either.
“And why the telling?” she asked, because deflection was a life skill. “Why give me the cut of yer old life?”
“So ye ken where I’m thin,” he said, and there was no armor left on the words. “So ye didnae swing at it by accident.”
She swallowed. The dirk felt heavy against her ribs, like truth with an edge. “Ye cannae buy me with a room and cutlery.”
“I’m nae buying ye,” he said, reaching out and tucking a stray hair behind her ear. “I’m putting me thanks somewhere ye can have when me words fail me.”
Silence stretched. She did what she always did to keep from breaking the wrong thing: she asked a question that she knew that was ready to be answer given.
“The stillroom,” she said. “Shelves waist-high on the south wall. Hooks for strainers. A peg set low for a boy to sit and nae beunderfoot but nae left out. A window that opens. A bolt inside. I’ll want the table smooth as a bone.”
“Aye,” he said, the corners of his mouth easing. “I’ll tell Mason. He’ll make sure the steward gets it taken care of.”
“Tell him if he splinters it, I’ll splinter him,” she added, because threats kept her from trembling.
He huffed something like a laugh. “I’ll pass along the charm.”
They walked again.
