Page 20 of The Speed of Lightning
“I have returned, Cù Ceartas. From the Isles and Scotland I have fought for your name, for Jura’s honor. I have learned what it means to lead men, and to serve others, placing their well-being above my own. I have faced the MacGregors at Perthshire, the MacKinnons at Dun Ringill, the English at Edinburgh, and the Wolf across the Kingdom of the Isles and Man. I have led the MacLean guard, remembered your teachings, and command to carry my God, and my clan with honor.” He drew breath, steadying his final words. “I return to seek your forgiveness and to protect this clan until my dying breath. But know this—I have not, and will never, abandon the faith.”
Keeping his eyes locked on the floor, he extended King John’s missive. It lifted from his fingers, and he remained bowed in submission as he heard the seal crack, vellum unfold, then fold again.
Calum raised his hands, pressing fist into palm, and extended them upward. Only then did he dare look at his father.
Da’s face was unreadable, his eyes steady and grave. For an instant, Calum wondered if forgiveness would come—or if the shame of his failed tànaiste ceremony still barred the way. Then Da looked past him, across the room, to the clan, to Ragnall.
At last, his voice rumbled. “It seems the MacLean claim to the chieftainship is strong, indeed.” He enclosed Calum’s hands in his own. “Cù Cogaidh, do you remember the promise?”
Relief washed through him like a baptismal tide. The words rose unbidden, as they had been engraved in him since he was a bairn.
“My name is not my own, it is borrowed from my ancestors. I will return it unstained. My honor is not my own, it is loaned from my descendants. I will give it to them unbroken. My blood is not my own, it is a gift to generations yet unborn. I will carry it with responsibility.”
Da pulled him to standing, their stigmaed wolfhounds meeting as his father gripped his forearm in the handsál. The squeeze came once, twice, and then lingered—an unspoken forgiveness, an unbroken bond. A smile spread across Da’s weathered face, deeper with age yet full of pride. “I bid you take your place among your clan.”
The hall erupted in a storm of approval. Calum stared Ragnall MacSorley down in his bloodshot, bulging eyes, letting him know Rory was in for a challenge. But then—from behind the scowling thane stepped a woman dressed as regally as the Lady of Jura.
He blinked in stunned awe, as though he’d slammed into a stone wall or glimpsed a Marian vision. Gone was the urchin who once peered at him from the fringes of his world. In her place stood a woman full-grown. A woman who could have—should have—been his.
The moonlight of her silken skin glowed bare at her shoulders and throat, drawing upward to a softly cleft chin. Her tongue flicked nervously across her lip, leaving a shimmer over its bee-stung fullness. Ginger-gold hair spilled in long waves down to her hips, catching the firelight.
She kissed Týr’s hand, then reached for his own. Dropping to one knee, she pressed his darkened palm, her skin soft. A hush fell.
Ragnall’s face purpled with fury as he shook the betrothal agreement at her. “Stop this at once!”
At last, she raised fox-like eyes, their discordant blue and green glinting beneath dark lashes.
It was Freya.
His mouth went dry, at once understanding why Ragnall had hidden this beauty under a bushel. Chills raced over his skin, his thoughts jumbled in a tempest of desire and need. And yet, streaking through the darkness with the clarity of a lightning strike, one word struck his heart.Mine.
Her father took a threatening step toward her, but Da moved between them, halting his advance. “Let your daughter save your hide, Ragnall.”
Freya’s rosy lips parted, curving into a small, defiant smile before she lowered her gaze. “I pledge to you my fealty, Cù Cogaidh.”
Stomping erupted around them in excited approval, echoing through the great hall. Dumbstruck, Calum realized what she had done: she had pledged the oath of fealty not meant to be spoken until his father’s death. Before all, she had declared that she did not stand with Ragnall in his folly.
He caught her hands in both of his, firm and unyielding, holding until her eyes lifted back to his. “Then I give you my service, Freya.”
Drawn by a force stronger than his will, he pressed a kiss to her smooth cheek—only to stop short at the faint shadow of a bruise. His chest tightened. Swiftly, she rose and turned away, hiding her face. The longhouse thundered with shouts of fealty.
Ragnall’s patience snapped. Shoving past Týr, he seized Freya’s arm and dragged her toward the door. Calum lunged after them, but the press of bodies hemmed him in, the mob that only ten years before had jeered him now clamoring with adoration.
Hand itching toward his sword, he fought to break free—until a smaller, familiar grip clamped onto his arm. His mother. Her voice was urgent, steady. “Let her go, Cal. Let her go.”
Through the crush he caught one last glimpse of Freya as her face turned beneath a torch’s glow—the bruise stark upon her cheek. Rage roared inside him, and he tore against his mother’s hold.
Da stepped in front of him, blocking his path, his broad hand pressing the back of Calum’s neck, drawing him into a reconciliatory embrace. His father’s voice was low in his ear, weighted with hard truth. “It will be worse for her if you follow. Spare her the violence.”
The clan erupted into celebration—stamping, clapping, shouting his name as if the night had been won. But Calum’s victory soured in his stomach. After ten years of wondering, he finally knew the truth. Freya MacSorley was not safe.
Chapter 5
INVERLUSSA, JURA - OCTOBER 3, 1386
Laying upon her bed, tears drying upon her cheeks, Freya stared up at the ceiling, listening for Papa’s distinctive snore, the indication that the henbane had taken full effect, robbing him of his ability to rage at her.
He had taken her pledge of loyalty to Týr and Calum as a direct attack upon him as her father. All night she had pleaded to make him understand that her words had been meant to shield him, to protect him from the wrath of the clan and from dishonor. Yet he had been beyond reason, pacing and raging in that fevered, unreachable deranged state of agitation she tried so hard to avoid.
