Page 79 of The Speed of Lightning
“MacLean, as it stands, you have flagrantly disobeyed my orders, just as the rest of the Shield has. It will be a hard lesson for you all to learn, but this disobedience must come with consequences.”
Freya’s heart pounded. She opened her mouth to protest, but Calum shook his head at her in a firm, decisive no.
The king continued. “If you agree to give up Freya MacSorley to Rory MacDonald, we will handfast them here and now, and you may retain the chieftainship. Alternatively, you may keepFreya MacSorley as your wife and cede the chieftainship to Thane Ragnall MacSorley.”
The hall erupted. Outrage exploded from every MacLean and half the MacSorleys, men springing to their feet, voices rising in a roar.
Two guards surged forward, wrenching Freya from Calum’s side and shoving her toward her father. Calum lunged, but three more seized him, forcing him to the floor under their weight.
“Calum!” she cried, her voice breaking. The nightmare unfolded before her eyes. She would be forced to Rory’s side. Her marriage undone. Her bond to Calum erased. He could never sacrifice his birthright—not after the oath he had sworn.
Rory clamped onto her wrist, yanking her against his side. His face was triumphant. He knew. Knew he had won. Knew that he had given Calum no choice.
The king lifted his hands over the feral uproar as guards pressed inward, swords raised toward the clan. “Silence! SILENCE!”
The hall fell still. Dómhnall stepped over Calum’s restrained form, his voice low and merciless. “What is your choice?”
The guards eased away, and Calum rose. In one motion he unfastened his father’s amber chieftain’s brooch. The Jura plaid slipped from his shoulder, falling in a heavy spill around his feet.
Everything stood still. The walls pressed in upon her, but shock kept her standing. She dangled, suspended in time, unable to comprehend what she was witnessing. The anger twisting his face. The lust for justice in his eyes. The resolute way he squared his shoulders—like a proud and noble warhound.
“Calum, no!”
He strode down from the dais with steely resolve. Grabbing her father by the shoulder, he drove the amber chieftain’s brooch straight into his flesh, pinning it to him. Papa staggered, cryingout as the metal bit skin and muscle, slammed backward by the force of Calum’s hand.
Calum pivoted on Rory, seizing his cuirass and heaving him clean off his feet, sending him skittering across the wooden floorboards away from her.
Freya tumbled into him and he pulled her against his chest, shielding her with his body. Every muscle was coiled, ready to strike. His voice was low and lethal: “Dinnae ever put your hands on my wife again. Try it again, and I’ll tear you apart.”
Chapter 22
SGÙRR NA CÌCHE, JURA - FEBRUARY 1, 1387
The sun dipped overSgùrr na Cìche?1, painting the sky dusky pink, orange, and purple, over a world gone terribly cold. The words of the chieftain’s promise swirled through Calum’s mind like a fragile snowflake caught on the wind—a vow he had carried all his life, meant to shape him and remind him of his protection of his clan and generations to come.
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.
As a boy, his father had drilled the words into him—on the walk to Ardlussa Bay, during shinty games, through every glíma drill. At dawn he whispered them, and again at night, until they were more breath than memory. And yet, he wondered if they would ever take root in him, if he could ever live them fully.
Breath escaped from his lips, gusting outward and dissolving on the hibernal wind, anguish clawing at his mind. When his descendants looked back on his brief span as chieftain, whatwould they see? Had he upheld the vow he had carried since boyhood? If his father still lived, would he believe it?
Feet braced on the rocks of the mist-shrouded mountain, he gazed down to the velvety folds of the glen below, his humble home lost in the dusky fog. This land had been Da’s, and his father’s before him—fields tilled, stone walls raised, longhouses built for generations yet to come. They had chosen duty and clan above all. Da had died for it. And in one moment, Calum had given it away.
Far beyond the glen the ocean seemed to glow with turquoise in the late afternoon sun, the tide sweeping away from Jura and into the sound. He thought again of Freya, swimming his boat into the current the day he’d fled home—her strength, her defiance, her choice to risk all for him. All his life he had prepared to bear the fate of many and now he bore the fate of one household. Yet no promise, no chieftainship, could ever rival the vow he had made before God: to guard her above all others.
Bog’s whine drew him back from the memory. He turned to see the stag they had been stalking all day wander into sight. He raised his hand. The dog came to attention, sitting back on his hind legs, front paws brushing the ground like a runner poised for the chase. “Good lad, Bog. Get ready. Yes—ready.”
The wolfhound crouched, taut and alert, waiting for the next command. In the distance the stag scavenged among the rocks. Calum sank low, blending with the shadows. Bog’s ears pricked; he stiffened, panting and whining, glancing up at Calum, waiting for his word.
He spoke low to the sooty-colored dog. “Watch him.”
Bog’s eyes followed the stag as it climbed, crouching lower, studying his prey. The stag relaxed, bowing its head to graze. Calum readied his bow.
“Chase.”
Sleek and elegant, the dog sprang from the rocks, racing after the deer. The stag snapped its head up, and bolted across the towpath toward the open mountainside, Bog coursing after it, locked on his quarry.
Calum maneuvered over the rocks, sprinting after them, bow ready if Bog began to tire. Razor-sharp and agile, the dog darted right, then left, nipping at the stag’s heels. The great beast leapt over heather and Bog followed, springing higher than Calum had ever seen.
