Page 76 of Highlander of Steel
Her desperation was silenced as her father shoved her head forward, without the hood this time, into a bucket that sat before her on the cell floor.
It didn’t help that she knew what was coming. The bitterly cold water surged up her nose, making her want to cough, her lungs burning in protest as she held her breath.
But the longer her father held her head under, the more everything seemed to slow down. She could hear her heart beating, could feel her chest relax slightly, and in that unnatural peace, clarity emerged from the fog in her mind.
She was transported to the beach, not a woman but a little girl who had waded in to chase a fish. She was aware of a shadow falling across her, and then that same sensation—a hand on the back of her skull, pushing her forward, holding her under the surface until her head throbbed, her eyes bulged, and her lungs threatened to give out.
“I cannae bear to look at ye a day longer,”his muffled voice hissed in the memory.“Follow yer maither down to Hell, and when I get yer faither, he can join ye.”
As her heartbeat slowed even further, another voice burst into the memory that had haunted her for so long.“Faither! Faither, what are ye doin’? Are ye teachin’ Ailis to swim?”
Oh… oh, goodness…
It was Murdock’s voice, shouting from the beach. Then, the splash of him plunging into the water to get to her.
“I found her like this,”her father replied.“I think she tried to swim alone.”
She knew that her father was waiting for her to die, buying himself time so he could drown her before Murdock got there. But Murdock had always been a fast swimmer, reaching his father and youngest sister before the lack of air could kill her.
“Get her out!”he had cried.“We have to help her!”
Her mind flashed to the beach and her brother standing over her. She heard someone whisper, “Ye should never have been born,” but in this new, clear version of events, Murdock’s mouth wasn’t moving. Instead, he looked worried, his hands clasped, a relieved smile spreading across his face as he realized she was peering up at him.Alive.
Yet, it seemed that her father was determined to finish what he had started all those years ago.
As she was about to lose consciousness, her father pulled her head out of the bucket. She coughed and spluttered, blinking the cold water from her eyes, her lungs swallowing every bit of air they could.
“It was ye,” she croaked. “Yetried to drown me.”
“I’ve tried to kill ye a thousand times, but yer braither has always intervened,” her father drawled, as if it were nothing at all. “I should’ve kent he’d turn on me in the end, because of yer poison.He already turned on me the moment he saved ye from the water, instead of helpin’ me keep yer head down.”
Murdock has been… savin’ me all this time?
Her brain couldn’t process such a notion, when her brother had always been so cruel and cold.
How many times had he locked her in her bedchamber for no crime at all? How many times had he threatened to lock her in there for good? How many strange and unkind punishments had he made her suffer?
What if that was his way of keepin’ me safe?
After all, her father wouldn’t be able to kill her if she were so often trapped behind a locked door. Perhaps the strange punishments were designed to appease their father’s murderous desires, albeit temporarily.
“Why?” was the only word she could muster.
Her father walked around to the front of her, a disgusted sneer on his face. “I suppose there’s nay harm in tellin’ ye now, when today is yer last on this earth.” He grabbed a stool from the corner of the cell and sat down, as if he were about to tell her a fairytale instead of the dreadful truth. “Yer maither was a vile wench.”
Ailis blinked, as shocked by his words as by the sting of cold water. “That’s nae what… Kristen and Murdock have said.”
“As if they would ken,” her father scoffed. “I gave that woman everythin’ she could ever want, and she betrayed me with me own man-at-arms.Yeare the result of that wretched affair.”
“What?” Ailis gasped, her heart stuttering.
“I had nay idea at first,” her father continued. “I loved ye as if ye were me own flesh and blood, even if ye were a worthless girl. Then, I started hearin’ whispers. Trusted men tellin’ me about yer maither and that bastard. About ye and what ye truly were: a cuckoo’s egg in me nest. I didnae want to believe it at first, fool that I was.”
His face contorted into a mask of fury. “I even punished a few of me men for sayin’ such things, but then MacAllister told me he’d seen them with his own eyes. He was determined to prove it to me.”
Ailis knew MacAllister. A weaselly little man, always trying to make an impression on her father, trying to give him the right advice as his councilman. The very kind of man who would tread on anyone to get to a position of authority, who had always looked at her in a way that made her skin crawl.
“He told me that yer maither and her lover would meet in the woods and that she’d often take ye with her,” her father said, pausing as if he could see the woodland before him, the proof of that betrayal. “I went there and saw them together. Heard thetruth with me own ears. Watched that bastard hold ye and kiss yer cheeks and call ye his daughter. Watched me own wife smile and tell him she was glad ye were his and nae mine.”
