21. Without Remorse

21

WITHOUT REMORSE

T aryn counted the beams in the ceiling above her for the dozenth time. She knew there would only be six wooden posts supporting the floor that separated her from the rest of her clan. Just as she knew, there were eight bars on the window that kept the sunlight off her face and twenty-seven slats of iron that made up the door to her cell. What she didn’t know was how many days had passed since James had left. Her heart tried to convince her it had been weeks, while her mind argued that it had been days. Either way, her hunger, and her despondency, grew worse with every passing moment.

Somewhere in the depths of the dungeon, water dripped, tapping out a steady rhythm against the stone floor. The scurrying rats searching for any modicum of warmth or food were her only companions. With such poor company, Taryn had a hard time not slipping into despair.

Above her head, drifting down through the sliver of a window, voices rose from outside. She craned her neck to the side, trying to decipher just what they were saying, but almost immediately, she regretted her action.

“Just hand the lass over and let’s be done with the whole thing. She is the reason we are in this mess in the first place.”

“How could ye blame the young lass for all of this? She was but a child when the Laird first struck the deal with the Baron. Nay, the blame lies with him.”

It was the same tug of war the clan had been in since her return, since Laird McGregor had announced the contents of the Baron’s letter. She sighed and let her head fall back onto the straw cot.

The voices drifted away, but her mind stayed put on their conversation. It felt utterly useless to argue over who was to blame for their current circumstances. The fact of the matter was that they were in a mess and needed to deal with it. The biggest question that was yet to be answered was just how they were going to do that.

“Mark my words, war is coming. There is nay way to avoid that now.”

The ominous warning floated into her cell, sending shivers down her spine.

This wasn’t what she wanted. This was never what she had wanted. She hated the thought of her people being put at such risk because of her. Yet, all she could do was lay there and wait for her fate.

“If what ye say is true,” a gruff voice responded. “Then we need allies, and a lot of them. Laird McGregor should have been more focused on that than meting out punishment upon the lass.”

“Aye. He has wasted these last three years searching for his niece rather than creating a plan that would put an end to all of this. And now he expects us to lay the blame for it all solely at her feet.”

“It is her fault! Had she nae run from her duty, we would nae be in this mess. My farms would still be growing, my house would still be standing.”

“Do ye truly believe that one wee lass could have such an effect on a man like the Baron? That she would have been able to satiate his greed?”

For the first time in days, the silence that followed the stranger’s questions gave her hope. She knew that the entire clan had been plunged into chaos by her arrival. That much was clear when she had stood in the Great Hall amongst the whispers and horrified looks. The unrest had only grown with her confinement to prison and the arrival of the Baron’s letter.

“If ye truly think that, then ye are a coward and a fool just as the Laird is.”

Taryn shot up in surprise. To hear someone talk so blatantly against her uncle was bordering on treason. It was unheard of. And yet, there was at least one person in her clan who was defending her. Two, if she counted James, even though he hadn’t reappeared yet.

Clacking of a heeled boot pulled Taryn out of her thoughts and back into her cell. The footsteps grew louder, signaling a visitor quickly arriving. She sat up straighter and ran a hand over her tangled hair, hoping to smooth it. There was no hiding the smell of the dungeon or the mud caked onto her dress, but Taryn wanted to make the best with what she had. If she was going to be marched to her execution, she would do so with grace and poise, head held high.

“Ye never could keep yer shoulders back when ye sat.”

Her mother’s steel voice was a cold slap, stinging her already numb face.

“Mother,” Taryn greeted, trying to keep the surprise out of her voice.

If her uncle’s earlier appearance was anything to go by, this was bound to be a difficult conversation. Somehow, Laird McGregor had always been more sensible than her parents, more compassionate and understanding. She had little hope that she would get any warmth or empathy from her mother.

“Ye are looking well,” Taryn continued.

She forced her hands to stay at her side, just as she forced herself to stay seated. Though her mother’s calculating stare made Taryn want to squirm, she refused to give her mother the satisfaction of seeing the effect. Taryn reminded herself that she was no longer the same, impressionable little girl she had been when she left three years ago.

She had learned to hunt and fight and survive on her own. She had done impossibly hard things, things her mother could never dream of doing. More than that, Taryn was a grown woman, sitting there only because she had determined to make things right. She wasn’t going to let her mother make her feel bad about that.

“I wish I could say the same about ye,” her mother quipped. “Ye look as though ye have nae had a bath or a comb in months. Ye smell just as bad.”

“If ye are offering to arrange for a bath and a meal, I would be more than willing to make the most of it. I would hate to displease ye.”

Rowena’s eyes narrowed in disdain, irritated at the thick, honey-like sweetness Taryn had infused into her words.

“Ye ken,” Rowena said, ignoring Taryn’s not so subtle request entirely. “The last time I ventured down to the dungeons, I was here to see a friend of yers. What was her name again? That ungrateful daughter of the dressmaker’s?”

Taryn clenched her jaw, fighting the urge to scream back at her mother.

“Lily? Lauren? Och, I ken,” she clapped with a facade of pleasure. “Laura.”

Rowena’s eyes leveled with Taryn, narrowed and harsh and black.

“Aye,” Taryn ground out.

“It did nae take long after ye vanished that we were able to track her down and discover just how ye had managed to get away. Of course, the Laird was furious and threw her in here until we could decide what to do with ye. I was too distraught to come see her the first week she was here. My maids hardly kent what to do with me.”

Distraught that all yer scheming was for naught.

“But I rallied my strength and forced myself to come and get answers for myself. She looked much as ye do now—disheveled and begging for food.”

Taryn slammed her eyes shut against the image of her best friend, shivering and starving in a cell while she had been exploring all the beauty the Highlands had to offer.

“It was a simple enough question,” Rowena pressed on, either not seeing or not caring about her daughter’s distress. “‘Why did ye help her?’ I asked. I could nae understand it.”

Rowena let out a deep sigh, her hands clutched at her waist, the picture of a serene Highland lady—everything Taryn had been raised and molded to become but had never wanted.

“Do ye ken what she told me?”

Taryn offered no response. She kept her eyes on the floor in front of her, letting her gaze trace the jagged outlines of the stones.

“She told me that she was happy for ye, glad that ye were finally free of the Keep.” Rowena scoffed in disbelief. “I thought that a week in this cell would be long enough to make the lass see reason, to make her regret what she had done. But the chit had nay remorse. She just sat there, right where ye are now, and smiled.”

With her hands gripped on the edge of the cot, Taryn tried to envision it. She tried to grasp onto any last piece that Laura might have left of herself in this cell. She wished that she had the same proud stance, one untainted by regret or remorse.

“What a fool she was.”

Drawing on strength from the memory of her friend, Taryn pushed herself off the cot and spun to face her mother. She realized then, for the first time in her life, that Taryn was several inches taller than her mother. No longer was she cowering, making herself smaller so she could disappear into the background, unnoticed. Between all of her time making it on her own, the sword fighting lessons, and the steadfast belief James now had in her, Taryn felt invincible.

“If that kind of love and selflessness that Laura displayed to free me from yer grips makes her foolish, then I pray to God that one day, I will be as foolish as she is. I hope that I am able to love someone just as unconditionally, unselfishly as she has. That I would be willing to give up everything for another is the kind of fool I wish to be.”

Rowena scoffed again, indignant at Taryn’s newfound confidence.

“Need I remind ye that ye have a duty to this clan, to me? It is the same duty that every woman before ye has fulfilled and every woman after ye will carry out; marry for an alliance. Why do ye think that ye are so special as to get out of yer duty, to escape the life that yer father and I have so meticulously cultivated for us? All of these fanciful ideas ye have of a life outside of that duty are a folly. I have always told ye so. I warned ye that nae taking yer responsibility seriously would one day be the death of ye, and here we are.”

The pure disdain, the unfeeling sharpness of Rowena’s lecture was the final nail in the coffin for any love or respect that Taryn might have once had for her parents. She couldn’t imagine Aila or Sorcha ever uttering such cruel things. There was no world in which James would be so hateful. It was a startling realization to discover that her friends, her makeshift family, had shown her more love and acceptance in their short three years together than either of her parents had ever shown.

“Need I remind ye,” Taryn retorted, turning her mother’s words back against her, “that ye also have a duty as mother? One that requires ye protect yer children.”

“What do ye think I was trying to do in setting up an alliance with the Baron? Yer marriage to him would have protected us all from his wrath.”

“Ye are the fool if ye believe that,” Taryn hissed. “My marriage to him would only have guaranteed a sooner death for me. He had his sights set on our clan, our lands, our people and was going to do whatever it took to get to them no matter what. I had a right to run, to flee, to try and save my own life since my parents failed me.”

Rowena, for the first time, was silent. She glowered at Taryn, the bars and a lifetime of unkindness separating them.

“I suppose it is a family trait,” Taryn added bitterly, “nae fulfilling yer duties.”

With a huff, Rowena turned and left the dungeon, her skirts swishing behind her as she went. When the door to the upper level slammed shut, Taryn collapsed onto the cot, all of her fighting energy completely drained.

She wasn’t sure how long she laid there. The only indication of the hours passing was the gnawing feeling in her stomach getting harder to ignore and the shadows on the walls shifting with the sun. She did her best to put her mother’s words out of her mind. They served her no purpose. Nor did anything her uncle had to say. Instead, she focused on James and only on James.

The memory of their kiss fueled her, keeping her from the edge of utter despair time and time again. It had been a moment that passed entirely too quickly yet seemed to span a lifetime in her mind. She had admired James from afar when they had been kids. And after seeing Aila and Lachlan so happy together, she had wondered if she would ever know a love like that. It filled her with such peace to know that she had, even if it had only lasted a few days before the past caught up with them. James’ love, knowing that he believed her to be innocent and undeserving in all of this, was a lifeline in the dark. It gave her strength when her heart threatened to give out.

“Up wit’ ye. Get up. Dinnae make me come in there and fetch ye myself. I promise, ye will nae like it.”

The guard’s surly voice and sharp demands roused Taryn from the half-asleep state she had been in since her mother’s departure. The lantern he carried nearly blinded her. She winced at the bright light.

“Where are ye taking me?” she asked, her voice shaking despite her best efforts to sound strong and sure.

“We are here to carry out the Laird’s orders.”

“Ye will have to forgive me, but I dinnae ken what those are. Nay one has been down to tell me.”

As she spoke, she walked to the cell door, her eyes finally adjusted to the man’s light. She could just barely make out the regretful look that haunted his dark eyes. His mouth, mostly hidden by a gray beard, pursed in displeasure.

“Ye are to be executed at dawn, lass.”

He uttered the words gently, but they still landed like a blow. Her knees threatened to buckle at the news.

“He is too late,” she murmured, thinking only of James.

Her stomach twisted at the thought of James having to watch her lose her head. She would do nearly anything to spare him such pain.

“Time to go,” the guard urged.

With a small sniffle, Taryn squared her shoulders and held her head up high. She was determined to see this through with courage.

“I am ready.”

As she said the words aloud, she felt the truth of them. She had lived enough life in these last three years to make her happy. She had created a family for herself, fallen in love, and seen much of the Highlands. If that was all life was going to offer her, she would be more than happy to take it.

Her only regret was that she had not thought to ask for paper and ink. As the guard walked her through the dungeon and into the castle corridors, she realized just how much she wanted to send a letter to Aila and Sorcha. She wanted to give them her last words, to assure the children that everything was going to be all right, even if she was no longer around. She wanted to tell her friends just how much they meant to her, how their love made running away and losing her life worth it.

She wanted to leave something for Laura, thanking her for giving Taryn the chance at a life beyond what her parents wanted for her. More than anything, she wanted to give a piece of herself to James. She doubted a letter would do much to change the way he would see things, but she could at least try to convince him that none of this was his fault. She would urge him to live his life from beyond her shadow. But there was no time for any of that now.

Her footsteps echoed through the silent but full corridors. Guards, maids, and everyone else in the castle had risen early to watch the Laird carry out her sentence. Some of the eyes she passed were filled with grief, a sadness that looked heavy to bear. Others were indifferent, as though an uncle executing his niece and heir was an everyday occurrence. Those who were left looked at her as though she were the prize lamb to be slaughtered and offered as a sacrifice to protect them from grave horrors.

Having seen more than enough of the pity and anger that swirled together as it was aimed in her direction, Taryn kept her eyes ahead. She walked, sure-footed and straight. The hallways were so much colder, so much longer than she remembered them ever being. She thought it a mercy and a punishment, that the walk to the courtyard was so long. Each step took her closer to the end of her life, to the bitter end of her time with James.

Three more steps, and she would be at the castle doors.

Two.

She faltered. The guard’s heavy hand on her back pushed her forward.

One.