Page 41 of The Heather Wife
Her pulse thudded hard in her ears, anger sparking like flint against stone.
“You think you are the only one bound by duty? You think it hasna defined me, demanded everything of me, and given nothing back? From the day I was born I’ve been weighed, measured—useful only for what I could give my clan, never for who I was. And then you—” her voice cut sharp, “—you, who should have been my partner, saw me no different. So dinna speak to me of burdens, Calum. I ken well enough what it means to live beneath them.”
For a long moment he did not move, her words hanging between them like steel in the dark. Then, slowly, as though hefeared she might flinch, Calum reached across the space and laid his hand lightly upon her arm. His touch was warm, steady—not command, but plea.
“For my blindness… and for every wound it dealt ye, Sorcha… I beg your pardon. I would give aught to take it back, but all I have to offer now is the truth of my regret. For all of it—for every time I failed to see you as more—I am sorry.”
The honesty in his tone left her throat tight, though her face stayed composed.
“I know the silence between us is a wrong I laid upon ye,” he said quietly. “I can only hope that with time, the hurt and anger I’ve caused may lessen.” He paused, then gave the old words weight with his voice.
“Chan eil tuil air nach tig traoghadh.”(There is no flood that will not subside).
Her breath caught. Memory rose sharp as a blade: she was nine again, in her mother’s solar, hunched over a frame of embroidery.
***
“It’s ruined!” she cried, tugging the needle too hard until the golden thread snapped and pulled free in a jagged tear through the fabric. The half-finished embroidery—her attempt at the MacAlasdair crest—lay crumpled in her lap, its pattern unraveling beneath her hands.
“I’ll never be good at this!” she burst out. “Why can’t I be like Tavish and Fergus—out learning to ride and fight—instead of sitting here with this hateful work?”
Tears blurred her sight, shame and temper burning in equal measure.
Her mother knelt beside her, smoothing the ragged linen—her touch steady, not scolding.
“Hush, a chuisle (my pulse)," she said, her voice warm as the sea wind.
“Even the greatest flood will fall back to calm.”
She lifted Sorcha’s chin, guiding her to meet her gaze.
“Do you remember the storm that nearly swallowed the sea wall? Even that gave way to the moon’s pull. Chan eil tuil air nach tig traoghadh. So it is with tempers, so it is with grief. We stitch again. We begin again.”
***
Now, in the moonlit wood, Sorcha drew a slow breath, her mother’s voice lingering in her ears.
“Aye,” she said softly to Calum, steadying herself. “There is no flood that will not subside. But sometimes ye must wait long upon the shore ere the ebb begins.”
Chapter 37
Calum
Dawn crept slow over Strathloch, a pale wash of gold and frost that clung to the stones like breath. It was a hard morning, made for men and beasts to push against the cold. Calum stood at the edge of the training yard, hands braced on the low wall, watching the world wake beneath a thin curl of mist. The dull, steady chop of an axe echoed from the direction of the fields, where firewood was being split for the many hearths. Smoke coiled from the kitchens, rich with the scent of barley bread and woodfire warmth.
Sleep had been a stranger. Each time he closed his eyes, he saw her face in the moonlight—the steadiness of her gaze, the surety beneath it. Her voice lingered still, quiet but unyielding, as though it had taken root in him and refused to let go.
There is no flood that will not subside. But sometimes ye must wait long upon the shore ere the ebb begins.
He had faced blades, betrayal, the execution of those he’d once called kin—but none of it had cleaved through him like Sorcha’s words. Not for their sharpness, but for their calm. It was not anger she had left him with, but sadness—her wordsa quiet acceptance that she no longer expected him to be the man she once might have hoped for.
He’d seen the truth in her eyes, and worse—the weariness. The look of a woman who had carried too much for too long, and learned that change would never come.
He straightened, breath clouding in the cold. Across the yard, the women were already gathering. Some carried bows, others wooden staves worn smooth with practice. A few of the younger lads had begun to join them too—gangly arms and eager faces, laughing as they mimicked their mothers or sisters, proud to stand beside them rather than apart.
Sorcha moved among them, her voice even, her step sure. She paused to correct a young girl’s stance, steadying the lass’s elbow, murmuring something that made the girl’s shoulders square with pride.
It was there—the thing he had been too blind to see.
