A Hellion for the Highlander

Annys and Jamie were still bawling, but Cicilia smiled through her pain and shock just for them. “Och, it’s a nasty cut, that’s all. Dinnae ye worry. Mr. Jacobs will take ye downstairs an’ send some help to clean up here. Won’t ye, Mr. Jacobs?

The baker looked dazed, but he nodded, helping the non-traitor clansman to his feet. The two of them gathered the twins and left.

Nathair groaned and rolled on to his back. “Is that it? Did we win, or am I just deid?”

Alexander burst into dry, sobbing laughter, his heart still pounding erratically, and pulled Cicilia into a tight embrace.

“Ye’re safe,” Alexander muttered, running his hand through her red hair with that strange black streak. He looked at the two unconscious men, and at the injured Nathair, but she was all he could focus on. “Ye’re safe.”

Am I reassurin’ her or tryin’ to reassure meself?

It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that at last, it was over.

And once Thomaes’s trial was over, and the sentence was given, a new chapter could finally begin.

Chapter 29

Dum Vita Est, Spes Est

While There is Life, There is Hope

Cicilia came down with a fever while she was recovering from the wound on her face. The healer said it was some infection, and it only seemed to get worse as time went on.

She didn’t remember much of the next while. She was in her rooms, frequently visited by the healer. Sometimes Annys and Jamie were there, sometimes Jeanie and Nathair, but mostly Alexander. They all talked to her, but she didn’t know if she talked back.

It’s hard to tell when I’m awake an’ when I’m dreamin’.

Cicilia often had strange fever dreams, mixed memories of her father and her mother, terrifying images of Thomaes coming to finish off the job. She often cried out, but whether the dreams actually woke her, she could not say.

It was so warm. So cold. It was like burning and drowning all at the same time. All of her extremities ached, and she felt heavy like she could never leave the bed again. She could barely even move her own head.

Sometimes, Cicilia didn’t feel like she was in her body at all. She barely knew her own name. Sometimes it felt like she was an observer, a spirit floating above her own body, waiting for her soul to move on. Other times she felt imprisoned, trapped in a cage that had once been named Cicilia.

Am I gonnae die, then? What will happen to the bairns?

Perhaps it was for the best. Alexander would take care of them. If he couldn’t, there was Jeanie. There were the Humphries. There were plenty of options to take care of the little ones. And Cicilia could be with her father again, and her mother, too.

Did I do well, Daddy? Will ye be proud o’ me, when I get to heaven wi’ ye?

She had to be strong, more durable than most young women ever dreamed, for such a long time. Her mother’s death meant she had to play the parent in her grief. When her father went, she hadn’t even been able to grieve for him properly. Instead, she’d had to hide in a tumult of lies and deception, breaking her back to keep an illusion in place.

But the illusion is broken now. We’re free.

She’d managed so much. Would it be wrong, now, to finally let herself rest? Was it so bad if she answered the gentle call of the wind that promised to soothe her ravaging fever? After all, her father had gone the same way. It was almost poetic, really.

It wasn’t that she wanted to die, but the chance to rest, to finally let go after everything…was it, indeed, a sin to be tempted?

All I’d have to do to see me parents again is to just…let go.

It would be that easy.

And suddenly, it seemed like the only option. She felt an overwhelming rush of relief, and her very soul began to slowly, slowly move away from the fevered husk that had been Cicilia. She rose up, up, and it would be over very soon…

…and then someone grabbed her hand.

It was the large, comforting hand of the Laird, centering her in place, capturing her in her body once again. The feel of his skin against hers, the way his touch reminded her of life…she couldn’t leave all this behind.

“Cicilia,” Alexander’s voice came, from above and below and all around her. “Cicilia, mo leannan, come back to me.”