Ewan tensed as the wagon drew to a stop.
The top was thrown from the crate, revealing a clear blue sky. Hands reached into the box and roughly dragged him out. They threw him downward, off the cart and to the unforgiving cobblestones below. A shadow fell over Ewan.
He looked up, squinting against the sun, to find Cruim standing over him. “This is yer fault,” his uncle accused. “If ye hadna lain with my Blair, she wouldna be dead.” A vein throbbed at the center of Cruim’s brow. His cheeks huffed out in a restrained cough. “See to his wounds and send him to the cellar. I want him alive.”
Cruim’s gaze slid to the other wooden box on the cart. One that had been meant to transport Blair, no doubt. She lay within it now. Or so Ewan presumed, dead within the other crate.
Cruim’s men came forward obediently and dragged Ewan down to the small, barred hold in the cellar of the manor. It had been meant to store dry goods, not usurp a chieftain.
One of the men stayed with Ewan and patched up the wounds with bits of linen as best he could. If nothing else, the man’s rudimentary application staunched the blood flow. Once done, the man left, abandoning Ewan to the still, dark room.
The iron-barred room was black as pitch and held a mustiness of wet earth floors and cold stone. His fate would yet be determined.
He waited thus, his eyes searching futilely against the press of darkness, his wounds aching. Time dragged on at an indeterminable rate.
They wanted him left alive.
Why?
And what of Faye? What did Moiré intend to do with her?
Footsteps approached and Ewan straightened. His hands searched in front of him, seeking out something, anything. A warm golden glow lit the empty room as someone with a light approached. All at once, the brilliance of it came into view and left Ewan’s eyes stinging with the same sensation as looking up into the sun on a particularly bright day.
Ewan grunted and staggered back with his hands thrown over his eyes.
A wheezing cough gave away the person’s identity. Cruim.
Ewan lowered his arms from blocking his face and stared just beyond the flicker of a single candle flame to where he knew his uncle’s face would be.
“Release me,” Ewan demanded, squinting.
“Ye had an affair with my wife,” Cruim spoke so passionately, a cough rose up in his chest and choked its way free. “’Tis yer fault she’s dead.”
“Ye know I dinna,” Ewan said angrily. “Moiré has been playing us all for fools. Dinna ye see it?”
“Moiré has always looked out for me,” Cruim said. “Which is more than I can say for ye.”
“What is it she’s done for ye?” Ewan’s eyes had adjusted to the light enough to meet his uncle’s gaze from between the bars.
Cruim blinked. “She’s cared for me after her mum died. She’s told me how ye’ve tried to oppress me, how even yer gift of this manor was to keep me close, to watch me even as ye threaten me.”
Ewan stared hard at him, unable to believe his ears. “I threaten ye?”
“I know about the plots.” Cruim coughed into his fist. “It was ye who made me sick. To remove me from the line of succession for the chieftainship, so yer bairns will never have a valid rival. I never even wanted the damn chieftainship.”
Ewan stared at his uncle in shock. Cruim had never been the threat. In truth, his meddling had never made sense, not when he hadn’t shown an aptitude for cleverness. It was why Ewan had discounted him so often, assuming Cruim couldn’t be conniving enough to pull off an elaborate stunt.
Ewan never had even suspected Moiré.
“I dinna ever intend ye harm,” Ewan said. “It was Moiré.”
Cruim scoffed. “She’s helped me, Ewan. She even helped my marriage with…with Blair.” He winced. “Moiré said the arrangement would help her wed Finn.” Cruim’s voice went tender with an apparent affection for his daughter. “She said doing that would secure my alliance with the Gordons and protect me from ye.” His lower lip trembled.
“Cruim,” Ewan said in an even tone. “She’s been using ye, manipulating ye as she’d done to everyone else.” He shook his head in stunned disbelief at how readily she’d fooled them all. “Even me.”
His uncle shuddered, and a cough erupted from his mouth so violently, it appeared to have surprised even him. He fell against the barred door, dragging in choked breaths as the cough overtook him.
He’d lost a considerable amount of weight recently, his arms like sticks, his shoulders slender where the doublet hung loose around them.
“Let me out, Cruim,” Ewan said. “I believe Faye to be in danger.”
Cruim’s hands curled around the rusty bars as though holding himself upright with them. “She’s no’ a good woman,” he panted. “Just like Lara.”
A chill descended down Ewan’s spine. “What about Lara?”
Memories rushed him all at once. How Moiré had been the one to see Lara teeter over the cliff before coming to him, distraught and scratched from her attempt to save her.
Lara hadn’t killed herself. Moiré had murdered her.
And if Ewan didn’t get free of his cell, he knew in his gut that Faye would also be killed.
Metal rang against metal in the distance. Ewan jerked at the discernible sound of battle. Men’s shouts rang out with alarm in the distance.
“Let me out,” Ewan demanded. “Moiré is going to try to kill Faye. The same as she did with Lara.”
“Moiré knows best,” Cruim said weakly. Another cough took him, leaving his shoulders trembling.
Spatters of blood glistened in the dirt. Whatever plagued Ewan’s uncle, it would surely kill him.
Ewan slipped his hand through the bars and jerked the keys from Cruim’s belt, along with