Both women exclaimed, “And ye there all alone!”
Leith swallowed hard. “My sight came back to me early on. There is a healer at MacBeith, a woman. She tended me. The other wound has been a struggle.”
Aisleen asked, “Will ye be able to hold a sword, brother?”
“For a long while, I did no’ think so. Now I ha’ hope.”
“We will tend ye ourselves,” Ma declared. “Ye will be well and strong soon. The time at MacBeith will seem like an evil dream.”
It already seemed like a dream, though not an evil one. Leith could scarcely believe all that had happened there. Except for the persistent tug of longing beneath his breastbone.
“For now ye need rest,” Ma said. “Clean clothing and a good feed.” Again she kissed him on the forehead, just as she had when he’d been a lad. “I am that glad, son, to ha’ ye home.”
Part of him rejoiced over it also. The rest of him struggled beneath the knowledge that the distance between him and Rhian felt far greater than the mere breadth of the glen.
*
Rory kept awaytill nightfall, perhaps giving Leith’s ma and Aisleen a chance to fuss over him before then. Ma called in the clan’s best healer to consult over his wound and changed the dressing Rhian had last applied.
Another connection with her gone. But nay, what could be a stronger connection than the bairn they shared?
Rory arrived with the gloaming, admitting himself to Leith’s bedchamber not long after Ma and Aisleen had left.
He looked exhausted. He had changed out of his battle clothing and wore a soft sark and a pair of leggings. He still moved with the same restrained power. But new lines showed clear in his face, and a hard bitterness filled his eyes.
It had been a long day for Rory, as for them all. And those lines could be the result of pain.
“How d’ye feel, Leith?” he asked as he drew up a stool beside the bed. He’d brought a flask, and glad Leith felt to see it.
“Better than I was,” Leith replied. “And ye? Talk at MacBeith was ye took an arrow to the back.”
Rory shrugged as if feeling the wound over again, and grimaced. “’Tis so. Nicked my lung, that arrow did. Better that than my heart. Though there are those who would insist I do no’ possess one o’ those.”
“Ye do, though.” Leith could attest to it. He recalled instances aplenty when Rory had stepped up to defend those weaker than himself, both human and animal. And he still remembered him weeping profoundly when his hound died.
Rory frequently disguised his softer feelings as anger. If the amount of anger he expressed proved any indication, he felt very deeply indeed.
Of late, though, he’d become more adept at disguising those feelings. He’d barely reacted when his father died. And his heartbreak over Farlan had been hidden behind more of that anger.
“In truth,” he told Leith, “I thought I was goin’ to die. For a day and a night, I did.”
“Ah.”
“Your ma was there for me. I will be forever grateful. In the end, I decided I could no’ die. I ha’ still far too much to accomplish.”
“Glen Bronach.”
Rory nodded somberly. “I want it. More than ever now.”
Was this the old ambition, Leith wondered, or did the desire to have revenge against Moira—and through her, Farlan—play a part?
“I will ha’ ye know, Rory, they were taking bets there at MacBeith whether ye were dead or not.”
Rory’s lips twisted. “Praying for it, no doubt.”
“Aye. And me your sole heir, right there in their hands.”
“I thought o’ that. I did, while lyin’ there struggling to breathe. I ha’ no issue. And they held ye. ’Twas one o’ the things that got me up again.”
