She was quiet for a moment. "And the other?"
"Suggested prayer more specifically."
A short exhale through her nose. Almost a laugh, caught before it became one. "And yer castle healer? Before she died?"
"She managed the fevers. Kept him stable." He kept his voice even. "She bought him years. But the breathin' worsened this winter and she ran out of answers before she ran out of time."
Catriona nodded once, slow. Processing.
He could feel her doing it, some quality of attention in the way she held herself, pulled inward and working.
"How old was he when it all started?"
He stiffened. Fractionally. "Months."
She said nothing more. He didn't offer more.
The pass rose ahead of them, the track narrowing sharply between two rock faces that pressed close enough to force them into single file. The lead rider pushed through first. The horses behind followed one by one, hooves careful on shale that shifted underfoot.
Then the rocks came.
No warning, a crack from above, sharp as a shot, and then the face of the cliff let go.
Stone broke loose in a cascade, crashing down across the path directly ahead.
The lead horse screamed and reared, hooves striking air. Shouts erupted from the front of the line. The men behind bunched and pulled at reins, horses slamming into each other in the narrow space.
Beneath Anthony, his own horse lurched.
The animal spun sideways. Away from the noise and toward the cliff's outer edge, toward the drop, hooves skidding on loose shale, finding no grip.
Anthony hauled the reins hard left. The horse fought him, white-eyed, beyond reason, weight already pitching wrong.
From ahead, one of the younger lads twisted in his saddle, arm thrown out, pointing. "She does that! It's witch's work, she called them down!"
The words landed in the chaos like a torch in dry grass.
He felt her move before he saw it. Bound wrists together, she leaned forward over the horse's neck and pressed her fingers to the flat muscle behind its jaw. Both hands, firm and certain,thumbs tracking something. Her voice came out low and even beneath all the noise.
"Easy now. Breathe. Easy."
The horse shuddered. Fought once more, then stilled. Four legs planted. Breathing hard but standing, no longer pulling for the edge.
The silence that followed was the particular kind that happens when men don't know what they just saw.
"Aye." One of the older clansmen, Donal, grey-bearded, thirty years in service, spoke from behind. Voice carrying the specific flatness of a man stating fact. "She calms beasts too easy."
Nobody answered him. Nobody needed to.
Then another voice, from the middle of the line. Callum, younger, louder, always the one to say the thing the others were only thinking.
"She'll stand trial once the heir breathes. We cannae bring a witch into McArthur without answer."
She went rigid. He felt it, her spine, already straight, going to something harder than straight.
"Trial." She didn't raise her voice. Didn't need to. The word came out cold enough to lower the temperature.
"Trial," she said again, as if confirming she'd heard it right.
