Anthony turned in the saddle. He looked at Callum with the particular quality of attention that ended conversations.
"She heals the boy first."
Callum held his ground, barely. "And after?"
"If there is need," Anthony said, measured and deliberate, spacing the words evenly, "she answers before the council." He let a beat pass. Let the silence do the work. "There will be nay more talk of trial on this road. There will be nay more talk of witchcraft in me hearing."
His gaze moved across the line, touched each face in turn. "Are we clear?"
Not a question. It didn't need to be.
The men went quiet. Callum looked away first. Donal found something to study on the horizon. The younger lad who'd pointed was already staring at his reins.
Anthony turned back to the path.
She had not moved. She sat exactly as she had before, straight-backed, chin forward, bound hands still. But the quality of her stillness had changed. She wasn't thinking now. She was somewhere else.
"So I am prisoner twice," she said. Quietly. Not to him, or not quite to him. The words landed between them like something set down carefully. "First in yer saddle. Now before yer council."
He said nothing.
"Useful first," she continued, same flat tone. "Judged after. Aye, I ken that shape well."
The bitterness in it wasn't hot, it was old. Worn smooth. The kind that had been carried long enough to stop cutting and start simply weighing.
He leaned forward slightly, dropping his voice below the sound of hooves on stone.
"Be still and silent for the rest of the ride." He kept it even, kept the edge out of it. "Ye will calm me men, or they will work themselves toward somethin' I cannae stop before we reach the gates."
She turned her head. Looked at him directly for the first time since the cliff.
"And ye?" she asked. No heat in it. Clean and straight, the way a blade is clean and straight. "Ye will nae turn on me?"
His hand tightened at her waist, an involuntary correction, the same as steadying a grip on something that mattered. "Daenae test me, healer."
She held his gaze for a moment. Whatever she was looking for, he didn't know if she found it. Then she faced forward again.
The pass opened ahead of them, the cliff faces falling back, the track widening into the broader glen that ran south toward McArthur.
Below, the valley stretched pale and grey under flat afternoon cloud, and at the far end of it, barely visible yet, the dark shape of the keep sat against the hill like a stone fist.
She saw it. He knew she did because she went still again, differently this time. Not the stillness of anger. The stillness of someone calculating distance.
"Two hours, ye said," she said.
"Less now."
"And James. He'll be awake when we arrive?"
"He sleeps in the afternoons. The breathin' costs him."
She nodded once. Let the silence run for a moment.
Then, "When I ask for somethin', herbs, water, particular temperature in the room, I need it done without argument and without delay. Every minute matters with lung damage that old."
"Ye'll have what ye need."
"And I work alone. Nay servants hoverin'. Nay council watchin' over me shoulder while I compound a remedy."
