The children stared up at her with wide admiration.
“Ye did it!”
Margaret smiled triumphantly. “Ye see? Perfectly simple.”
She crossed the roof carefully toward the stranded ball. The boards creaked faintly beneath her shoes. She paused. The sound was not especially reassuring. Still, the ball lay only a few steps away. Margaret crouched and picked it up.
The children below cheered.
“Throw it down!”
“In a moment,” she replied.
She turned to retrace her steps and the board beneath her foot gave a long, splintering crack. Margaret froze.
“Oh.”
The wood sagged sharply beneath her weight. Another board snapped with a dry, echoing sound. The children’s cheers turned instantly into shrieks.
“Me lady!”
“Dinnae move!”
Margaret did exactly the opposite. Instinctively, she tried to step back toward the stronger beams near the edge, but the old structure had already begun to collapse. The plank beneath her split entirely, and the roof gave way beneath her feet.
Domhnall crossed the inner courtyard with Cameron, and the two men had been speaking of patrol routes along the western pass. Cameron walked half a step behind him, as he always did, carrying a rolled map beneath his arm.
“If the MacGregor scouts come again,” Cameron was saying, “they’ll likely try the ridge path this time. The men on the north watch?—”
A shout cut through the air. Domhnall stopped mid-step. It was not the usual noise of children playing. This was panic.
“Me lady!”
“Dinnae move!”
Something heavy cracked. Domhnall’s head snapped toward the lower courtyard. Cameron heard it, too. They exchanged one look, then both men moved. Domhnall reached the archway first, striding through it in three long steps before the scene beyond fully revealed itself.
A cluster of children stood gathered near the barracks wall, all staring upward, and on the roof above them, he could see Margaret. For the briefest moment, Domhnall simply stared.
“What in God’s name—” Cameron muttered.
The wood beneath her feet cracked. The sound was unmistakable. Domhnall’s stomach dropped. She turned, just as the board beneath her splintered, and time seemed to fracture with it. The roof sagged sharply. Margaret’s balance shifted as the plank collapsed beneath her weight.
Domhnall was already moving. He did not think. He did not speak. He ran and lunged forward just as her body dropped through the collapsing boards. He reached upward and caught her.
The impact nearly knocked the breath from his lungs. Margaret crashed into him with enough force to stagger him two steps back across the stones. His arms closed instinctively around her waist, pulling her tight against his chest as he fought to keep his footing.
Wood fragments clattered down around them. The leather ball bounced once across the courtyard and rolled harmlessly away. Silence followed… for half a heartbeat, then the children erupted in panicked voices.
“Me lady!”
“Is she hurt?”
Cameron arrived beside them, already inspecting the wreckage above. Domhnall barely heard any of it. His entire focus had narrowed to the woman in his arms. Margaret clung to him, her fingers gripping the front of his coat with surprising strength. Her eyes were wide and she was breathless. Domhnall felt thefrantic rhythm of her heart through the thin layers of fabric between them. His own was not much steadier.
She blinked at him, then smiled. “I… I believe I am all right.”
Domhnall stared down at her for a long moment. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
