“Better cruel than sorry,” he shot back.
Violet went still, the blanket pulled tight against her chest. Connor did not raise his voice. He did not even need to. The answer carried enough force without volume.
“That is a terrible thing to believe,” she said.
“It is a living man’s belief.”
“A rather lonely one, I must say.”
His jaw ticked, and he looked toward the fire, then back at her. “Me father believed a man could soften an enemy with trust. He opened our doors to one. Fed him. Spoke peace to him.”
His hand rested on his knee, his fingers still. Too still.
“That night, me mother died. Me sister died. Mefatherdied.” His voice was low, each word cut clean. “I got Lachlan out because I was fast enough for one brother and too late for the rest.”
Violet’s breath caught.
There had been stories, hints, hard edges around Connor’s name that others approached with caution. None of them had placed him in a castle turned bloody by one opened door, young enough to still have a brother to drag to safety, and old enough to count the bodies he could not reach.
“Connor,” she said softly.
“Daenae.”
“I daenae pity ye. Ye clearly daenae need it.”
“Good.”
She looked at his hand again. His fingers had curled now, slowly, as if he had noticed the stillness and found it unacceptable. He uncurled them one by one.
“I was going to say that a boy surviving that shouldnae have had to become a wall.”
His eyes slid back to hers. “Well, if there is one thing I have learned, it’s that walls keep things alive.”
“They also keep peopleout.”
“Aye, that too.”
The answer struck too hard, and he knew. That was the worst of it. He knew exactly what he had built and had chosen it anyway.
From below, someone called for ale, and a chair knocked against a table. The tavern went on in its ordinary way beneath them while Violet sat wrapped in a blanket beside a man who spoke of dead family as if naming a weather report.
“Lachlan is still yer brother,” she reasoned.
“I ken. John needs him sober as well.”
“Perhaps he needs mercy.”
“Mercy without sense is how bairns are buried.”
Violet flinched.
Connor saw it. The steel in his eyes flickered, not enough to soften him, but enough to show that he had not meant to hurt her.
“John willnae be risked because Lachlan finds shame easier than change,” he said. “Neither will ye. Neither will this clan.”
“So that’s it? Ye think fear can save everyone.”
“I ken the cost when it doesnae.”
