Page 2 of The Healer’s Wish

The world tilted.

“She left early this morn. Eoghan Crag came for her. She had her things in a bundle and said… said they were in love. That they had planned it.”

Each word landed like a stone thrown into Camden’s chest. Thud. Thud. Thud.

Quinlen kept talking, his voice rushed, almost desperate. “Her mother is in pieces. I cannae calm her. I cannae understand it. Why would our lass…”

“My lass is gone, Camden,” he finished hoarsely. “She’s left with that man.”

Camden took a step back, then another.

His gaze slid past Quinlen, across the familiar yard, the worn fence, the barn doors hanging crooked on their hinges. The sheep grazed in the field as if nothing in the world had changed. To the left, having stopped plowing, Eara’s brothers stood frozen, watching him in silence, their faces drawn with either anger or grief, probably both.

It wasn’t real.

It couldn’t be.

This was some cruel trick, a jest taken too far. Eara would be inside, hiding, waiting to burst out laughing at the look on his face.

“I dinnae believe ye,” Camden said, the words tearing from his throat.

He brushed past Quinlen and strode into the house.

The kitchen smelled of bread gone cold, and too much sorrow in the air. Eara’s mother sat at the table, a cloth crushed in her hands, her face red and swollen from weeping.

When she saw Camden, she rose with a broken sound and hurried to him, clutching at his tunic as if he was a beacon of hope amidst her sorrow.

“Oh, dear lad,” she sobbed. “Our Eara is gone. She’s gone with that horrible Eoghan.”

That was when something inside Camden finally shattered. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. The room felt too small. The air too thick. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. They’d talked about marriage, about bairns, about life together. This had to be a horrible dream. He pulled himself free from the sobbing woman’s grasp. Not trusting himself to speak. Not trusting himself to stay.

Outside his horse grazed peacefully, unaware that Camden’s world had just been ripped apart. He mounted in a blur and kicked the steed into a gallop.

The wind tore at his face, stealing the sound of the cry that broke from his chest. Tears burned his eyes, blurred the path ahead. Pain clawed through him—deep and merciless—as if something vital had been torn out and left bleeding in its place.

He didnae care where the horse carried him. If it galloped off the side of a cliff, it would be a welcome reprieve.

Chapter One

2 years later

Loud knocks on the door startled Camden Lewis from his sleep. Sitting up, his blanket fell to his waist; the coolness of the room sharp against his bare skin. Persistent bangs on the door of the adjoining room meant someone was either extremely angry with him or his abilities as the village healer were required urgently.

“I am coming!” he yelled out, doubting they could hear him past the thick walls of the cottage.

He yanked on breeches, not bothering with a tunic and hurried in the direction of the loud bangs. After lifting the latch, Camden pulled the door open and immediately frowned at the grim sight awaiting him.

Two men stood on the threshold, straining beneath the weight of a third slumped between them. The injured man barely seemed whole. His body sagged, his head lolling forward, dark hair clotted with blood. His clothing hung in tatters, soaked through and stiff, as if he had been trampled by horses. Even after years tending to wounded men crushed in battle, torn open by blade and arrow, Camden still felt a cold tightening in his chest at the sheer brutality of the man’s injuries.

“Bring him in,” Camden said at once, stepping aside.

They shuffled forward, boots scraping against the worn wooden floor, their burden groaning faintly with the movement.

“Lay him there. On the table.”

Camden moved quickly, pulling a box of clean rags from the shelf with practiced efficiency. He turned to one of the men and pointed toward the buckets near the door. “Go to the well. Fetch water. As much as ye can carry. Hurry.”

The man didnae hesitate. He rushed out, leaving the door ajar. A gust of cool air swept into the apothecary and against Camden’s bare skin, raising gooseflesh, but he paid it no mind. There would be time later to think of his own comfort. First, he needed to ken if this man could be saved.