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The cry that left Nimue’s lips was one that almost had the ground shaking. She fell to her knees, her body unable to support her under the weight of her grief, her hands digging into the bloodied earth.
I’ll never see him again. I’ll never say goodbye.
Nimue couldn’t even remember what her last words to Tristan had been. And now Wentworth had taken him from her forever.
“Curse ye!” she screamed at him. Let them say I’m a witch. As long as he suffers like I do. “Curse ye and the hand that killed him, and every soul that follows ye.”
“Why? Why did ye kill him?” Nimue heard her father say before Wentworth could even look at her. “I did everythin’ that ye asked me to do. Everythin’. Ye said ye wouldna harm them. Ye gave me yer word.”
“I kept my word,” Wentworth said with a shrug as if the whole matter was trivial, as if Tristan’s life was worth nothing. “But your son didn’t. He tried to gather men and start a rebellion, so I had him killed. He brought his death on himself.”
Nimue watched as her father panted, rage filling him, his face turning a deep shade of red. “Ye’ll die for what ye did to me son!” he growled at Wentworth, fingers tightening around the handle of his sword. “And I pray to God that ye’ll burn in hell for it.”
With a shout, the Laird threw himself at Wentworth, madly wielding his sword as his fury and grief overtook him. Nimue could do nothing but kneel on the dirt, tears that she wasn’t even aware of streaming down her cheeks, wishing that it was all a lie fabricated by Wentworth to rattle her father.
But no, it couldn’t be, she thought. She could feel it in her gut that he was telling the truth, and it broke something in her that would never be whole again.
When Wentworth attacked him once more, the Laird was prepared for it. With a swing of his sword, he parried the Earl’s attack, pushing him back, but he was not prepared for the other man to attack again and again, mercilessly, until he had no more breath in his lungs.
“Faither!” Nimue screamed at him, her heart beating so hard in her chest that it was a wonder it didn’t burst through her ribcage. She couldn’t lose him, too. “Be careful!” There were so many things that she still wanted to say to her father. She wanted to tell him that she had forgiven him for everything, that all she wanted was for him to be alive and well, but she knew there would be no time for that. The glint of Wentworth’s blade was getting closer and closer to him, and the Laird seemed to have no strength left in him anymore.
Nimue watched, eyes wide in horror. She wondered if it would hurt him, dying with a sword in his heart, or if it would be so quick that he wouldn’t even realize. She wished for the latter. She didn’t want him to suffer.
Wentworth’s sword pierced through her father’s skin, but the gasp that Nimue heard didn’t come from his lips. It came from Wentworth’s.
Wentworth stood before the Laird, his eyes wide and fearful, thick blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth. He still had his sword in his hand, but he hadn’t managed to pierce her father’s chest with it, only to graze his skin. His breath was raspy, labored, and Nimue knew that his lungs were quickly filling up with blood, choking him.
Behind him stood Chrisdean, his sword embedded into the Earl’s back. He looked the worse for wear, his shirt drenched in his own blood from the wounds that had reopened on his body, his hair falling in messy strands around his face, and his hands dirty with mud and blood. In his mad desire to kill the Earl, he had managed to push his blade right through him, the tip protruding from the man’s chest.
“Chrisdean!” Nimue cried, a wave of emotions swelling inside her. She didn’t know what to say to him, how to thank him for saving her father’s life. “Chrisdean, thank ye, oh, thank ye! Faither, are ye alright?”
“I’m alright, Nimue,” her father assured her. “But I dinna ken how to thank ye, Chrisdean. After everythin’, I . . . I have been terrible to ye and to Nimue, but ye saved me life nonetheless.”
“Ye dinna need to thank me, Laird MacLellan,” Chrisdean said. “But if ye wish to thank me, then help me end this battle. Fight for Scotland. Fight for what is right and just.”
“For Tristan,” Nimue said, and fresh tears spilled out of her eyes at the memory of her lost brother.
Nimue watched as her father nodded, the two of them grasping each other’s forearms in a pact. Her father seemed determined, more so than she had ever seen him before, and there was a spark in his eyes that hadn’t been there for years.
She still worried about him, noticing just how tired he was and just how much the battle had taken out of him. His breathing was ragged and quick, and he was drenched in sweat, his knees wobbly and his hand shaking with the weight of the sword. Still, Nimue could see that he wouldn’t back down.
“Let’s finish this,” Chrisdean said, and the two of them threw themselves into the fight.
