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“I’m an afterthought,” I spit out, the words surprising even me, and I waited for Lachlan’s response. When none came, I took a deep breath and continued. “I’ve always been an afterthought in everyone’s life. My parents barely noticed me until I became a hindrance to them, and then they sent me on my way. My work? While I’m great at my job if I do say so myself, I’m still viewed like I’ve just been handed the position by my family. Even when my suggestions or ideas are the best in the meetings? They’re dismissed until one of the other team members can rephrase it in a way that he gets credit for it. My boyfriends? Well, let’s not even go there.”
Silence met my words and, again, I admired what an effective tool it was to get someone to talk.
“I’m a doormat, Lachlan.” I turned and met his eyes. Those moody, stormy, stunning eyes. “I’m no knight. And, I haven’t known all of you all that long, but I don’t want to fail you. It’s…yesterday was the first time in my life that I’d ever felt the way that I did.” I left out the part where he’d kissed me senseless. “To have a whole crowd of people cheering me on? To accept me? To be excited that I am here to help them? And not because of my money or who I know, but because I,me, Sophie MacKnight, can possibly save them from an ancient curse? It’s…I’m scared. I don’t want to let people down.”
“So don’t,” Lachlan said, and I huffed out a small laugh when nothing more came from him. The man, if nothing else, was succinct.
“You make it sound so easy.”
“I didn’t say it was easy. But it doesn’t sound to me like being a doormat is any easier either.” Lachlan shifted, drumming his fingers against his thigh. “Seems to me like you were trying to make yourself fit in somewhere you didn’t really belong, Sophie. Yet in a few days here, you’ve won over an entire village, made friends, bested me at broadswords, and even convinced this crabbit beastie to love you.”
My heart skipped a beat before I realized he was talking about Sir Buster and not himself.
“I feel like the last part is a tenuous agreement,” I said, running a hand over Sir Buster’s fur. A low growl emanated from his body, and I grinned. “See?”
“Aye, he’s a moody one at that. But most of the Scots are. The other thing about us Scots? We’re a bloody strong lot.” Lachlan rose, and I looked up at him, the sun haloing his head. “While it seems you can play an important role in helping us, this doesn’t all rest on you, Sophie. If you weren’t here, we’d figure something else out. Our people are survivors with pure hearts, and we persevere. No matter what.”
Lachlan left me on the doorstep, and I took a moment longer, turning his words over in my mind like one of those crystal prisms, holding them up until they caught the light.
Pure of heart, I repeated to myself. It had never been heart I’d been lacking. Oh no, if anything, mine was too open and desperate for love. I’d lucked out when Lottie and Arthur had stepped in, helping me to fill the void, but now I understood what they’d been trying to teach me all along. Only I could give myself the love that I’d sought so desperately from others through the years.
Oh, yes. My heart was huge. And I hadsomuch to give. Instead of looking at all the ways I could fail the lovely people I’d met here, maybe it was time for me to show them all the ways I could help.
Me. Sophie MacKnight.
TheKnight of the Order of Caledonia.
To think I’d always been looking for a knight in shining armor when the person I needed to rescue me had been staring back in the mirror all along.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
lachlan
“The Knight is the first position in the Order of Caledonia,” Archie said, and I listened carefully. Once I’d agreed to take this seriously, I stuck to my word. It wouldn’t help anyone for me to vacillate on my decision, and if we were going to work together to save Loren Brae, then I had to be a helpful part of the team. As much as my pep talk for Sophie had been meant to help her, my words were also a stark reminder for me.
“And you said that not all positions are knights, correct?” Matthew asked, scanning his notebook. We hadn’t even bothered to move to the library. Instead, we dived right into the matter at hand after breakfast had been cleared.
“Correct. In an unusual diversion from a typical Order of olden days, the Order of Caledonia is filled with various roles that combine to create a happy and healthy village. Through the years, we’ve seen members that are healers, astrologers, blacksmiths, and so on. And roles not only held by men, either. However, it always starts with the knight. In this case, Sophie,” Archie said, steepling his hands before him. “For Sophie to step into her role and claim her power, she’ll need to pass three challenges. Three is a sacred number of the pagan ancestors, and the order is built on multiples of three. You’ll see this repeated as we go along.”
“Do we know what the challenges are? And how are they deemed passed?” I asked.
“The Clach na Fìrinn will deem it so,” Archie said, and I couldn’t stop myself from scoffing.
“You’re saying an inanimate object will tell Sophie if she’s passed these challenges?” I raised my eyebrows at Archie. “Sure, and you ken why I may have a hard time with all this.”
“It’s magick,” Agnes said, turning to me with a wondrous look on her face that stopped any further words from pouring forth from my very skeptical brain. “That’s the beauty and frustration of it. Magick doesn’t explain or ask to be understood, it justis. It doesn’t care if you accept it or not. Magick doesn’t try to fall neatly into little boxes in your mind. Magick exists because everyone needs to hold on to the possibilities of what-ifs. In a world where we are told no more often than not, magick is the hope that whispers sweetly in our dreams.”
Maybe I was someone who needed to see it to believe it, but what Icouldsee just now was that the people I loved needed me to believe, if only to be the glue that held everything together. While I might reserve judgment on whether magick existed, I wouldn’t be the one to block their progress either.
“That’s fair enough, I suppose,” I said and reached over to squeeze Agnes’s arm so she knew that I was being serious and not just humoring her.
“Challenges sound scary. Particularly if I have to battle a Kelpie or something.” Sophie worried her bottom lip and my thoughts went to a different type of magick—the miracle of her kiss that had almost dropped me to my knees.
“A knight’s responsibilities include courage, generosity, mercy, sacrifice, hope, honor, perseverance, and chivalry. There are more, but those are some of the main ones. To pass your three challenges, you’ll need to demonstrate, unequivocally, your ability to shine in one or more of these skill sets.”
“Fascinating,” Matthew mused, tapping his pen against his lips. “And will she need to declare before each challenge that she is going for a particular trait? What will be the measure of a challenge being met? Because Sophie has more courage than most on any given day. How would we know?”
Sophie reached over and squeezed Matthew’s hand, and I saw a sheen of tears in her eyes. I was grateful, given what sounded like a turbulent past, that she had someone like Matthew in her life.
