Long ago— The Stag and Thistle, Center of Caerwyn— Nightfall
The Stag and Thistle stood like a relic from a forgotten century, hunched and brooding beneath the cold breath of twilight. Its timeworn bones creaked against the moan of the Highland wind that slithered through Caerwyn's narrow veins of moss-covered stone.
Nestled at the very heart of the ancient town, where crooked alleys converged like strands of an old tale half-remembered, the building exuded a weary grandeur— its steep, slate-tiled roof draped in soot and ivy, its timbered frame twisted with age, and its carved wooden sign swinging gently from rusted chains, the thistle and stag half-faded by the years.
It was once a nobleman's hunting lodge, long before Caerwyn had even earned its name, the structure had endured generations of repurposing— first as a war council hall, then a debtor's court, then a blacksmith's barracks— until eventually, some ambitious soul draped it in tartan and turned it into a Highland-themed restaurant, hoping to bottle up the charm of myth and memory and sell it by the flagon.
Now, it masqueraded as a feast hall of yore, a curated performance of the past: oak beams thick as giants' limbs loomed overhead like forest sentinels, antler chandeliers hung low with flickering lanterns caught in their crooked crowns, and faded clan flags—some real, most fabricated—fluttered on the stone walls like proud ghosts.
Inside, the air was close, loud, and dripping with a thousand nights' worth of spilled whisky and greasy laughter.
The scent of peat smoke and roasted venison clung to every beam and bench, mingling with the salt of sweat and the metallic whisper of iron from old swords nailed ceremoniously above the hearth.
Tables were carved from dark, scarred wood, uneven and full of stories told in nicks and stains, and the floor bore the patina of boots, bar fights, and forgotten revelry.
There was no music tonight, save for the hushed murmur of stormwinds outside and the occasional clatter of pewter mugs striking tabletops.
At the far end of the main hall stood a grand fireplace wide enough to burn a small tree. It roared with steady flame, casting dancing shadows across the room and illuminating a mural overhead— faded but still proud— of a stag caught mid-leap, thistles blooming bloody red beneath its hooves.
Patrons sat hunched near the warmth, their voices low, their faces marked by the flicker of firelight and fatigue. It was a night for ghosts, for whispered names, and for cups held tightly by those who drank not for pleasure, but remembrance.
The waitstaff wore roughspun kilts and worn leather aprons, their smiles rehearsed but their pace brisk, ferrying platters of lamb pie and dripping trencher loaves between elbow-packed benches.
The menu, handwritten in curling ink on boards hung beside the bar, promised "Hunter's Feast" and "Oat-breaded Highland Trout" and "Mist-Honeyed Porridge"— all nods to legends most patrons were too drunk or disillusioned to care about.
Still, there was something sacred in the theater of it all, as if the wood and stone remembered its past far better than the people within.
And yet, on this particular night, whatever enchantment The Stag & Thistle still claimed was smothered beneath the sour weight of too many bodies and too little joy.
The firelight did not glow— it flickered. The air did not dance— it sagged.
The laughter had turned brackish, the food tasteless, the ale warm and bitter on the tongue.
Even the carved stag above the hearth seemed to look down with hollow-eyed regret, as though it too remembered grander nights— when warriors sang ballads between bloodied hunts, and legends walked, weary and wounded, through those very doors.
It was no longer a hall of memory, but a place where memory came to die quietly.
In the far-left corner of the hall, half-swallowed by the drunken haze and guttering light, a round table sagged beneath the weight of five men and their hard appetites.
Set beside the warped bar counter— where blackened barrels leaned like drunkards and iron hoops clinked with each refill— the men hunched like vultures over carrion, their arms thick with old scars and the stink of rust, sweat, and last week's blood.
The table itself was battered beyond recognition, its surface carved with names and crude emblems, its legs bowed like tired knees beneath war-battered boots.
They gripped their tankards not like cups, but weapons too dull to kill with— yet ready to shatter into shards if the wrong word was said too slowly.
The largest of them— a brute whose shoulders seemed poured from granite— threw back his head and let out a bark of laughter so raw it scraped the room clean of sound.
His skin was seared to a leathery bronze by sun and battle, lips split from cold and fists, and when he grinned, it was with the jagged yellow of old ivory left to rot.
A jagged scar pulled down one eye like a crooked tear, the kind that never healed right and never wanted to.
"Caledonian whelps," he sneered, voice like gravel ground through bone, "wouldn't dare lift a damn finger if their mothers were bleeding out in front of 'em."
He slammed his mead jug down so violently that it sent a spray of golden froth across the table, soaking into his sleeve, but he paid it no mind.
Instead, he leaned forward with a glint in his eye— not joy, not humor, but something colder, something sharpened on old grudges and held in the teeth like a blade.
"They piss standing up and still manage to drown in it. A pack of limp-dicked mongrels sniffing the heel of whatever boot kicks 'em last. Filthy blue-faced piss stains— that's all they are. Godless, gutless, mud-sucking sheep-fuckers." He spat onto the floor, then grinned wider.
"Empire ought to burn what's left of their hills and salt the cinders."
The others roared. Not laughter— howls. Throaty, vicious, beast-sounds born in trench fires and battlefield muck.
One pounded the table so hard a crack split down its center, wood groaning like it might finally give out beneath the sheer weight of brutality pressed upon it.
Another hurled his emptied mug at the hearth, which shattered against the stone and drew no more attention than a fly would.
This was not a tavern anymore— it was a den, and these were not men but something less patient, less moral, and more used to the taste of blood than bread.
"To hell with every last one of 'em," muttered a wiry man with fingers missing on his left hand.
He scratched the stump against the rim of his mug, eyes narrow, voice low.
"They scream just like anyone when their bellies open. I'd know. Opened a few myself."
"Remember Dunlor Bridge?" said another, eyes glinting with old memory. "The boy with that white flute. Cried for his mam, then stopped when I shoved it down his throat."
Laughter again. Cruel now. Crueler than before.
And still, beneath the swell of noise and the stench of rot and smoke, in the dimmed shadows of a booth where light dared not linger, a man sat alone. He had not moved. Had not spoken.
Just a figure hunched under a threadbare cloak, face hidden in the droop of a tattered hood, hands coiled tightly around a plain ceramic mug that held nothing but water and silence.
His knuckles were bone-white with pressure. He had not touched the drink. He hadn't needed to.
Macdoul. The name lived in whispered corners of barracks and execution yards, in the grim fables told by men who'd lived through darker seasons.
To some, he was a loyal blade. To others, a curse forged in betrayal and kept sharp by pain. But tonight, he was only a quiet shape in the dark, silent as a held breath, still as a coiled wire.
He did not speak. He did not need to.
His eyes— shadows within shadows— were locked onto the five like a wolf stalking a pen of drunk, blind pigs. Not rage. Rage was hot, wild, and foolish.
This was colder, deeper— a waiting. A slow accounting.
Every insult was a mark. Every laugh, a tick. Every mouth that opened to curse his homeland, a mouth he'd already seen bloodied and split open against stone.
The tavern hummed with noise, but around him, there was a hush. A stillness. The kind that settles just before a blade is drawn in a crowd too drunk to notice the quiet dying.
His jaw clenched, the muscle twitching faintly. A vein pulsed at his temple, steady as a drumbeat in a war tent before the slaughter.
He was not drinking. He was remembering. Not forgetting. Cataloging.
Somewhere in the rafters above, a droplet of melted wax slid off a candle and struck the floor with a hiss. It was the loudest sound in the world for just one second.
And Macdoul didn't blink. His hands braced the edge of the table— both of them flat, steady, firm.
The fingers of his right curled faintly inward, as though resisting the urge to curl into a fist, while his left flexed with silent deliberation.
Beneath the table, one boot slid back across the stone floor.
He was going to stand. Not in haste. Not in rage.
With the kind of grim, ritualistic certainty a man has when rising to hang someone who deserves it.
But then— She came.
She passed like a pale whisper between tables cluttered with spilled ale and bones stripped to gristle.
A breath of something unspoiled amid all the smoke and ruin.
Young, no older than her early twenties, and moving with a quiet grace that seemed almost out of place in a hall full of roaring dogs.
Her hair was curly, the color of autumn soil, tugged back behind her head with quiet discipline, and her eyes were the piercing blue-grey of frost at sunrise, soft but unyielding.
Eyes that had likely seen too much and still chose to look gently.
She wore a uniform styled like something from a century past— white blouse with slight puffed sleeves tucked neatly into a fitted black vest, silver buttons catching the glow of nearby lanterns.
Her long, slate-gray skirt brushed the floor with every step, whispering against the flagstones, the hem just barely lifted to avoid pooling in the dirt.
The outfit was dated, perhaps theatrical— an homage to Highland housemaids of old— but worn with sincerity, not performance.
Spotless, too. Not pristine from wealth, but from care.
That kind of relentless, weary care that only the poorest yet proudest took the time to uphold.
Balanced on the tray in her hands was a single glass of water.
Just water— clear, plain, untouched by indulgence. Yet she carried it like it were a goblet of gold.
Her eyes darted politely as she passed men twice her weight and five times as loud— men who stared without grace, who leered, who laughed through split lips and said things under their breath that no decent girl ought to hear.
But if she heard them, she didn't show it. She simply moved, quiet as snowfall.
And then, she reached his table.
She slowed, stepped forward, and placed the glass before him with practiced care.
The crystal rang faintly on the wood as it touched down— more music than anything sung in that hall for decades.
She looked at him— not with fear, not with suspicion, but something warm. Measured.
Macdoul blinked, caught off guard as if her nearness had dragged him back to a world he'd long forgotten.
For a second, the tavern vanished— the noise, the stink, the laughter, the men with their butcher's humor. Gone. There was only her.
"…Thanks," he said.
It came out hoarse, uncertain, half-formed.
A murmur carried on the edge of breath, rasped through a throat dry from years of silence and ash.
His voice cracked like a leather strap pulled too tight, too suddenly, after years of disuse. But it was honest. It was real.
She smiled. Not a forced courtesy, not the hollow grin of the tired and desperate.
No— hers was warm, generous, lit from behind the eyes with something still alive inside her.
The faintest crinkle formed at the corners of her eyes as she tilted her head gently, a small gesture that felt like sunlight breaking through winter mist.
"Sure," she said softly. "Anytime."
Her voice was light, but not flighty.
It had the tone of bells rung far away across snowy hills— soft, distant, but clear enough to make you pause.
She held the tray lightly against her stomach and stepped back, offering a final smile before turning toward the bar. Her skirt swept the stones again as she moved away, and the moment passed.
A waiter— tall, gangly, in black trousers with a sweat-stained collar— raised a hand and called her name from across the hall.
She glanced toward him and nodded, shifting course without complaint. Without rush. She did not linger, and she did not look back.
But her presence clung to the air like perfume. Something delicate in a place built from claw and steel.
Macdoul stared at the water. Still untouched. He didn't reach for it. Not yet.
Behind him, the laughter began again. One of the brutes let out a roar so hard he choked on it and thumped his own chest.
Another launched into some tale about a girl in Inverness who'd screamed until her lungs tore.
The words hit his back like stones. They were nothing new. Just noise. Just the same violence repackaged for amusement.
But now, the silence in Macdoul's chest felt louder.
His hands were still on the table. But now, his grip had loosened. Not gone slack— just…recalibrated.
He wasn't standing up to walk anymore. He was standing up to choose. And somewhere behind his ribs, in the place where men store mercy until they lose it, something old began to shift.
There were five men laughing in the hall. Five mouths that hadn't stopped moving. Five names he didn't know, and didn't need to.
And a girl, just one, who carried water like it mattered.
Then came a crash.
A woman's scream. Sharp and thin.
Macdoul's head snapped up. His neck moved with a quiet jolt, like steel uncoiling.
For a second, the tavern was still— just the flicker of firelight and the creak of old rafters.
Then the sound hit him.
The shattering of glass. The slosh of liquid. The stink of sour mead freshly spilled.
She was on the floor.
The girl— thatgirl— lay sprawled on the cracked wood, soaked in a puddle of gold-tinged alcohol, her hair loosened and plastered to her cheek.
A broken jug lay beside her, jagged and glittering like a shattered jaw.
Around her, the five men loomed, shadows fat with hunger. Their laughter had curdled into jeers, mean and sharp as rusted nails.
She gasped and scrambled back, her hands trembling as she smeared ale from her eyes, sleeves dragging across her face. Her chest heaved. Her knees skidded.
The brute, the one who led the others with his rotten grin and boulder fists, stepped forward with slow, deliberate strides.
His boots thudded like war drums.
"Well, well," he grunted, crouching low, his breath heavy with liquor and old meat.
"Slippery fingers, little doe."
He reached down and seized her wrist in a hand that looked carved from stone, fingers clamping down like a bear trap.
Her arm jerked in his grasp. She let out a cry, shrill and raw, thrashing as she tried to tear free.
"Come now, girl," he said, his voice low and wet with mockery, "why don't you play with us for a bit? Warm our laps, earn your coin the old-fashioned way."
"You filthy pigs!" she shrieked, kicking and clawing, her nails scoring red lines down the back of his knuckles.
"Let me go, you ugly bastards!"
Her voice cracked— high and panicked.
Her other hand fumbled at the floor for anything solid: a chair leg, a tankard, anything.
The brute's grin snapped off. His brow sank like a thundercloud. And then he hurled her.
He flung her like a sack of rags across the tavern, her body arcing through the smoky air before crashing into a cluster of empty tables.
Wood split and chairs buckled as she tumbled through them, limbs flailing, a grunt torn from her chest as she slammed to a halt, right at Macdoul's feet.
For a moment, she didn't move.
Then she stirred— slow, trembling, curling into herself like a wounded fox.
Her blouse was torn at the shoulder, her skirt frayed and dirt-stained. Hair stuck to her wet face. Tears streamed down her cheeks, carving rivers through the grime.
But it wasn't just fear in her eyes anymore. It was rage. Trembling, impotent rage.
Rage that seethed at the edges of her helplessness and could only scream inside her skull.
Behind her, the hyenas laughed.
"Ho!" one of them barked, spitting into the firepit. "She's got fight in her!"
"Maybe she likes it rough," another howled, slamming his mug down so hard it split.
"Ain't that right, sweetheart? You just needed a bit of a toss to warm you up!"
They moved in closer. Boots thudding, scraping. The brute rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles.
But others were watching now— other patrons, slouched in booths and leaning on balustrades. Farmers, sellswords, shipmen. Some grimaced. Some smirked.
One old man shifted uncomfortably, but said nothing. No one moved to stop it. Not in this place. Not in this town.
"Grab her, Ruaid," the second man chuckled, drawing a dagger and letting it dangle by the hilt from two fingers. "Give her a real Highland welcome."
Macdoul still hadn't moved.
He sat frozen, eyes fixed on the girl— her breath hitching, her teeth bared in wordless defiance. A torn sleeve, a bleeding lip, but still trying to push herself up with trembling arms.
His hand closed around the cup of water. Not to drink. Just to feel it. Something cold. Something still.
A bootstep. Another. The brute, Ruaid, reached for her again.
"Hey," Macdoul murmured— quiet as a knife unsheathing— yet it sliced through the tavern louder than any shout.
Every eye in the tavern turned. The five men stopped, blinking in mild confusion.
Then one of them laughed. "Look at this— cripple wants to play knight."
Ruaid turned to face him fully, fists clenched. "You deaf, old man?" he growled.
"This ain't your fight. Piss off before I use your teeth to salt the floor."
Macdoul blinked slowly. Tilted his head. His jaw clenched once.
And then he said, in a voice like stone dragged over bone— "No one touches her again."
The tavern held its breath, and the air turned to iron.
Macdoul rose. His chair scraped back with a shrill, splintering shriek— like iron teeth dragged across a tombstone— and the room fell dead silent.
Mugs halted mid-sip. Jokes rotted half-spoken in mouths that suddenly forgot how to move.
Even the hearth fire seemed to recoil, its flames guttering lower as if they knew something ancient had just stood up.
The girl flinched, curled in pain on the floor, arms wrapped tight to her ribs, but Macdoul never looked at her.
His hood dropped as he stepped forward, and the flickering candlelight caught his face. Not the face of a man, but of something that had survived things that don't leave survivors.
Skin weathered like battlefield leather. Old scars puckered and cruel. A beard flecked in ash and iron.
And his eyes, those eyes, weren't alight with fury. No, they gleamed with the same quiet certainty as a noose on execution day. Cold and merciless.
There was no sound to his movement. No heavy boots, no creaking leather. Just presence. Suffocating, inescapable. Like the moment before a dam breaks.
One of the men, the youngest of the five, swallowed hard and found just enough voice to spit a warning.
"Sit your arse down, old man," he sneered, though his words trembled under the weight of them.
"This ain't your fight. Go back to your drink before you bleed for someone who ain't worth the bruise."
He never finished the breath.
Crack.
No one saw the motion— only the result. The brute lay facedown in a spreading pool of blood, limbs splayed, nose shattered flat into the stone.
Teeth were scattered across the floor like dice. The sound of the impact hung in the air longer than the scream that never came.
The others stumbled back, chairs toppling behind them. Three reached for their belts.
Macdoul didn't move. He arrived.
A blink, and he was already in front of the second man, the glint of steel catching in candlelight. Not drawn. Unveiled.
A blade thin and cruel, like something forged to kill not just bodies, but names.
The point hovered just beneath the man's chin, and his bravado shattered in an instant.
Macdoul leaned in close enough that his breath fogged the man's lips, and when he spoke, it was soft— terrifyingly soft. A voice meant for graveside confessions and last rites.
"You think I care about her?"
His tone wasn't defensive. It was surgical.
"This isn't about your little mess, you piss-drenched carrion. This is about every cackling mouth that forgot who bled to build the ground you piss on. Every empire dog that mistook silence for surrender. You laughed like men who've never had their teeth kicked down their throats."
The man whimpered. His fingers twitched around the hilt of his dagger, but he didn't dare draw it.
Macdoul continued, the blade now pressing gently, lovingly, against the man's pulse.
"We remember faces," he whispered.
"We remember names. Even if the world forgets. Even if they paint over graves and piss on the stones. We don't. Caledonia remembers. And Caledonia never forgives."
He took a step back. Just one. Just enough to let the man breathe.
But then his voice dropped lower still, and the whole tavern leaned in, caught by the gravity of a single truth.
"Tell your captains. Tell your smug little lords. Caledonia is not buried. We are the silence before the scream. The rot beneath your banners. The ghost beneath your bed. We are what you left to die in the mud— and we learned how to crawl back."
The man's bladder gave. A dark patch spread down his trousers.
The others didn't wait. They lunged for their unconscious brute and dragged him out by his collar, boots skidding across the blood-slick floor.
No one spoke. One sobbed. One retched into his own shirt. And when the door slammed shut behind them, it sounded not like wood hitting wood, but like a judge's hammer, sealing fate.
Silence swallowed the tavern whole, and Macdoul stood alone, sword in hand, breath calm. Unmoved. Unchanged, like this wasn't the first time. Like it wouldn't be the last.
For a long, unmoving breath, the only sounds were the girl's soft, uneven breathing and the faint, steady whisper of lantern flames dancing in their glass.
Then, without a word or flourish, Macdoul sheathed his blade. The steel slid home with the hush of closure, finally solemn.
He knelt beside her, not as a warrior descending from conquest, nor a knight seeking reverence, but as a man shaped by ruin and redemption.
Weathered hands extended, open, steady.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, voice gravelled and coarse, yet wrapped in something unmistakably gentle.
She looked at him through the shimmer of her tears and nodded, trembling.
"I… I don't think so," she whispered.
Macdoul helped her rise. Her limbs were fragile beneath his grasp, like reeds swaying after a storm, but she steadied.
And then, though her eyes were still rimmed in red, though her lips quivered, she smiled. Faintly, uncertainly yet truly.
"Thank you," she breathed, the words almost reverent.
Macdoul said nothing at first. Instead, he reached into the folds of his cloak and pressed something into her hand: several small, heavy coins, worn smooth with age.
Their bronze faces bore the sigils of another time, another land— dulled by years, but etched with history.
Each one felt warm to the touch, like they had been carried across a thousand storms.
The girl looked down, her brow furrowing, lips parting slightly.
"Sir… these are…" she began, her voice touched with hesitancy.
"These are Caledonian coins. We only take Caerwyn currency here."
Macdoul blinked. Once. Then again. His gaze drifted downward, and when he saw the glint of those long-forgotten pieces in her palm, a strange stillness passed through him.
His breath caught. His posture faltered. For a heartbeat, he seemed unmoored— like a man hearing a name he hadn't been called in years.
And then, unexpectedly, a small, breathless laugh escaped him. Low, rusted, almost shy.
It wasn't the laugh of a soldier, or even a man in command. It was the laugh of someone remembering something long buried—someone caught off guard by kindness.
Before he could stammer out a word, the girl shook her head gently and closed her fingers around the coins.
Then, with quiet determination, she reached up and folded his calloused hand shut around her own.
Her palms were small, her touch feather-light, but in them was a firmness that stilled something wild in him.
Her eyes met his, warm and calm and without fear, and Macdoul, for all his battles and blood, could not hold her gaze for long.
"It's alright," she said softly.
"Just… let this one be my gift. A thank-you for stepping in when no one else dared."
She tilted her head slightly.
A lock of brown hair slipped over her cheek like a silken veil, and her smile deepened, not out of obligation, but from some quiet place of truth.
In that smile was something luminous. Something that didn't demand, didn't question— only gave.
Macdoul's breath faltered. His chest tightened with unfamiliar heat, and color flushed across his face in a way he hadn't felt since boyhood.
Embarrassed, unsure, he lowered his gaze, suddenly uncertain where to place his hands.
"I… th-thank you," he muttered, his voice little more than a hushed murmur, as though anything louder might break the spell.
And for the first time in many years, the silence around him felt like peace, not penance.
There was a flicker in his voice— a tremble beneath the usual iron, like wind stirring through armor left too long in silence.
Vulnerability threaded itself through the rough timbre of his words, faint but undeniable, as if something had stirred awake inside him for the first time in years.
With that same careful stillness, Macdoul turned away, his boots crunching softly against the gravel beyond the wooden porch of the cabin-like tavern, the night wrapping around him like a cold shawl.
His breath lingered in the air.
He cast one last glance over his shoulder— only to see her, already returning to her work, her back straight as she disappeared through the swinging door toward the kitchen, the soft light framing her silhouette in gold.
He hesitated. Just for a moment. A long, reluctant pause. A part of him wanted to turn around again, to say something— anything— but the words would not come.
With a faint sigh and a quiet, almost wistful smile tugging at his lips, he continued on, the night swallowing him in pieces.
But then, behind him, a voice rang out— not loud, not sharp, but carried by something stronger than urgency. "Wait!"
He stopped in his tracks.
The sound of hurried steps followed, a frantic patter across old wooden boards.
He turned, eyes widening slightly as he saw her running toward him, one hand clutched around her skirt to keep it from tangling around her legs, the other outstretched as if afraid he might vanish before she reached him.
The porch lanterns lit her as she ran, casting flickering shadows that danced at her heels.
When she finally stopped before him, she was breathless, panting softly, her chest rising and falling with each exhale.
Her hair curled around her cheeks, glowing faintly in the moonlight.
"I… I almost forgot," she said between breaths, holding out a small cloth bag with both hands.
The fabric was old but clean, tied neatly with a little twine bow. "Please… take this."
Macdoul hesitated, then gently took the bag, the warmth of it seeping into his hands. Bread— freshly baked, still soft from the oven. His fingers lingered on the cloth a moment longer than necessary.
It's still warm… he thought, the weight of the cloth bundle strangely tender in his hands, like it carried more than bread, like it carried a memory he didn't remember having.
He tightened his fingers around it, careful not to crush it, as though reverence alone might keep the warmth from fading.
The scent curled into his lungs: freshly baked wheat kissed with thyme, a whisper of firewood, the ghost of a kitchen long since silenced by time.
"You came all this way to give me bread?" he asked at last, his voice lighter now, softened by a crooked smile that hovered at the edge of his mouth, uncertain, but real.
It was the closest thing to a joke he'd spoken in months, maybe longer.
She smiled back— a small, genuine thing, so gentle it barely moved her lips but made her eyes shine like wet stone under candlelight.
"Well… not just that," she said, and the way her voice dipped, almost shy, made his smile falter.
"There's something else, too."
Macdoul arched a brow, curious.
Her expression changed— the warmth didn't vanish, but something steadier rose beneath it, something more solemn.
She looked down, took a breath, then met his gaze again as though it cost her something to do so.
Her hands, still small compared to his, reached forward and carefully cradled one of his— not with urgency this time, but with the deliberate care of someone about to say something they couldn't unsay.
"It's about the coins you gave me."
She turned his hand palm-up, then slid something cool and metallic into it— a few coins, copper-burnished with age, though polished by the touch of many hands.
He glanced down and saw the unmistakable sigil of Caerwyn pressed into its surface: a dragon coiled around a crescent moon, its wings outstretched in a stance of both protection and menace.
The edges were slightly nicked, worn smooth in places by travel and time, but the mark remained clear, regal, and unmistakable.
He'd grown up seeing these. Back then, they were currency; now, they were relics. Proof of origin. Or worse— allegiance.
"Don't use them," she said, voice quiet but firm. "Your coins. Not here. Not in the square, not at the market, not even with the blacksmith."
Macdoul's brow furrowed. "Why? What's wrong with them?"
Her fingers curled slightly around his, holding the coin in place, like she didn't trust him to understand its weight unless she made him feel it.
"They're old. Too old, too rare. People notice them. And they notice the people who carry them."
He studied her face, searching for fear, but what he found was deeper than fear.
It was an experience. Whatever she had seen, she didn't speak of it.
But it lived behind her eyes like a shadow that never quite left the walls.
"They'll ask questions," she went on.
"About who you are. Where are you from? Why do you have these? And you don't want that, right?"
"Why do you care?" he asked quietly, his voice lacking accusation. It was curiosity, tinged with something softer.
Her gaze faltered for the first time.
She looked down, letting go of his hand. Her voice came faint, as if to herself. "Because you listened."
Then louder, "Because you stayed, when most would've left."
Macdoul nodded slowly, the coin still resting in his palm. "Verily," he said at last, closing his fingers over it. "I plight my troth."
Her whole body seemed to exhale.
Her shoulders loosened, her stance relaxed, as though she had been holding something fragile inside her chest for too long and had finally put it down.
She gave a small, almost embarrassed laugh, then suddenly spun in a gentle circle, arms lifted like wings.
Her skirt flared softly around her legs, and for a moment, she looked like something that didn't belong in the world of coin and war and suspicion.
She looked like a memory he hadn't made yet. Like peace.
She stopped, facing the moon, her arms folding slowly against her chest.
The silver light painted her face in soft glows and shadows, her hair catching it like threads of burnished silk.
Then she turned halfway, casting a look back over her shoulder— a smile blooming like the first warmth of spring after an unrelenting winter.
"Don't you think…" she asked, voice quieter than the breeze, "…that the moon is beautiful tonight?"
He didn't answer. He couldn't.
His voice had forgotten how to move, trapped beneath the sudden swell of something painful and magnificent all at once.
She was radiant. The moonlight cloaked her in a kind of sacred calm, softening every edge, turning her into something half-real, half-dream.
He could still feel the ghost of her nearness— the warmth of her breath as she'd leaned just close enough to stir the air between them, like a secret she almost told.
She hadn't touched him, but somehow it hurt all the same.
In her heart, she thought: He doesn't even know what he gave me tonight. A stranger, yes, but one who didn't look through me. He didn't take and didn't assume. That kind of mercy was rarer than the feelings I could feel.
And as she turned to go, her feet light on the wood of the porch, she whispered— more to the wind than to him— "I hope you'll stay a little longer next time."
She turned, not with urgency but with a quiet grace, beginning her walk back toward the cabin— her steps slow, deliberate, like she was trying to make the moment last just a breath longer.
Halfway across the porch, she paused.
Then, with a gentle twist of her waist, she turned only her upper body, her head tilting over her shoulder to look back at him, brown hair catching the moonlight like strands of silk.
"Oh… and the name's Sarah," she said, her voice light, almost playful, but trembling just faintly with something real.
She smiled— this time with all her teeth, white and even, the kind of smile that shone without artifice, warm and dazzling and wholly unafraid. It lit her face like sunrise through frostglass.
Then she turned back, the soft folds of her skirt brushing her ankles as she stepped through the doorway.
The light of the cabin flickered around her for one last moment— lantern glow painting gold on the wooden walls— before the door closed behind her with a gentle click, leaving only shadows and silence.
Macdoul didn't move.
The cloth bag in his hands had begun to cool, but the warmth she had left behind— on his cheek, in his chest, somewhere deeper he couldn't name —burned quietly, stubbornly, like the dying glow of coals under ash.
He stared at the door for a long time, as if expecting it to open again. As if part of him wanted to walk forward, knock once, and ask for something he didn't even know how to name.
Above him, the moon hung heavy in the dark, silver and vast, and if it could speak, perhaps it would have said nothing— only smiled knowingly, like an old friend entrusted with a secret too fragile for words.
From that night on, Macdoul returned to the restaurant again and again— never for the food, nor the warmth of the fire, but for her.
The girl whose laugh rose like a song above clinking dishes, whose smile lingered in the folds of his memory through battles and cold winds.
He watched for her each evening, through the noisy clutter of guests and shadows cast by candlelight, waiting for the moment she would appear behind the counter or emerge from the kitchen with a tray in her hands, her hum soft as wind through pine.
And when she caught his gaze, her smile would bloom— no longer the polite curve of lips given to strangers, but something gentler, warmer.
Their conversations began modestly, little more than exchanged pleasantries. But night by night, like rain shaping stone, something shifted.
Thank-yous turned into laughter. Small talk turns into shared memories.
They spoke softly across flickering candlelight, fingers brushing as she poured tea, hearts pulling closer across the distance of a wooden table.
He found himself saying things he hadn't told another soul in years— old stories from campaigns long gone, tales of home, of regrets, of dreams he had buried in snow and silence.
She listened— not out of courtesy, but with the kind of stillness that made words feel valuable.
And when she spoke, it was like sunlight breaking through winter fog— her thoughts simple yet profound, her voice so sincere it softened the hardness he carried.
As the weeks passed like drifting petals, their connection deepened, thread by thread.
It was unspoken, delicate— like a string pulled taut between two hearts too careful to name what they feared to lose. But it was there, unmistakably.
She had become his refuge in a world too cruel, too bitter. And in her presence, he found something he thought war had stolen from him long ago: hope.
In time, they began to wander beyond the walls of the restaurant.
A shared meal at a quiet garden terrace where lanterns floated in bowls of water. A slow walk through a carnival, laughter caught between the creak of wheels and the distant melody of fiddles.
And then one evening, the park.
They sat together on a bench beneath the embrace of twilight.
The world had fallen quiet around them, the stars emerging one by one like secrets whispered to the night. The moon hung swollen and white, three-quarters full, like a promise nearly made.
They said nothing for a while. Just the sound of the wind rustling the trees, and the faint pulse of crickets in the grass.
Macdoul's gaze was not on the sky, but on her.
On the curve of her jaw, lit by moonlight. On the way, her curly hair cascaded over her shoulder, with a few strands brushing across her cheek like the softest ink strokes.
Her eyes reflected the heavens— calm, glowing, unknowable.
Then, without turning toward him, she said, "Don't stare at me like that. You'll make me shy."
Her voice was light, teasing, but it trembled at the edges like a leaf in the wind.
Macdoul's cheeks flushed crimson, his breath catching in his throat.
She finally turned to him, smiling with closed eyes, her voice quieter now, edged with something honest.
"If you have feelings for someone, you shouldn't keep them all locked away. It hurts. Even if it ends in rejection, even if it doesn't work out, you'll still be lighter for having tried. If she's not the one, maybe that's the mercy of fate, not its cruelty."
He looked at her— truly looked. His heart beat like thunder under his skin.
"I… I don't follow my desires lightly. I only move when I feel certain," he said, stumbling a bit over the words.
"But I'm sorry for staring. I couldn't help it. You're just—" he breathed in, "—you're beautiful. Like the moon… tonight to tomorrow."
She tilted her head, one finger on her lower lip, puzzled. "Tomorrow? Why tomorrow?"
He smiled. "It's supposed to be a full moon tomorrow. Just like the night we met."
A breeze stirred the stillness around them, brushing through the trees and then across her.
It caught her hair and swept it back, revealing her full face bathed in silver light. Her cheeks glowed with a soft blush.
Her lips parted slightly. Her eyes shimmered— not from the moon, but from something deeper. The wind should've been cold. But it wasn't. It felt warm.
Then she blinked, let out a short breath of laughter, and said, "My real name is Sarah Sinclair."
He blinked. "What?"
She turned her face upward, giving the sky a brief glance before looking back at him with that same playful smile. "Sorry for lying."
His eyes widened, a mixture of surprise and disbelief overtaking him. "Wait— are you… The daughter of Duke Duncan Sinclair?"
She chuckled, slow and soft, leaning back on the bench. "Hey, slow down! You'll wake the squirrels."
Macdoul stared, the realization flooding him like a rising tide. "But… why did you work at the restaurant? Why are you even here? If the duke found out—"
She stood then, her hands at her sides, her gaze cast once more toward the heavens.
A single tear glimmered on her cheek, catching the moonlight like a fallen star.
He rose beside her, and in that soft, aching silence, he saw it fall.
"You don't need to know that," she whispered. "At least… not yet."
Then, suddenly— "Whoever reaches the cabin first wins!"
Before he could respond, she was gone, running through the tall grass with laughter trailing behind her like petals in the wind.
"Wait, what. Hey! That's not fair!" Macdoul shouted, startled but grinning, taking off after her with all the speed his legs could muster. "You ran first, you cheated!"
Their laughter filled the night as they sprinted under stars and moonlight, hearts racing, breath catching, the world around them forgotten.
For a few brief minutes, nothing else mattered— not their pasts, not their names, not the secrets each carried.
They didn't know they were being watched.
A figure stood behind a tree, cloaked in black, face hidden in shadow.
His voice was a breath against the bark. "Sinclair… The abandoned sisters."
But far ahead, past the dark and the watching eyes, Macdoul caught up. Just before the cabin, he lunged forward, breathless, triumphant.
"I win," he said between gasps.
Sarah laughed, her face flushed, her eyes bright. "Fine, fine. You win."
But in her smile, in the way she looked at him, it felt like something more had been claimed than a race.
Something real. Something that would not be easily taken back.
The night slipped away like a thief, unnoticed and unlamented.
When morning came, the sky wore a gray shroud, thick with mourning clouds that threatened rain but offered none.
By evening, as the sun made its slow, reluctant descent behind the bramble-thick ridgeline, Macdoul's boots found the narrow forest path, worn into the earth from countless visits.
The air was chilled and sharp, the scent of damp bark and woodsmoke clinging to every breath.
Each step was deliberate, slow, a rhythm of quiet anticipation.
Brittle leaves crackled beneath his heels, dry veins crunching underfoot like old parchment surrendering to flame.
He didn't hurry. For once, he allowed himself the softness of expectation.
There was no looming dread, no warning in his gut— only a quiet, tender eagerness that made his fingers drift down to the worn leather pouch at his side.
He opened it, his gloved hand fishing for the coin he'd selected just this morning.
His fingertips closed around the cold metal, and he smiled faintly as he lifted it into the fading light.
The Caerwynian coin gleamed dully beneath the sky, its silvery edges etched with foreign symbols, half-worn by age and use.
He turned it over, studying the stamp as if it held some secret truth, some ancient assurance of peace.
"Caerwyn this time," he murmured aloud, a quiet chuckle brushing past his lips.
"No bloody missteps today. Just stories… maybe that song again."
His mind drifted to the soft sound of her humming, the way her voice lilted when she teased him, the warmth in her eyes when she handed him tea without asking if he wanted it.
Of course, he always wanted it.
He exhaled slowly, lifting the coin higher for one last glance before tucking it back into the pouch with reverent care. "She'll laugh again tonight," he whispered to himself. "She always does."
But then— something shifted.
It was not sound that broke the spell, nor a motion in the underbrush, but a sudden, sickening pressure that pressed down on the air itself, as though the forest had inhaled sharply and forgotten how to exhale.
Macdoul's steps faltered. His gaze lifted.
That was when he saw it.
A column of smoke, thick and black as pitch, was curling into the sky just beyond the trees ahead.
It rose like a funeral banner, wild and wrathful, clawing at the heavens in thick, ragged spirals.
This was not the gentle, lazy smoke of hearth fires or roasted herbs wafting through open shutters— this was dense, poisonous, angry.
It churned and twisted as if alive, vomiting soot into the wind like a beast disturbed.
His heart clenched, a physical thing writhing in his chest. "No," he said, barely louder than a breath. "No, no, gods, please—"
He didn't think. He ran.
The forest rushed past in a blur.
His pouch burst open somewhere behind him, scattering coins like offerings to uncaring spirits, but he didn't stop, didn't even feel them fall.
Branches whipped his face, drawing blood.
Twisting roots clawed at his boots, but he hurdled them.
His breath tore ragged from his throat, every inhale fire, every exhale a curse. His legs screamed in protest. His vision narrowed to a tunnel of smoke and terror.
The smell hit him first— burnt wood, scorched oil, something else— something sickeningly sweet.
Then, as the trees parted, the world stopped.
Where the little wooden restaurant had stood, cozy and warm beneath the canopy's embrace, there was now only fire. Raging, merciless fire.
Flames licked skyward, devouring what remained of the roof.
The once-charming awning had collapsed into a tangle of beams and smoldering timbers.
The windows— those windows he used to peer through, waiting for her silhouette to appear— were now hollow sockets belching smoke.
The walls groaned as they caved inward, eaten alive by flame.
Macdoul stumbled to a halt. The heat struck his face like an open palm.
His breath caught, and something broke inside his chest. "No… no, please," he whispered, shaking his head as if the flames might vanish if he just refused to believe them.
But they didn't. They roared louder, greedy and triumphant.
And then, laughter. It didn't belong to her.
From the right side of the ruin, a cluster of figures staggered out from the smoke-drenched underbrush. Their silhouettes were smeared by haze, their outlines dancing in the heat like phantoms.
Macdoul squinted, and his blood turned to ice.
He recognized them. Every filthy, smiling face.
They were the same men— the same jackals— who had once bled on his fists for daring to menace her. The same ones she had begged him not to provoke again.
Their clothes were scorched, ragged from struggle, but their expressions glowed with vicious triumph.
One limped forward, his mouth curled into a cruel sneer despite a swollen lip still healing from Macdoul's last lesson.
"Well, well," the man crowed, kicking aside a smoking shard of timber.
"There's your hero, boys. Late to the party, as always."
Another spat into the flames, grinning.
"Think protecting some gutter wench comes free, do ya?"
"You pay for kindness in blood," the first said, his voice sharp with mockery. "Hers first. Then yours."
They laughed. Not the kind of laughter that came from amusement, but the hollow, triumphant kind that reeked of spilled ale and cowardice— men who took joy in breaking things simply because they could.
One of them pulled something metallic from his pocket and, without ceremony, tossed it into the inferno.
Macdoul saw it arc through the air, glinting once before it vanished into the fire with a hiss.
His fists curled so tightly his knuckles cracked. Rage flared through him, white-hot and blinding— but grief was the weight that stole his breath.
"The girl…" he muttered.
Without another word, he ran.
The entrance was gone, buried beneath a fallen beam and walls that had folded in like brittle paper.
Fire chewed at the ruins with snapping jaws.
For the briefest second, he stood frozen, staring into the blaze, but then he roared and hurled himself forward.
Flames scraped across his coat like claws. Smoke filled his lungs in one choking breath.
He stumbled through the broken frame, coughing violently, eyes stinging.
"Where are you—!" he rasped. "Where—"
His boots skidded across blackened floorboards. The tables were gone, reduced to twisted metal and ash.
Shelves had collapsed, their contents charred beyond recognition. He blinked through the haze and—
There. Behind what remained of the counter, a shape.
He staggered toward it, heart thundering in his ears, his hands outstretched.
But— It wasn't her.
Only broken wood. Ash. A burned scrap of cloth, half-melted into the grain.
He fell to his knees.
"Gods…" he whispered, his voice lost in the smoke. "No, no, not like this…"
She was gone. Not a body. Not a single breath of her warmth.
Just absence. And behind it, silence. A silence louder than the fire, louder than the crack of collapsing beams. It screamed at him. A silence shaped like her laugh, her smile, her name.
Macdoul trembled, hands shaking as they hovered uselessly over the ash.
"…You promised me tea," he whispered.
And the fire, merciless, answered nothing.
Smoke curled around him like the hands of the dead, winding through the air in ghostly ribbons that blurred the world to gray.
Macdoul remained kneeling in the soot, his knees grinding into scorched timber as if he'd sunk into the bones of the earth itself.
His body refused to move. His limbs felt carved from stone, weightless and immovable all at once. His lungs fought for air but only drank smoke.
And yet, he could not leave. Could not turn away from the ruin that had once held warmth, music, and the scent of rosemary tea steeping behind the counter.
The world had ended here, and it had done so quietly.
He looked down at the scrap of burned fabric still clutched between his fingers.
A small corner of blue, pale and soot-stained, pressed with a pattern of little stitched leaves. He recognized it instantly— her apron.
The one she always wore, even when she scolded him for staying too long, even when she laughed behind her hand as he made clumsy jokes.
He remembered her standing in it with her sleeves rolled, hands dusted in flour, calling him a fool and smiling like the world wasn't already broken.
His hands clenched around the cloth until it tore.
There was no body, but the silence was too complete. Too deep.
It didn't feel like she had fled— it felt like the building had swallowed her whole, offering her up to whatever darkness had come clawing at their joy.
Macdoul dragged in a ragged breath and rose to his feet, staggering back against what remained of the shattered wall.
His shadow flickered against the flames like a broken reflection.
His head tilted back, and for the first time in years, his lips parted— not in defiance, not in command, not in some half-hearted oath whispered to steel before battle— but in something far more vulnerable.
He looked to the sky. Gray, endless, and indifferent.
He had never been a man who bowed. Never one who begged.
But his voice trembled now, cracked and low, dredged from some hollow place inside him.
"If there is a god still listening," he whispered. "If there is anything left in the sky that remembers what mercy once meant…"
His breath hitched, and for a moment, he thought he might weep. But the tears refused to fall. The fire had dried them from him.
"Then take what you must," he said, louder now, his voice rasping against the wind like torn parchment.
"If it is my shine you crave— my name, my soul, my flame —then take it. Devour it. Strip me down to nothing but dust and shadow. Let the world forget I ever walked it."
His voice broke then, and he sank forward, forehead resting against the blackened frame of the door.
"But please," he whispered again, "please… just let her live. Let her breathe. Somewhere. Anywhere. I don't care if I never find her. I don't care if she forgets me. Just… don't end her like this."
The fire popped sharply behind him, the flames recoiling as a charred beam split and collapsed.
Sparks sprayed the air like burning stars, and the smoke curled upward in thick swathes, swallowed by the dusk.
But no sign came. No sudden miracle. No voice from the heavens. Only the wind, gently shifting the ashes.
Macdoul's eyes closed. And yet— when he opened them again, something had changed.
He stood slowly, breathing through clenched teeth, and cast his gaze across the ruin— not as a mourner, not as a man defeated, but as one who had shed something behind him.
His grief did not leave him, but it hardened. Crystallized into something else. Something colder. Resolve.
He stepped carefully through the wreckage, eyes narrowed.
Every charred plank, every fragment of scorched metal, every melted hinge and blackened nail— he searched them all. Not for her. That hope had twisted too far inward, already rotting at the root. But for signs. Clues. Evidence of movement, struggle, escape. Something the flames hadn't managed to erase.
His eyes caught it in the corner. Near the back wall, mostly shielded from collapse.
A trail— small, partial, nearly erased by soot. Footprints.
Too small to be his. Too soft to belong to the men who'd emerged laughing.
One was smeared, dragged as if limping or crouched, disappearing into the collapsed rear exit. His heart clenched, but this time it was not despair— it was fire. A new fire.
He followed.
There, in the shadow of the wall, tucked beneath a half-burned curtain, he found it: a smear of dried blood on the edge of a broken shelf.
Not a spray— not violent— but a touch. A hand, perhaps, reaching out. Struggling to stand. Still alive when the flame rose.
She had tried to escape. Which meant she could have.
"Gods above or below," he murmured, straightening slowly, "if you took my plea as payment… if you bartered with my soul while I screamed into the ashes… then I'll hold you to it."
The flames crackled behind him, reduced now to red whispers and curling embers.
"I'll find her," he said, voice low but certain.
"I'll follow her across kingdoms, through blood and ruin. I'll tear the earth open if I must. Burn your altars, silence your prophets, if I find out she's been taken from me unfairly."
He turned then, his cloak torn and scorched, his face smeared with soot, his eyes sunken with loss— but behind them burned a light that would not yield.
"I gave you my shine," he said softly, as if to no one. "Now give me her path."
And with that, Macdoul stepped into the woods— not as a soldier, not as a man broken by grief— but as a storm summoned by love, sharpened by loss, and made holy by a promise too sacred for the gods themselves to ignore.
Then it pierced the dusk like a blade through silk— a scream. Not just any scream.
It was the kind that shredded the lungs, one soaked in terror and desperation, as if the voice had just borne witness to death incarnate.
And though the forest had a thousand voices that could mimic suffering, this one was unmistakable.
Macdoul's blood froze mid-step. Sarah.
He would have known her voice among a thousand, even if it were wrapped in wind, even if it had cracked beneath horror.
It was hers, raw and real and full of pain.
He didn't think. He didn't weigh the risks. He ran.
He charged into the thicket with a fury he didn't know he could still muster, shoving aside low-hanging branches that clawed at his arms and face like angry spirits.
The underbrush fought back with every step— brambles sliced at his legs, and roots, slick and coiled like serpents, tried to snare his boots.
Tall grass lashed against his knees, soaking his trousers with cold dew and slowing his pace to a grim, trudging battle.
Every step was heavier than the last, his body screaming at him to stop, to breathe, to think— but he would not. He could not.
His heart pounded, not just from the exertion, but from the echo of that scream still ringing through the trees.
It had already grown distant, like a fading memory, like the cry of a ghost swallowed by time.
He feared what he would find. He feared what he wouldn't.
Then, time shifted. The forest broke.
Before him lay a lake, vast and quiet, the final mirror of the sky.
The light was dimming fast, the sun sinking behind the trees with the slow grace of something dying.
The lake itself did not glisten, but shimmered faintly, as if it remembered daylight and refused to forget.
The water was still, and in its stillness was something almost sacred.
Macdoul stumbled to the edge of the treeline, bracing himself with a trembling hand against a tall cedar whose roots curled outward like resting limbs.
He panted, doubled over, sweat pouring down his temples and mingling with ash and dirt. His breath clouded in the cooling air, and he watched it fade, mouth open, lungs aching.
Then he looked up.
The lake seemed to hold him still. There was something familiar in it.
Not the water itself, but the way the trees bowed toward it, as if in reverence, and the way the soft colors of dusk hovered on its surface without ever touching.
It was almost beautiful. Almost calming. Almost like something out of a life that wasn't his.
But beauty is a fragile thing, and peace even more so. His eyes narrowed.
Across the lake, a silhouette— three. No, four or more.
They stood near the water's edge on the far side, half-shrouded in shadow.
Two figures gripped something between them. No— someone.
A third had their hands on the person's face, tilting it upward with unnatural control.
And then the fourth. Larger than the rest. A mountain of a man standing before them all.
Macdoul's breath hitched. Sarah?
His body lurched before his mind could follow.
He pushed off the tree with urgency, stumbling into motion, following the lake's curve, his boots slipping on the damp soil.
Sweat beaded anew across his brow.
He squinted hard into the half-light, heart thundering in his chest not from exertion this time, but from fear. Dread along with rage.
He ran faster. As he drew closer, shapes became clearer.
The men from before, from the cabin.
The man on the left had a crooked nose— Macdoul had broken it once with the butt of his blade.
Another bore a stitched wound over his brow. The third limped slightly.
And there, between them, held like a sacrifice, was Sarah.
Her wrists were trapped in the iron grips of two thugs, her head forced up by the man behind her, fingers biting into her jaw like shackles.
The fourth man stepped forward.
He was massive— taller, broader than any of the others, wrapped in a thick cloak of blackened hide.
His face was carved from old hate, his jaw square, his teeth yellowed and bared in a grin that reeked of cruelty. And he raised his hand.
Crack.
His palm met her cheek with a sickening snap. Her head jerked sideways, but the man behind her held firm, forcing her back into place.
Crack. Again.
Macdoul saw her eyes now, barely open, glassy, not weeping but void. As if hope had already been burned out of her.
She didn't scream this time. She didn't flinch. That broke him more than anything.
"You think this is over?" the big man spat, voice thick with a Northern drawl, a scar slicing down his lip.
"You think just because you ran and played little tavern wench, you could hide from it all? From us?"
Another slap. Sarah's head lolled.
"Do you remember what he did, girl?" the man growled, his tone almost conversational.
"Your precious Caledonian mongrel? Killed five of mine. Five. Good men, most of 'em. One of 'em had a wife. One had a baby on the way. That sounds like justice to you?"
The thugs holding her laughed.
Macdoul, who had seen and heard every venomous word that spilled from the bastard's mouth, did not move— yet inside, he was unraveling.
His fury boiled beneath the surface, a seething inferno threatening to break through flesh and bone.
He clenched his jaw so tightly his gums began to bleed, the taste of iron flooding his mouth.
A thick vein bulged grotesquely on his forehead, twitching with every heartbeat, pulsing like it might rupture.
He did not speak. He did not breathe. But the silence around him was louder than a war cry— and far more dangerous.
"He gutted them like pigs," the man continued, pacing now. "Didn't even flinch. Just stared at me while he bled them. And you—"
He jabbed a finger toward her chest, rage curling in every syllable.
"You stood there and begged me to spare him. You begged. Cried like a dog. And for what? So he could run off with his tail between his legs, thinking I wouldn't find you?"
Sarah's lips trembled. She tried to speak, but the man behind her gripped her chin harder, forcing her jaw shut with a brutal pinch.
The leader smirked.
"You made me look weak," he hissed.
"You, of all people. That's what this is about. Not coins. Not the dead. This is about you thinking you could leave and make me a fool."
He stepped closer, now inches from her face, and whispered, "But now? Now you get to watch what happens when you put your faith in traitors."
Macdoul's fingers trembled around the hilt of his sword, rage boiling beneath his skin like poison. He had seen enough.
The man's voice was still echoing across the water, but his mind was no longer listening. Only one thought remained. He would kill them all.
Macdoul's hand tightened on the hilt of his sword, fingers slipping against the worn leather.
He barely felt the weight of it now, as if it were an extension of himself, a tool forged for this moment.
He had waited too long, hurt too much, to let these bastards take what was left of Sarah.
The big man in front of her— he was still gloating, his voice dripping with contempt and mockery.
He leaned closer to Sarah, his breath foul and thick, as though the very air around him had begun to rot.
"Didn't you hear me, girl? You made me a fool, and now you're gonna watch your pretty little face get torn apart— just like your precious Caledonian did to my men."
He spat onto the ground near her feet, as if she were less than dirt beneath his heel.
Sarah's lips parted, her voice barely a whisper, barely audible over the men's laughter, but Macdoul heard it.
"Please… stop… please, I didn't—" She choked on the words, her voice hollow, distant.
"You didn't? You didn't what?"
The leader's face twisted, anger flickering in his eyes like flames ready to consume everything in their path.
"You didn't beg me to spare his miserable life? Well, I'm afraid you'll get to see him again… in pieces. You've made your bed, girl, and now you'll lie in it."
The others chuckled at the sick joke, their voices cruel and cold.
One man on the right, the one with the deep scar across his face, grabbed Sarah's arm and twisted it cruelly, forcing her to look up at the leader.
"She begged for mercy, didn't she?" the scarred man mocked, his voice dripping with malice. "Begged like a dog."
"Yes, she did," the leader replied, his tone gleeful.
He turned back to Sarah, running his fingers through her hair in a gesture that could only be described as possessive.
"But mercy, girl? That's something for the weak. Something for the ones who don't know what real power is."
Sarah's eyes darted from the leader to the others, her gaze now frenzied.
She was barely holding herself together. She had heard his words before, seen the cruelty, but today was different. Today, she had nothing left to fight with.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, the words breaking her. "I didn't—"
But before she could finish, the leader raised his hand again. The air crackled with tension, like a storm was about to break.
"This time, there will be no forgiveness, girl," the man spat, his voice a low growl. "This time, you're going to suffer."
And then, as if the universe itself had finally had enough, Macdoul's anger shattered the quiet.
The quiet that had been suffocating him. The quiet that had been clinging to his every breath.
"Enough!"
The shout came from his chest, raw and primal, a sound of pure rage that seemed to shake the earth beneath his feet.
The group of men turned, startled, their eyes scanning the treeline as Macdoul emerged from the shadows, his eyes blazing like the very fires they had set.
"Macdoul!" Sarah cried, her voice full of broken relief, though her eyes still held terror. "Get away! They're—"
"They're going to die," he interrupted, his voice colder than the ice beginning to form on the lake's surface. "Every last one of them."
The leader sneered, a laugh escaping his throat as he looked Macdoul up and down, sizing him up like a dog in the street.
"Well, well," the man chuckled darkly, "looks like the beast finally crawled out of the shadows. Come to finish what you started, did you?"
Macdoul's eyes never left Sarah, but he could feel the tension in the air, the hostility in the leader's words.
He had made no effort to hide his presence, no effort to delay his judgment. They would all pay.
"You think you can stop me, traitor?" the leader taunted, sneering as he took a step forward, cracking his knuckles as if he were ready to fight.
"You think you can just march in here and take her from us?"
"I think you've underestimated me," Macdoul said quietly, the words colder than the wind sweeping over the lake.
His hand moved to the hilt of his sword. The tension was thick enough to cut through with a blade.
The big man laughed again, this time louder. He stepped forward, drawing a jagged knife from his belt. It gleamed darkly in the dimming light, like something crueler than death itself.
"Come then, Caledonian," the leader spat, his voice rising. "Come and try your luck."
The other men, emboldened by their leader's challenge, began to shuffle around, drawing their own weapons— rusted knives, jagged blades, some of them still stained with the blood of Macdoul's kin.
Macdoul's gaze shifted to Sarah once more.
She was still held tightly by the men, her face pale and covered in grime, but her eyes— those eyes— shone with something that tore at his very soul.
She had seen this before. Seen the violence. Seen the madness. Yet, still, she was there, alive.
And that was all that mattered.
He drew his sword with a smooth, practiced motion. The blade shimmered in the dimming light, its steel reflecting the dying sun, cold and unforgiving.
The leader sneered, his hands tightening on his knife. "You think that thing's going to save you?"
Macdoul's voice was low, dangerous, but his words held no humor. "It will save her. And it will save me."
With a swift motion, the first man lunged toward him. But Macdoul was faster.
The blade flashed in a silver arc, catching the man's wrist and severing it in one smooth motion.
The man howled in pain as his weapon fell, clattering to the ground, his stump gushing blood like a spring.
The big man's expression faltered. For the first time, doubt flickered in his eyes. He hadn't expected this.
Macdoul turned his gaze to the leader. "Next."
Without another word, he was on the leader, his blade flashing as it cut through the air, slashing downward in a vicious arc.
The leader barely had time to react, raising his knife in a pathetic defense. It wasn't enough.
Macdoul's sword struck the knife, splitting it clean in two. And in the same motion, he drove the tip of the blade into the man's side, just below the ribs.
The leader's eyes went wide with shock, his mouth gaping as he gasped for breath.
"You'll regret this," the man hissed through bloodied teeth.
Macdoul leaned in, his voice a soft rasp, full of fury and finality.
"No. You're the one who's going to regret it."
With one last twist of the blade, he ended the leader's life, pulling the sword free with a sickening sound. The body crumpled to the ground, lifeless, blood pouring from the wound, staining the earth beneath them.
The remaining men hesitated. Some backed away, fear replacing the bravado that had driven them. The one with the scarred face stood motionless, his eyes locked on Macdoul with a mix of awe and terror.
"You—" he stammered, his words faltering as Macdoul advanced toward him, sword dripping with the leader's blood. "You—"
Macdoul didn't say a word. He didn't need to. His presence alone, the cold certainty in his gaze, told them all they needed to know.
One by one, the men dropped their weapons, their resolve shattering like glass. The fear in their eyes was palpable now, their blood running cold in the face of death itself.
Macdoul was a force, something beyond them, something they couldn't fight.
They had already lost.
But Macdoul didn't stop there. With swift, brutal efficiency, he made sure they paid for their crimes. He would leave no room for mercy. Not for these men. Not after what they had done.
When it was finally over, when the last of them had fallen to the ground, Macdoul turned toward Sarah. His chest heaved with the exertion, his heart still hammering in his chest, but when his eyes met hers, all that rage, all that fury, all that violence— it vanished.
In its place, there was only her. The world fell silent.
"Are you… Are you okay?" he whispered, kneeling beside her, his voice trembling with something more tender than he had ever known.
Her eyes met his, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, a flicker of something real, something human, passed between them.
"I'm okay now," she whispered, her voice breaking. "I'm okay now."
And for a brief, fleeting moment, Macdoul allowed himself to believe it. That maybe, just maybe, there was hope after all.
Then, a single drop fell from the sky— cold, deliberate, like the world itself had chosen that moment to begin mourning.
It kissed the blood-slicked earth where corpses lay, where breath had been lost, where screams had been silenced.
Another drop followed, then more, until the heavens broke open and a downpour swept across the land.
The once-golden horizon, that solemn sunset which had witnessed Macdoul's wrath and reckoning, was swallowed whole by dark clouds that twisted like a mass of blackened wool across the sky.
The light was gone now. The world wept.
Macdoul stood frozen, his gaze anchored on Sarah's frail form, barely upright, barely breathing.
His bloodied fingers twitched at his sides, unsure if they should reach for her or for his blade again.
The rain washed over him, but it did not cleanse. It only made the blood stickier, the pain colder.
Then, behind him, a tremor. A breath. A presence. A vast silhouette loomed, barely visible but unmistakably immense, hulking like a grotesque beast of vengeance risen from the mire.
In his left hand, an axe glistened in the dark— a slab of sharpened iron too large for any ordinary man, slick with crimson memory.
It had not been seen before, not truly, not until the lightning split the sky with a blinding white scream.
Thunder cracked through the air like the wrath of the gods, and in that brief flicker of clarity, Sarah's eyes widened. Her mouth parted.
"Macdoul!" she screamed, her voice a strangled blend of desperation, love, and terror that no longer cared for self-preservation.
He turned— too late.
Sarah, with what remained of her strength, surged forward like a wind-blown flame refusing to go out.
She slammed into him with all the force her shattered body could muster.
Macdoul stumbled back, his feet slipping in the muck, and crashed to the ground.
Then it struck.
The axe, meant for him, came down with monstrous power and bit into Sarah's shoulder.
The blade didn't cleave her in two— it stopped halfway, jammed into her center, flesh and bone resisting its finality.
Her scream broke against the storm. Blood surged from her wound in a bloom that painted the ground beneath her like a cursed blossom.
Lightning again— and in its glare, the monster saw Macdoul's face.
And he trembled. Because Macdoul was smiling.
A slow, broken smile, like a man who had finally remembered something long forgotten. His eyes were brimming— not with rage now, but with tears.
Blood had seeped from his tear ducts earlier, from the pressure of all he had held in. Now, the blood was gone, and only the water remained— raw sorrow, unshaped and infinite.
His lower lip was torn and gushing, his bite so vicious that skin had been shredded, and blood spilled over his chin, mixing with the rain and tears alike.
He sat there for a moment. Silent. Still.
Then he rose. Or rather, he appeared atop the man in an instant, like death itself had taken form and made its decision.
Macdoul sat astride him, his entire frame drenched, his shoulders trembling.
The brute, the one everyone believed was too big to fall, too wild to die, stared back at him, breath catching.
Macdoul leaned close, his voice low, breathless, shaking.
"Heh… You can't fool me anymore, Sergeant Gregor Ewanach," he whispered, his voice so soft it was almost tender.
"You were supposed to die long ago… But you crawled your way back through filth and vengeance just to leave a scar, didn't you?"
The man's eyes widened. "You remember me now?"
Macdoul asked, smiling faintly, almost pityingly. "You should. Because I never forgot."
And then, without waiting for a response, he raised the blade and in one merciful motion, severed the monster's neck.
The head rolled from the shoulders like a stone dropped into silence. The body spasmed once, then went still.
Macdoul dropped the weapon and stumbled toward Sarah.
She lay on the rain-slick ground, her blood mingling with the mud, her face tilted toward the sky.
She was still breathing— but faintly. Her expression was serene, dreamlike, the quiet resignation of someone who had already crossed halfway into the beyond.
Macdoul dropped to his knees beside her, his voice catching in his throat. "Sarah…"
She turned her head, slowly, painfully. And then— she smiled.
A broken, beautiful smile that only those who truly loved could ever give. Her eyes met his, and even through the veil of pain, they softened.
"I… I already knew your name," she whispered, her voice barely audible above the rain. "Gregor…"
His breath hitched.
"I knew… long before tonight. You… you didn't have to hide anymore."
He choked, lips trembling. "Sarah, no… please… don't say it like that. You're going to be alright. I'll get you help. I swear it—"
"Shh…" Her bloodied hand reached up, trembling, to rest against his cheek.
"Don't be sad… please. I believe… I really do believe… that God will give you peace one day. Real peace. The kind that doesn't bleed, or burn, or run."
Tears poured from him now, raw and unstoppable.
"Don't mourn me, Gregor," she murmured. "Your pain… it matters. But it's not meant to break you. It's meant to carry others."
"Sarah, I can't—"
"Promise me…" she interrupted gently, her fingers weakly brushing his tears.
"Promise me, you'll smile again. Even if it's fake. Even if the world stays cruel. Don't let your heart rot from hatred. Promise… you won't become what they tried to make you."
His whole body shuddered.
"I… I promise…"
Her breath was shallow. "Gregor… when I die… be the kind of man whose kindness is louder than his grief. Be the one who forgives… even when it hurts to."
Her hands, though nearly limp, suddenly moved again. She brought his head down gently, resting it against her chest, as if cradling not a warrior, but a broken child.
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"No matter how much you wish it, the hands of the clock… they never turn left."
He sobbed quietly and shaking.
"Do one more thing… for me…" Her voice trembled now, fading.
"Anything," he croaked. "Anything, Sarah."
"Find my sister… in Caledonia. She's alone. They came for me because I had no last name. But we share one, Gregor… Sinclair." A weak smile. "We were the abandoned girls…"
He stiffened, every muscle drawn tight.
"Protect her. Please… for me…"
"I swear it," he whispered, voice cracking. "I swear on everything I've ever lost."
Her fingers lost their strength.
Her hand fell, light as a feather, to the soaked earth.
He lifted his head slowly, face pale, hands shaking. Her eyes were still, locked on the sky. She wasn't breathing.
"No… Sarah… please… please…" His voice shattered into silence.
He pulled her into his arms, held her close, and let out a scream that tore the heavens apart. A howl of such unbearable grief that even the storm paused to listen.
The rain pounded against him, harder and harder, but it could no longer distinguish itself from the flood of tears.
There were no witnesses. Only God and the dead.