Read Chapter 16: The Cave Answers

The ground squelched beneath their boots as Lachlan pushed aside a curtain of ivy and revealed the narrow cleft in the rock. Iona pressed close behind him, her breath misting in the cold morning air. The map Murdo had produced from the archives trembled slightly in her grip, though she would have denied the shaking was hers.

“Here,” she said, tapping the faded ink. “The marking shows a tunnel that runs due north from this opening. It should widen into a chamber.”

Lachlan grunted and ducked inside. She followed, the stone walls closing around them until the grey light of the overcast sky faded to a damp, earthy darkness. He struck a match and lit the lantern he’d brought, its flame dancing across rough-hewn rock that had not seen human hands in generations.

The passage angled downward, and the air grew still and heavy. Iona counted her steps to keep her nerves steady. Fifty. Sixty. At seventy-three, the tunnel opened into a chamber large enough to stand in fully, and the lantern revealed a carved recess in the far wall.

Inside sat a small iron chest, its lock rusted to ruin, and a leather satchel so old the stitching had rotted to threads.

“No bones,” Lachlan said quietly. “Murdo spoke of a grave.”

“The grave may be metaphorical.” Iona knelt and lifted the satchel’s flap. It crumbled at her touch, spilling a bundle of parchment tied with a faded ribbon. She untied it carefully, spreading the sheets across the flat stone floor.

The first pages were accounts—cattle sales, wool prices, the mundane ledger of a working estate. But beneath those lay a document folded with unusual care, its seal intact. Iona broke it and read, her lips moving silently.

Lachlan crouched beside her, the lantern held high. “What is it?”

She read the final paragraph aloud, her voice barely above a whisper. “‘…the said lands of Corrievallen, including the eastern pasture and the bothy at the burn, shall remain vested in the trust of Alistair Donal, merchant of Glasgow, and his heirs, for the term of nine and ninety years, after which full possession shall revert to the joint claim of the MacTavish and Campbell families upon their reconciliation, signified by a lawful union between their houses…’”

The words hung in the stone air like smoke.

Lachlan’s jaw tightened. “Alistair Donal. Duncan MacAllister’s employer. The man whose name never appears in any deed, only in payments.”

Iona turned the page over, searching for more. There was a second document, smaller, dated twelve years later. She read it quickly and felt the blood drain from her face. “This one transfers the trust from Alistair Donal to his nephew. Duncan MacAllister.” She looked up at Lachlan. “The merchant who tried to buy both our lands before the feud. He’s not trying to buy them for himself. He already has a claim—he’s been holding it over our heads for thirty years, waiting for us to destroy each other so the land would be worthless and he could force a sale.”

Lachlan took the document from her hands, his fingers tracing the signature. “If this is genuine, then the land was never truly ours to fight over. It was held in trust against a union.” He let out a harsh laugh, bitter and low. “A marriage between our houses.”

“Our marriage,” Iona said slowly. The implications unfurled in her mind like a dark bloom. “The compact was always meant to be the end of the scheme. If we wed, the trust expires, and the land reverts to both families. MacAllister loses everything he’s been building toward.”

“Then he would have had every reason to prevent the marriage.” Lachlan’s eyes met hers, sharp and calculating. “Every reason to stoke the feud, to keep us apart, to make our fathers hate each other enough that no wedding would ever be spoken of.”

Iona stared at the chest. Something glinted at its bottom, half-buried in rotted cloth. She reached in and drew out a small silver brooch, its pin bent, its surface tarnished. Engraved on the back was a single initial: *R*.

“Gregor said his family were the Rosses,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Destroyed by the Campbells, framed for crimes they didn’t commit.” She turned the brooch over in her palm. “But what if the framing served another purpose? What if the Rosses were the ones who held the other half of this trust, and MacAllister needed them gone before they could make a claim?”

Lachlan went very still. “You’re saying the feud between my family and the Rosses was manufactured too.”

“I’m saying we’ve been treating symptoms.” Iona rose, the brooch clutched in her fist. “The fever is MacAllister. He set Ross against Campbell, Campbell against MacTavish. Every battle, every burned croft, every dead son—all of it served one purpose. To keep us divided until we were too weak to notice we were being robbed.”

Lachlan gathered the documents carefully, sliding them into his coat. His expression had shifted—the wary suspicion that had dogged their marriage replaced by something harder, more focused. “If MacAllister knows this trust exists, he’ll know our marriage threatens it. He’ll move to protect his position.”

“Then we need to find him before he moves against us.” Iona tucked the brooch into her pocket. “And we need to discover what else he’s hidden. Tam said he saw a man in Campbell tartan fire the first shot. What if that man wasn’t Campbell at all? What if he was MacAllister’s agent, dressed to blame your clan?”

Lachlan’s hand went to the hilt of his dirk, a gesture of instinct rather than threat. “We should return to the house. Murdo needs to see these documents. And we need to send word to Bendarroch—if Tam can identify MacAllister, we may have grounds to confront him.”

They retraced their steps through the tunnel, the lantern casting long shadows that seemed to move with intent. When they emerged into the grey daylight, Iona blinked against the sudden brightness and stopped short.

Elspeth stood at the edge of the treeline, a basket over her arm as if gathering herbs. Her eyes flicked to the cleft in the rock, then to their faces.

“You’re out early,” she said, her tone carefully light. “I thought you were meant to be in the crypt this morning.”

“We changed our plans,” Lachlan said flatly. “The crypt can wait.”

Elspeth’s gaze dropped to the bulge in Lachlan’s coat where the documents rested. A muscle in her jaw twitched. “I see. Well, I won’t keep you.” She turned and walked back toward the estate, her pace unhurried, too composed.

Iona watched her go. “She knows something.”

“She knows we found something,” Lachlan corrected. “There’s a difference.”

But as they walked back to Bendarroch House, Iona could not shake the image of Elspeth standing so precisely at the cave mouth, as if she had known exactly where to wait. And beneath that, colder and more troubling, the thought of what would happen when MacAllister learned that the marriage meant to undo him had already taken place.

She reached into her pocket and touched the brooch, the single initial pressing against her fingertips. Gregor had told her his name was Ross, but he had not told her everything. Now she wondered what else he had left unspoken—and what the Rosses’ destruction had truly cost.