Read Chapter 34: The Marriage of Minds

The morning light crept through the cottage windows, catching the dust motes in a slow golden dance. Iona stood before the small mirror, turning this way and that, though she wasn't looking at herself. She was watching Lachlan's reflection as he sat on the edge of the bed, turning Eilidh's brooch over and over in his fingers.

"You're going to wear the gold," she said. It wasn't a question.

Lachlan looked up, a wry smile tugging at his mouth. "Am I now?"

"You are. The blue brings out your eyes, and the Campbell plaid is the one your mother's people gave you. It's only right."

He set the brooch aside and came to stand behind her, his hands settling on her shoulders. In the mirror, they made a strange picture—him in his worn shirt with the sleeves rolled up, her in the simple dress she'd worn for the past three days because all her better things were still packed in trunks at the bottom of the cart.

"The minister arrives tomorrow," he said. "Your father wants the wedding at the kirk in Glenmorrow village. My father wants it on the hill above the old boundary line where the wall used to stand."

"Of course he does."

"They've agreed on the hill. Compromise. Your father says the kirk is too far for the old ones to walk, and mine says the village is Campbell ground, and having MacTavish feet stomping through it might start another war."

Iona laughed, but it caught in her throat. Six months ago, the idea of her father and Callum Campbell agreeing on anything—even the location of a wedding—would have been unthinkable. Now they were planning to build a wall together at sunrise, and the lairds had declared the feud over. The world had turned strange and bright, and she kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Write your vows with me," she said suddenly.

Lachlan's reflection blinked. "What?"

"I want us to write our own vows. Not the old words, not the ones that bind land to land and name to name. I want new words. Our words."

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he turned her around to face him, his hands gentle on her arms. "I'm not good with words, Iona. You know that. I've spent my life with my hands in the earth and my eyes on livestock. The minister will have proper vows—"

"Proper vows were what they gave us before. A contract. A bargain struck in ledgers and legal terms." She reached up and touched his face. "This isn't that. This is us. And I want to hear you say what you mean, not what the church tells you to mean."

Lachlan's throat worked. "What if I say it wrong?"

"Then I'll say it wrong with you, and we'll be wrong together, and that will be more honest than anything the minister reads from his book."

He pulled her close, his chin resting on the top of her head. "Aye. Alright. We'll write them tonight, by candlelight, and we'll get them wrong together."

The knock came sharp and urgent, breaking the moment. Lachlan stepped back, and Iona crossed to the door to find her mother's cousin, Fergus, standing on the step with his hat crushed in his hands.

"What is it?"

"It's your brother," Fergus said, his face grim. "He's gone to the Campbell encampment with a bottle of whisky in his hand and a head full of grievances. Someone saw him heading toward young Morag Campbell's tent."

Iona's blood went cold. "Malcolm?"

"Aye. He's saying he won't honor the betrothal contract. Says no MacTavish should be bound to a Campbell by anything other than a sword, and he'll see the whole arrangement burned before he'll stand as a witness at your wedding while he's shackled to one of them."

Lachlan was already reaching for his boots. "How much whisky?"

"Enough to make him stupid. Not enough to make him harmless."

Iona grabbed her shawl and was out the door before Lachlan had finished lacing his boots. The path between the encampments was well-worn now, trod by a week of council meetings and shared meals, but it still felt like crossing a border. The morning mist hung low over the fields, and she could hear the river rushing below, loud and insistent.

They found Malcolm at the edge of the Campbell tents, swaying on his feet, pointing a finger at a cluster of Campbells who had gathered in a protective half-circle around a girl—Morag. She was young, no more than eighteen, with red hair like Iona's own and a stubborn set to her jaw that spoke of Campbell blood. She wasn't crying. She was standing with her arms crossed, watching Malcolm as if he were a bug she was considering stepping on.

"Malcolm MacTavish!" Iona called out, and her brother turned, his eyes glassy and defiant.

"Don't start with me, sister. Just because you've decided to bed the enemy doesn't mean I have to follow you into the pit."

Lachlan stepped forward, and Iona put a hand on his arm. "Let me."

She walked up to her brother, close enough to smell the whisky on his breath. "What is this about? Truly?"

"This is about honor. About not tying ourselves to the very people who—"

"Who what? Who we've been fighting for a hundred years because of a lie?" Iona kept her voice low, even. "The feud is over, Malcolm. The lairds declared it. Gregor proved it was built on a fraud. There is no enemy here."

"There will always be an enemy," Malcolm said, but his voice wavered. "That's what keeps us strong. That's what makes us MacTavish."

"What makes us MacTavish," Iona said slowly, "is our land, and our word, and our willingness to stand by both. And you gave your word, brother. To Morag. To her father. To the compact that will bind our families together for the next generation."

"A piece of paper."

"A promise. And if you break it, you break more than your word. You break the trust that every one of us has built over these past weeks. You break what I'm trying to build with Lachlan. And for what? Pride? Drink?"

Malcolm's jaw tightened. He looked past Iona to where Morag stood, and something flickered in his face. Not hatred. Fear, maybe. Or the shame of being caught in his own smallness.

"Morag," Iona said, turning to the girl. "May I speak with you? Alone?"

The Campbell girl hesitated, then nodded and stepped forward. The cluster of her family parted reluctantly. Iona led her a few yards away, out of earshot of both camps.

"What do you want?" Morag asked, her voice clipped. "If your brother means to call it off, he can do it himself. He doesn't need his sister to clean up his mess."

"He won't call it off," Iona said. "He's drunk and scared, and he's saying cruel things because he doesn't know how to say scared ones."

Morag's expression flickered. "Scared of what?"

"Of being bound. Of the future being decided for him. Of waking up one morning and realizing that the map of his life was drawn by other people." Iona paused. "I know the feeling. I was given to Lachlan the same way—a contract, a trade, a piece of the arrangement. And I fought it. God, I fought it. But then I looked at him, really looked, and I saw that he was scared too. And we decided to be scared together instead of apart."

Morag was quiet. When she spoke, her voice was softer. "He came here to humiliate me. In front of my family."

"He came here because he's an idiot with a bottle and a heart full of trouble. But he also came here." Iona took a breath. "You can see it as an insult, and you'd be right to. Or you can see it as a chance to be braver than he's being."

Morag stared at her for a long moment. Then, slowly, she nodded.

Lachlan had moved to stand beside Malcolm, speaking in low tones. Iona couldn't hear what he said, but she watched her brother's shoulders drop. She watched Malcolm look at the ground. She watched the fight drain out of him like water from a cracked cup.

When Morag returned to the group, she walked straight up to Malcolm. The camp went silent. Even the river seemed to hold its breath.

"You're drunk," she said. "And you're a coward."

Malcolm's head snapped up.

"Drunk, because you couldn't face me sober. A coward, because you thought coming here to shout at me would make you feel strong." She stepped closer. "But I'm not afraid of you, Malcolm MacTavish. I'm not afraid of your name, or your clan, or your pride. I gave my word to this compact, and I keep my word. The question is whether you do."

The silence stretched. On the other side of the clearing, Iona watched her brother's face crumble and reform. He looked at Morag—truly looked at her, the way Iona had looked at Lachlan weeks ago on the ridge above the river.

"I don't know if I can," he said finally, his voice rough. "But I'm willing to try."

Morag held his gaze for a long moment. Then she reached out and took his hand. A murmur rippled through the crowd, but she ignored it. "Trying's a start. And you can start by apologizing to my mother for the things you said. She has a sharper tongue than yours, and she's sober."

Malcolm looked at Iona, and something passed between them. Acknowledgment, maybe. The beginning of understanding.

Later that night, after the whisky had worn off and Malcolm had been dragged away by his father for a private talk, Iona sat at the small table in the cottage with Lachlan across from her, a quill in his hand and a blank sheet of paper before him.

"So," he said, his eyes meeting hers across the candle flame. "What words shall we get wrong together?"