Read Chapter 7: The Brother's Lie

The morning mist clung to the fort's stone walls like a shroud as Callum crossed the yard. Two redcoats flanked the door to the storage block, their muskets crossed until Thorne's written order was read and returned to its wax seal. One of them grunted and pulled the door open.

The air inside was cold and thick with the smell of damp straw and old blood. A single lantern guttered at the far end of the passage, and beyond it, iron bars made a cage of the last cell. Callum forced his boots to move steady, one after the other, the way a man walks when he has nothing to hide.

Duncan sat on a low stool with his back to the wall, wrists shackled to a chain bolted into the floor. His face was thinner than Callum remembered. A bruise painted his left cheekbone, faded yellow at the edges, and his shirt collar hung open at the throat. But his eyes—those were the same. Sharp, quick, reading the room before anyone else did.

He looked up and smiled.

"Callum. I wondered when they'd let you come."

The guards left. The door boomed shut behind them, and the lantern flame swayed. Callum stood at the bars, three feet of empty air between him and his brother, and for a moment he could not find the words he'd rehearsed walking in.

"You look well," Duncan said. "For a man who sells his own kin to the English."

The words landed like a slap. Callum's jaw tightened. "I came to see you. To hear your side of it."

"My side?" Duncan laughed, but it was a hollow sound. "My side is that I was riding north with a pouch of letters for a merchant in Inverness—a man named MacTavish, who pays decent coin for delivery. Your fine captain pulled me from my horse on the road and called me a traitor. I told him the truth. He didn't believe me."

Callum leaned closer to the bars. "A merchant's courier. That's all?"

"That's all." Duncan's eyes never wavered. "I'm no rebel. I never held a musket for the cause, never marched with the clans. I carry letters. For anyone who pays. It's honest work, Callum, and you took a bite of that apple long before I did."

The echo of the old life stung. Callum had carried letters too, years ago, before the hunting became his trade. It was true that men in the glens used couriers for everything from wool prices to marriage contracts. It was plausible. Comfortable.

That was the problem.

Callum reached into his coat and pulled out a folded square of paper, creased from a night of reading. He pressed it against the bars but did not offer it through.

"Then explain this."

Duncan squinted. "What is it?"

"One of the letters the English found on you. The one to MacTavish. The third page, near the bottom, has a mark in the margin. A small device—three lines crossing like a star, with a curl at the tail. I know that mark."

For the first time, Duncan's composure cracked. A flicker, quick as a trout turning in a pool, and then it was gone. He tilted his head. "I don't draw marks on letters. Whoever wrote it did. I just carry what I'm given."

"Three lines with a curl," Callum said slowly. "That's the sign Eilidh uses on her message slips. I've seen it pressed into a wax seal and carved into the bark of the courier's tree. It's not a merchant's doodle, Duncan. It's a rebel hand."

Duncan's shackles clinked as he shifted on the stool. "You've been busy. Running with Eilidh now, are you? Fancying yourself a free clansman again?" He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Last I heard, you signed the king's oath and took silver from Thorne. You're not in a position to judge anyone's loyalty."

"I'm not judging. I'm trying to save you." Callum's voice broke on the last word, and he hated it. He pulled the paper back and folded it away. "If you're deep in this rebellion, Duncan, if you know things—names, routes, plans—Thorne will pry them out of you with iron and fire. He doesn't let prisoners rot quietly. He makes examples."

Duncan rose from the stool, the chain scraping across the stone floor. He came to the bars, close enough that Callum could see the faint scars on his knuckles from years of rope and harness work. His voice dropped to a whisper.

"Listen to me. Whatever you think you know, whatever Eilidh or any other soul has told you about me—it's not true. I carried letters for coin. That is all. I don't even know who the Grey Fox is. I'm a courier, Callum. Same as you used to be. Same as Father was before the hunting took him."

Callum looked at his brother's face. He wanted to believe it. He wanted to feel that simple relief flood through him and walk out of the fortress with a clean conscience, ready to play both sides until he could cut Duncan loose from this mess.

But he had seen the code in the margin.

And he knew Eilidh had vouched for Duncan. She did not vouch for merchants' couriers.

"What merchant was it again?" Callum asked. "MacTavish?"

"Aye. MacTavish of Inverness. Deals in hides and wool."

"And you've carried for him before?"

"Many times. Over a year now."

Callum nodded slowly, letting the silence stretch. Then he said, "Because I know a MacTavish of Inverness. Traded furs to him once, back when I still had use for coin. He's a stout man. Red beard, missing two fingers on his left hand from a tannery accident."

Duncan's lips parted. For a half-second, his eyes flicked away, scanning the wall as if searching for a memory he didn't have. "Aye," he said at last. "That's him."

Callum felt something cold settle in his stomach. There was no MacTavish in Inverness. Callum had never traded furs to such a man. He had invented him on the spot.

The lie came easy because Duncan wanted it to hold. And that told Callum everything he needed to know.

He stepped back from the bars. "I'll see what I can do. To get you provisions. Warm clothes."

Duncan frowned, sensing the shift. "Callum—"

"Rest while you can." Callum turned and walked toward the door. His legs carried him heavy as lead. Behind him, Duncan called his name once, then a second time, but Callum did not turn around.

The guards let him out and closed the door against the morning light. Callum stood in the yard with the mist curling around his boots, his brother's invented merchant still hanging in the air between them.

Duncan had lied.

Not about being a messenger—that much was probably true. But the ease of the lie, the way he'd committed to it without hesitation, the mark that matched Eilidh's hand—it painted a picture Callum had been trying not to see.

Duncan wasn't a pawn in the rebellion. He was woven into its threads, trusted with codes and signs that only the inner circle used. He was not just carrying letters for the Grey Fox.

He might well have been writing them.

Callum pressed a hand to his face and drew a long, steadying breath. He had come to the fort hoping to find his brother a victim of circumstance, a man he could ransom with loyalty and cunning. Instead he had found a deeper trap. Duncan was not an innocent to be saved—he was a rebel in good standing, and anything Callum did to free him would make the English more suspicious, not less.

And somewhere in the cell behind him, Duncan would be wondering why his brother had walked out so quickly, why the words had gone wrong.

Callum could not let him wonder long. He needed Duncan calm, trusting, cooperative. He needed to go back tomorrow with food and blankets and a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

But first—there was a merchant in Inverness who did not exist. And sooner or later, Captain Thorne might ask about that lie, in a room where iron hooks hung from the ceiling and the questions did not stop.

Callum crossed the yard toward his quarters, and the mist closed behind him like a curtain.