Chapter 1

Applecross, Scotland 1566

“Hayden? Is that ye?” a voice called out of the croft.

“Aye, who else would it be climbin’ this far up the hill at this time?” Hayden said with a laugh as he walked past the well up toward the croft door. “Nae many men come this far up the hills, do they?”

His uncle appeared in the doorway of the croft, still wearing the fine clothes that showed he had only recently got back from another of his merchant’s trips.

The scent of spices hung in the air off his figure, the cinnamon and then cumin tickling Hayden’s nose.

“We may have a visitor someday. Ye never ken!” his uncle laughed as he turned and walked back into the croft.

I thought we liked it without visitors. The thought made Hayden smile as he followed his uncle into the croft. It was not something they often talked of, why they had come here. They usually left it unsaid, but deep down, Hayden was happy with their quiet lot in life, and he was even happier that he didn’t have to suffer many visitors from the past. That life is dead to me. This is me life now.

“How goes yer work at the inn?” Nathair asked as he walked inside the croft. The young maid that sometimes clambered up the hill from the nearby village to cook for them had clearly been and gone that day, for she had left food in the kitchen, steaming over a fire with fresh hunks of bread standing on the far grate. “Who would have thought the lad supposed to be a laird would now work at an inn?”

“Uncle…” Hayden lost his smile, his tone darkening. “We daenae talk about that.”

“Aye, maybe we should once in a while,” Nathair said thoughtfully as he reached for the bread.

Hayden took off his cloak, revealing a deep green jerkin slightly mottled from ale spilled at the inn.

“The work is fine,” Hayden said with a sigh. “The inn is busy, and the time passes quickly. That is all I wish for.”

“Ye arenae bored by it then?” Nathair asked with his dark eyebrows raised as he sat down beside the fire, warming his hands near the flames. Hayden set about spooning out some of the stew into two pewter bowls, flicking his eyes toward his uncle.

“Bored? Nay. It is peaceful. I like that.” Hayden pushed the bowl of stew into his uncle’s hands, hopeful it would keep him quiet and stop him from asking such questions.

“I have the impression ye arenae in the mood for conversation, laddie,” Nathair said quietly, adopting the old term he always used for Hayden.

“Will ye always call me ‘laddie’? Even when I’m old and grey?” Hayden asked, conveniently changing the conversation as he sat down on the other side of the fire.

“Ye forget, when ye’re old and grey, I’ll be older and greyer. Aye, ye will always be a lad to me.” Nathair’s words made Hayden laugh as he turned his focus on the stew.

It was good, made with cheap lamb, not that he minded, and chopped up turnip. It warmed his bones through, something he needed on a cold wintry day like that day, where the wind rattled through the windows, making the cloths they had hung up as curtains dance back and forth.

“Ye may nae be in the mood for talkin’, but ye may have to put up with an old man wantin’ to talk for a minute.” Nathair paused with his food as he sat back in his chair, making the thin wood creak beneath him. “I was thinkin’ of the day I left the castle behind this mornin’. Me journey took me past the clan. In some ways, it doesnae feel that long ago we left.”

“Doesnae it?” Hayden asked, realizing he would not escape this conversation without saying something his uncle wanted to hear. “It feels a long time ago to me, and I left after ye, takin’ nothin’ with me to remember it.”

“Aye, so ye did. I had to take somethin’ though.” Nathair raised his hand in emphasis, urging Hayden to look down at the ring on his uncle’s finger. His uncle’s skin was beginning to age, and the fingers were gnarled with the years that had passed, making the ring stand out all the more.

It was a thick band of gold, and in the very center was a small and unique engraving. The Mackenzie clan crest of a stag’s head in a circle was dappled on either side with two fine jewels and rubies.

Nathair was smiling as he looked down upon it, perhaps thinking of the person who had given him the ring, his own father, yet Hayden could not smile. The crest merely reminded him of his own father, Nathair’s older brother, making Hayden shift in his seat uncomfortably.

“I couldnae wear such a thing,” Hayden murmured as he returned his focus to the stew.

“Ye’d be surprised what ye can bring yerself to do,” Nathair lowered his hand again. “I see this conversation has run its course. Ye daenae like talkin’ of the old days.”

“Nay, I daenae. I should tell ye what ye have missed while ye have been travellin’.” Hayden sat back in his seat, adopting a more relaxed countenance now their conversation about the past was done. “The farmer, Kendrick, he has disappeared.”

“Kendrick? Och, the man that goes everywhere with that black dog at his ankles?”

“Aye, that’s the man. He’s vanished,” Hayden said slowly. “Nay one kens where he has gone.”

“That drunkard has probably fallen asleep in a ditch somewhere. Daenae worry on it too much,” Nathair dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand.

There was a sound beyond the croft windows, something that stood out against the whistling wind. It was footsteps against the earth, making Hayden and Nathair fall still.

“Ye were nae expectin’ a guest, were ye?” Hayden asked to be sure, earning a shake of Nathair’s head.

Hayden hurried to his feet, placing down the stew and moving toward the door. Beyond it, was the sword he kept permanently in its scabbard, reluctant to let anyone see the clan markings upon the blade. He hitched the weapon high in the air and thrust open the door, ready to meet whoever had come to creep up on the croft.

“Who goes there?” he called loudly, earning a yelp of surprise in reply from a boy atop a horse climbing up the hill toward the croft.

“Careful, ye scared the boy half to death.” Nathair laughed as he came up behind him, urging him to lower the scabbarded weapon. “Why ye come up this far, boy?”

Hayden didn’t take his eyes off the young man. He was dressed rather finely to be out this far in the high hills. His cloak was studded with beads, and the high collar bore the hint of a ruff around his neck.

“I come with a message,” the boy said, looking between the two of them. He appeared rather like a fish out of water to Hayden’s mind, unused to the wild moor he stood on as he climbed down from his pony. He struggled so much with the dismount that he stumbled and nearly fell over entirely among the bracken. Hayden held in a laugh and stepped further out of the croft, coming to meet the boy.

“We daenae get messages here. Ye must have the wrong place.” Hayden shook his head, ready to send the boy back down the hill again.

“I am lookin’ for Hayden Mackenzie.”
Hayden froze, with his fingers tightening around the scabbarded weapon at his hip. In this area, no one knew his true surname. He had given the folk at the inn a false one to keep his identity hidden.

“How do ye ken me, boy?” he asked, turning his focus back on the young man.

“I have a message for ye. From yer brother.”
Hayden turned his eyes on his uncle, seeing the same curiosity in his brow that he was sure was in his own. Out of everyone, Hayden’s brother was the only one who knew where he was.

“Very well, speak yer message,” Hayden urged with a wave of his hand.

“He needs yer help.” The messenger spoke in a rush as if he was fearful of something. “Many things have happened, and he asks to see ye most urgently.”

“Where?” Hayden asked, feeling his body grow still. I daenae go back to the clan. That is me rule.

“The tavern on the far side of Applecross. They call it The Black Stag. Do ye ken it?”

“Aye,” Hayden nodded. It was hardly the finest of establishments, home to criminals and thieves, certainly a good place for someone to hide without too many questions being asked.

“He will meet ye there tonight after the sun has gone.”

“Ye forget, boy, Hayden has nae said ‘aye’ yet.” Nathair’s words made Hayden look to his uncle another time. “Ye said ye were done with that life. Remember?”

“Aye, so I did.” Hayden ran a hand through his short hair. It was beginning to grow longer now and a little unruly. It allowed him to pull at the locks in frustration before turning back to the messenger. “How urgent is it that he see me?”

“He is desperate,” the boy said slowly. “He rode so hard out of the castle that the animal threw a shoe. Say ye will come?”

Hayden couldn’t say no. Not when his brother was asking for him. He is the one man in that castle I still love.

“If me brother asks it, then aye, I will come.”

***

Hayden stood outside the tavern for a minute, peering in through one of the few glass windows the building had. There was so much candlelight inside that for a second, Hayden’s reflection was the only thing he could see. He was so tall he had to bend down to see in the window, where he could see his fair hair looked paler than normal in the moonlight. The beard that had grown across his chin was a little unruly, but it was the eyes that stunned him the most.

He looked away from the dark blue eyes that reminded him so much of his father and walked into the tavern.

The moment he opened the door, heads swiveled toward him. Some were clearly looking him up and down, trying to judge by his height how much of a threat he was to them. Others were evidently thieves, their gazes judging the clothing he wore. They must have judged him a poor target, for they soon turned away, allowing Hayden to walk into the tavern.

“Hayden?” Brandon’s voice urged him to turn toward the corner of the tavern.

Through the candelabras full of lit candles and past the tables where men were drunkenly half prostrate across tabletops, there was a figure in the very corner he knew well.

“Brandon,” Hayden said with a smile, crossing quickly toward his brother. Bearing the same hair, though, with the dark eyes of their mother, Brandon stood to his feet, much shorter than Hayden.

The two brothers embraced warmly. Hayden couldn’t stop the relief that swelled through him at seeing his brother again after so long. It showed how much something had been missing this past year. Without Brandon at his side, Hayden had become rather empty.

“For the wee man, brother,” Brandon said, his voice deep indeed these days. “It has been too long since I saw ye last.”

“It has been too long,” Hayden agreed and stepped back, clapping his brother around the shoulder. “I wish to share a drink with ye and be merry, but both yer messenger’s words and the look on yer face tells me this is nay time to be merry. Ye have nae come just to see me, have ye?”

“I wish I could say that I had.” Brandon sighed and sat back down at the table before sliding a tankard of ale toward Hayden, urging him to take it. Hayden sat opposite his brother, feeling the chair creak dangerously beneath him before he lifted the tankard to his lips and took a big gulp. “I am pleased to see ye are well.”

“And I ye,” Hayden said, lowering the tankard again. “Speak yer mind, brother. If ye have come so far to see me, then whatever bothers ye must be great indeed.”

“Very well.” Brandon nodded and sat forward, resting his elbows on the table and making his cloak fall open. It revealed the rather fine clothes, urging Hayden to reach across the table and close the cloak back up again. Brandon flinched at the close touch. “What did ye do that for?”

“Protectin’ ye. There are thieves here that will nae hesitate from stabbin’ ye just to get hold of yer purse. Best be careful nae to show them those fine clothes of yers,” Hayden explained as he lowered his hand.

Brandon looked taken aback and tightly closed the cloak around his throat, sending a wary look around the tavern.

“Begin, brother,” Hayden urged him on.

“Our faither is dead. Did ye hear?” Brandon’s blunt question made Hayden pause with the tankard half lifted in the air. His expression must have been enough to answer his brother. “Ye had heard.”

“I heard a whisper.” That same hollowness returned to Hayden’s chest, the same he had felt the day he had heard of his father’s passing. What was he supposed to do? Weep for this man? He didn’t love the man enough to weep for him. All he felt was emptiness; it acknowledged that his father was gone and the pain that remained, without Hayden longing for the man to rise from his grave. “I didnae ken if it was true. I imagine I cried nay more than ye did.”

“Nay tears at all? Then we are alike indeed,” Brandon nodded. “Ye could take yer place now… surely ye ken that.”

“Nay,” Hayden spoke sharply, lowering the tankard back down to the table with a thud to emphasize his words. “Brandon, ye and I had this conversation long ago. I daenae wish to have it again.”

“As ye wish,” Brandon fidgeted with his hands before looking up to Hayden another time, flicking the fair hair back from his forehead to look him in the eye. “Then let us discuss another matter. These last months, they have been dark indeed.”

“Dark? In what way?” Hayden’s interest was piqued, noticing the haunted look that appeared on his brother’s face, with the eyes hooded.

“Murder, brother. I talk of murder.”

Chapter 2

“Murder?” Hayden repeated, uncertain he had heard his brother right.

“Aye,” Brandon’s voice turned deeper and quieter, prompting Hayden to lean forward to hear his brother better. “So many deaths in our castle walls these last months that we have barely buried the last before news reaches us of another. It is too awful to bear. It is as if the devil himself walks our castle corridors.”

“Devils daenae walk, Brandon. They stay in hell where they belong.”

“This one hasnae done so. Someone is killin’ the men of our clan.” Brandon grew angry. It was an emotion Hayden had barely seen in his brother over the years. His whisper became seething as he bent across the table. “I cannae bear it anymore. I cannae see another man I trust die at this devil’s hands. The last death was me own General, me man-at-arms. Killed in the middle of the night. His throat slashed.”

The words took the vigor out of Brandon, forcing him back in his chair. He lifted his hand to his throat and placed it there, clearly thinking of the wound he had seen.

“Brother, I am so sorry,” Hayden muttered, seeing his brother’s hand tremble. “I think ye need another drink.” He pushed back his chair, ready to stand to his feet and fetch that drink, when Brandon veered sharply forward, taking his wrist and stopping him from going anywhere.

“I need yer help.”

“Me help? What can I do?”

“I daenae ken who the killer is. Nay one does. I daenae ken who I can trust in me own walls. What if I place me trust in the very man who turns out to be this devil?”

“Brandon, ye are startin’ to sound like a man possessed. Calm yerself.”

“Ye would be this panicked too if ye had seen the things I have seen,” Brandon snapped. Heads turned to look at them with curiosity. Hayden lifted a hand to his brother, urging him to lower his voice. They didn’t need those in the tavern to hear of this business. “I need someone in the castle I can trust, Hayden. Someone I ken without a doubt has nothin’ to do with these murders. Someone who can help me find this killer.”

Hayden pulled his wrist free of his brother, realizing just what he was referring to.

“Ye want me to come to the castle?” He was already shaking his head, even before he had finished speaking. “Brandon, ye ken I swore never to go back there.”

“I ken, but I am desperate,” Brandon explained with his hands outstretched.

“Our faither isnae there anymore.”

“His memory is there,” Hayden said quietly. “I cannae go back there when I remember what he said to me, what he expects. Nay, it isnae possible.”

Hayden saw the disappointment on his brother’s face. It made the guilt swell within Hayden, urging him to run his hands through his fair hair another time.

“I am sorry, Brandon. If I could help ye from afar, I would. I would do so in a heartbeat. Yet I cannae go back to the castle. I am truly sorry.”

Brandon nodded slowly. The disappointment was evident, even as he raised his eyes to Hayden and attempted to smile. The smile didn’t last long before it flickered and faded completely.

“I kenned it was a lot to ask. I remember why ye left. Most men wouldnae come back after that.” Brandon stood to his feet. It was so sudden that Hayden was startled, leaning back in his chair. “I wish I had time to exchange pleasantries, but I fear I daenae. I must get back to the castle. I am increasin’ the guard to stop anyone else from dyin’.”

“Brandon, one more drink?” Hayden asked, reaching for his brother. “Let me hear how ye are before ye go.”

“One more drink then,” Brandon said uncertainly. “Yet trust me. Ye daenae want to hear how I am. I will only talk of death.”

***

Hayden urged the steed away from Applecross village toward the hills. On one side of him, the ocean stretched out. Wild and vicious, each wave crashed against the shore with a kind of sizzling anger, yet Hayden took no notice. He gave the waves no more attention than he did the frost-dappled grass that was crunching beneath his horse’s hooves.

“Home, Bhaltair,” he called. “Home now.”

The horse neighed as if in agreement with him. It was time they rested their weary bones.

Hayden kept looking behind him as though he half expected his brother to follow him up the hills, but he did not. Brandon had taken his leave rather quickly from the tavern, stepping out the door to reveal three guards that had followed him, all secretly keeping watch over him. Hayden had barely recognized the guards’ faces as he had been gone from the castle for so long. He was just glad Brandon was being watched over as he took his leave from the tavern with his guards with him.

“The new laird. I hope he does a better job of it than our faither did,” Hayden muttered to himself, his thoughts still on Brandon as Bhaltair took him up the hill.

They only went a few steps more when Hayden felt the horse’s muscles stiffen beneath him. He whinnied, abruptly, high into the sky.

“Woah…” Hayden took hold of the reins, urging the horse to fall still. It was a difficult task, with the normally so calm steed now wild, almost feral. “What are ye doin’? Ye’ll kick me off in the sea in a minute!” He kicked the horse’s flank with his heel, but it did little to rest him.

As Hayden tightened one of the reins around his wrists, the better to hold onto the steed, he began to realize what it was that could have upset the animal.

Something was burning. It was acrid and smokey, so strong that it hit the back of Hayden’s throat, turning it dry. “Burnin’.”

The horse turned its nose back up the hill, urging Hayden to look ahead. In the distance, there was an orange orb leaking into the night sky. An orb so great that seeing the stars had become impossible.

“Nay,” Hayden said, urging the horse forward. “It is nae the croft. It cannae be!” He dug his heels in another time, and on this occasion, Bhaltair obeyed his orders. The black steed leaped forward, bending his nose down in the urgency with which they rode. Hayden leaned over the head of the steed, prompting him on at a greater speed.

The hill began to flatten out, revealing just where the orb was coming from. It was the croft, after all.

“Uncle Nathair!” Hayden bellowed the words as he grew nearer to the croft. The burning smell was strong, with black smoke filling the air. Flames were curling through the windows of the croft. “Nathair!”

Yet Hayden’s panicked cry went unanswered.

The horse tried to back away. Hayden jumped down from the animal, slapping it on the rear to be certain to send it scuttling back from the flames before he advanced.

“Nathair!” He wrapped his cloak around his arms, about to use it as a shield to barge his way into the house and find his uncle when there was a boom of wood snapping.

Hayden was forced to scramble backward as the thatched roof half caved in. Part of the roof was still intact as the other half fell away. The straw disappeared into the house, along with timber beams that cracked and echoed into the air.

“Nay,” Hayden muttered, uncertain how to get into the house at all. The flames could kill him. “Uncle!”

This time, there was an answer to his bellow, yet the sight that greeted him chilled him to the bone, despite the heat coming off of the fire.

The door burst open, half-broken off its hinges as a figure stumbled forward.

It had to be Nathair, yet his body was no longer his – it belonged to the fire, engulfed in it. There was not an inch of his body that was not alight. The clothes were blackened, his face too, the hair curling in smoke in such a way that the color was gone.

Nathair called out, no words, but just a scream, his voice so marred with pain that the voice was practically unrecognizable.

“Nay,” Hayden muttered. Hayden stumbled forward, his boots tripping on the mounds of the earth beneath him as he hastened toward his uncle. There was nothing he could do. Not now. Though he wished he could, desperately. His hands lifted in the air toward the figure, somehow hoping he could pull the flames free of him.

“Nay…” Hayden murmured into the air. “God’s wounds!”

Behind the figure, the croft was lit in flames. The entire roof was caving in, with the sounds of the thatched roof cracking and snapping in the fire.

Hayden had never known heat like it. Every time he tried to get closer to the house and the man, the warmth hit him with full force, demanding he step back again, stumbling away with his hands over his face. He could feel the heat sizzling at the edge of his hair when he got closer, forcing him away, further from the man.

A scream erupted from the body. The voice practically bore into Hayden’s soul as he watched his uncle burn.

He was beyond recognition, with his face blackened as he clawed at it with his own hands.

There has to be somethin’ I can do! The words tore through Hayden, spurring him into action. He scrambled further away from the croft, down the hill a little toward where a well was buried into the ground. He threw the bucket down the well with a rope attached to the handle, barely able to hear the splash it made in the water above the sounds of the fire. Hitching it back up again, he fumbled to untie the rope before running back up the hill toward the man still burning in flames.

He tossed the bucket of water toward the man, dousing him in the water. It was only enough to dampen some of the flames, the bucket too small to hold much at all.

Hayden stood back, the bucket limp in his hands as he realized what little good he had done. The man had stopped shouting his name now. His body had grown weak; he capitulated to the ground on his knees.

I cannae lose me uncle! God have mercy. There must be a way to stop this.

“Nay. I have to do somethin’,” Hayden muttered in a hissed whisper, feeling the anger burning through him, as strong as the flames that were now ravaging his home. It was not a fire that would be put out, the want of justice, of revenge.

Hayden ran back down the hill toward the well. He would not give up. He couldn’t. He would do what he could to save his uncle.

He lost track of how many times he collected buckets of water and threw them on the fallen form of his uncle. All he knew was that by the time of the third bucket, his uncle was on the ground, unmoving. The fingers were still, no longer clawing toward him in desperation, and the eyes stared glacially outward, the color marred by the white around the irises having turned a deep red.

Hayden threw a final bucket of water over his uncle. With the flames put out for good over the unconscious man, he reached down, taking his uncle’s arm, and dragged him away from the fire across the earth. The cloth felt unnatural beneath Hayden’s touch, and the skin was hardened. Bile rose in his throat at the stench of the burned skin.

Once they were a few feet from the house, safe from the burning building, at last, Hayden dropped down to his uncle. He reached for his uncle’s wrist, trying desperately to search for a pulse, but the skin had morphed too much for him to do it easily. Instead, he moved his fingers to his uncle’s neck, trying to find a pulse there.

Nothin’. Hayden reared back from his uncle with horror, pushing away across the ground before falling still, feeling the tears sting his eyes.
His uncle had gone. His spirit had left that scarred body so much that the body almost felt foreign to Hayden.

He’s nae here anymore. Hayden bent forward, unafraid to stop the tears. They wracked his body, making his tall frame weak for a minute. He rested his forehead against the ground, his face in the grass. “Ye cannae die, Nathair. Ye cannae die.”

He knew well enough his words were pointless, but they came anyway. As if they were some sort of desperate plea with God to bring his uncle back to life.

There was another crack in the house, and Hayden snapped his head up, looking toward the building. The rest of the roof caved in, cascading sparks in a flurry, leaving but a carcass of the croft behind.

Hayden’s home had gone, just as the uncle he loved had gone too.

Bhaltair neighed sharply into the night. For a moment, Hayden thought it was the animal’s way of showing despair until the horse did it again, louder this time. Hayden turned his gaze on Bhaltair, watching as the animal pawed at the ground with one hoof. Hayden slowly moved to his feet and moved to the horse, looking down at what had caught the animal’s interest so much.

It was an iron ball, half-cracked open with a burnt rag pressed in the top.

A grenade? Hayden bent down, prodding the pieces of the broken ball. His uncle owned no such weapon, and neither did he. Yet here one was feet from where his home was burning down.

This was nay accident. Hayden stood to his feet and turned away from the grenade, knowing all he needed to know. This was murder.

He crossed back to his uncle, kneeling beside him. He tried to rest a hand on his uncle’s forehead, longing to say goodbye properly, yet the skin was still too warm, and he was forced to back up away from his uncle, unable to get too close. He was blackened beyond recognition. The only thing that was still visible and recognizable as his uncle was the presence of the ring upon his finger.

“I swear to ye, on everythin’ that is left in this world that I hold dear, ye will be avenged. Whoever did this to ye, whatever the reason for it, they willnae escape justice.” Hayden felt the steed walk back toward him. Either Bhaltair was escaping the flames or coming to Hayden for comfort. It made Hayden lift his hand and take hold of the steed’s reins, pulling himself to his feet. “We cannae stay here, Bhaltair.”

The horse grunted as if in acknowledgment.

“After the burial, we go to Brandon. There are now many deaths that need investigatin’, it would seem. Maybe this one has somethin’ to do with what is happenin’ at the castle.”

He reached forward and pulled the ring free of his uncle’s body. It was an awful thing, leaving Hayden to grimace at the touch of the burned skin and look away, unable to stare too long at the blackened body. With the ring free, he held it in the palm of his hand. It would need to be cleaned.

A final boom was behind him, urging Hayden to grimace and look around at his home as it burned down. The stones were blackened as some fell from their place, hitting the earth with the heaviest thuds that echoed through the ground, reaching where Hayden’s feet were planted.

“Who would do this to ye, Nathair?”

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