Caitlin drew her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs as the sun began its magnificent descent beneath the far-off Grampian Mountains. She’d never seen them up close, but could imagine their ability to strike awe in even the most jaded heart from a distance.

What was it that drew her to them on this day? There was no way of knowing. She only knew she had to watch them as the brilliant warmth of early evening light turned into dusk. The rays of light, amber and gold, turned nearly red as the fiery ball sank lower and lower.

Something about the mountains called to her. Something quiet, like a whisper on the wind, but far more incessant. Insistent.

She wished the whisper would tell her what it wanted from her, why it perturbed her so. Why it made her heart ache.

A lock of hair fell in front of her eyes. Hair blond as her mother’s. She smoothed it into place even though the breeze was bound to tease it free again. Mother had always fretted so over Caitlin inheriting that hair. In a world where it seemed brown or red or brownish-red hair was the norm, to be born with hair as light as theirs was surely a sign.

Of what? Mother would never say—or, if she did, Caitlin had been too young to remember now. There were so few memories which had stayed with her. Would that Mother had lived a bit longer.

Would that Caitlin had died with her.

She dragged her knuckles over her cheeks to dispense with the tears which had begun to fall. She wouldn’t allow herself to give in to emotion—she’d done enough of that already. Over the last month, she’d cried enough to fill a lake.

But you got away. You ran away.

Yes, she had, and she’d barely made it through the journey. By the time she’d reached Fiona and Kent’s farm, a day’s ride from Anderson lands, she’d been half-dead from exhaustion and starvation.

It had been days since she’d last eaten, since long before the wedding ceremony had taken place. The thought of marrying Alan Anderson had robbed her of an appetite, and she’d been far too panicked to take time to secure food for the journey.

There had been no time, as it was. Her new husband had been heavily into his third or perhaps even fourth pitcher of wine by then, laughing and jesting with fellow clansmen, paying her little attention. But that would change. He wouldn’t ignore her for long.

There would’ve been the bedding, for one. He would’ve sought her out soon enough in order to climb on top of her and sweat out what he’d drank. To officially make her his property until the end of her life.

Even now, weeks later, seated on a hill a day’s ride from her husband, the idea turned Caitlin’s stomach.

She’d left Alan’s home with nothing but the clothing on her back and the horse which she’d raised since the day it was foaled. She didn’t want to owe him anything, didn’t want him to be able to claim she’d stolen anything from him, other than herself.

Naturally, he’d think of it that way. She was his wife. She belonged to him, as she had always belonged to one man or another. She’d never been her own person before she’d slipped out of Alan’s home—she refused to think of it as her own—and taken off into the night without even knowing whether or not her cousin would take her in.

Fiona had, thank the heavens.

A chill ran through her, making her hug her legs tighter in spite of the very warm evening. What if she were found? What if Fiona and Kent suffered for the charity they’d extended?

She had already been with them for far too long, a fact which she was certain Kent was also aware of. The first fortnight, he’d been genial and almost overly solicitous toward her. She’d been ill-used, for certain, and as her cousin’s husband he’d offered to take her under his protection in spite of the fact that she was wed to another man.

“After all,” he’d reasoned at the time, “the marriage was never…”

He had blushed and stammered after that—a gentle man, a kind one, as befitting her gentle and kind cousin—but Caitlin was old enough to understand what he’d tried to express. The marriage was never consummated. If she wished to have it dissolved in the eyes of the Church, she had the ability to do so.

Except she had no power. And no money with which to secure such a decree. Her powerlessness was the entire reason she’d been forced into marriage at all. Now, she was powerless to escape it except by running away and staying away. Far away.

What if it meant running for the rest of her life?

Her eyes fixed on the mountains, which were turning deep purple now that the sun was all but a memory. Could she truly live out the remainder of her days without a home of her own? Always moving, hiding, pretending to be someone she wasn’t in order to avoid being tied down to a brute?

He’d always been a bully. Her first memories of him were of being teased and taunted—not the way Rodric had teased her, the way boys and girls sometimes teased for lack of the ability to share what they truly felt for one another.

Alan had taken pleasure in being mean. He’d laughed loudest whenever he’d made her cry, such as the time when he’d pretended to drown her favorite doll.

She’d been old enough by then to know her doll wasn’t alive, didn’t breathe or think. But that doll had been with her as long as she could remember. The doll had been a gift from her father, the only thing he’d given her aside from his blue eyes. He’d died long before she was old enough to remember him.

Had Alan known this? Had he understood the hidden significance a simple rag doll had held for her? Caitlin didn’t know. She only knew that he’d noticed the way she’d carried it everywhere, and he’d waited for just the right moment to snatch it from under her arm and thrust it into a bucket of water.

“Don’t!” she’d screamed, pleaded, wailed, tugging at his sleeves in a frantic attempt to save her beloved friend. “Don’t, Alan, you’ll kill her!”

“She’s not real, you baby,” he’d laughed—still, he’d held the doll beneath the surface of the water, squeezing it and laughing louder the harder Caitlin had fought him. She’d nearly had a fit, she was so thoroughly beside herself.

Until her hero had stepped in, shoving Alan with all his might. Perhaps it was surprise which had knocked the bigger, older brother off his feet. He’d been taken off-guard by the brother who’d almost never managed to land a punch when they’d tussled.

Or perhaps Rodric had been so overcome at the sight of Caitlin’s horror that he’d found strength he didn’t know he had. Perhaps that had been enough for him to knock Alan to the ground.

The doll had been left in the bucket. Caitlin would never forget the extreme tenderness with which her seven-year-old hero had lifted the rag doll, squeezing gently so as to wring out some of the water, then handed her over.

She had fallen in love with him then and there, and the feeling hadn’t dimmed with time. If anything, it had grown brighter and stronger until there was nothing in the world but him. Rodric. Her hero, always, from that day on.

And, where was he? Gone. Dead, perhaps. No one had heard from him in ages, ever since the death of his father. From the few times she’d had the displeasure of being in Alan’s presence, she’d gathered he believed his younger brother to be jealous of his claim over the clan. He claimed that Rodric wouldn’t return because he believed he should be the one to lead the Andersons.

There was no sense in telling him she didn’t believe this. It wasn’t in Rodric’s nature to be jealous—besides, he had never wished to be in Alan’s place. He was the second son. He’d never once harbored delusions of one day taking on his father’s role. It simply wasn’t done. Why would he then carry on such a pointless desire?

Because Alan liked to believe he’d won. Won what? She couldn’t say. Perhaps he couldn’t, either. Perhaps it was just enough for him to feel like the winner. He had won the clan. He had won the girl.

Her.

The very thought brought sickness to her stomach. He hadn’t wanted her, not for a single minute. He’d only wanted to have what his brother couldn’t have. He wanted to be the winner.

She’d never had a brother or sister. She didn’t understand the pain of sibling rivalry—yet even if she had a sibling of her own, Caitlin was certain she’d never treat them the way Alan had treated Rodric. She wouldn’t ignore them, either, as he’d ignored the youngest brother, Padraig.

It wasn’t until her twelfth year that she understood, truly understood, the wedge between the first two sons. At the time, Rodric had been nearly fourteen—an exciting, dashing older man as far as she’d been concerned—and Alan, sixteen and a man by anyone’s standards.

The storm had raged for two days—days full of wind and hard, driving snow. It had come up quickly, without any warning, while Caitlin’s stepfather—and, thus, Caitlin herself—had been visiting the neighboring Anderson clan.

The thought of being trapped in the great Anderson house, with the second son, had all but stopped Caitlin’s twelve-year-old heart. She had imagined so many situations in which they might be alone together. Even if they only exchanged a few words, a glance or a touch of the hand, it would be enough for her to live on until they saw each other again.

But he’d been preoccupied throughout the storm, his father ordering the men to get the livestock under cover. It had been all but impossible, the wind whipping the snow into a curtain which left any who stepped out of doors blinded and half-frozen in an instant.

Even so, Ross Anderson had insisted the older two of his three sons go out into the storm and assist the other men. Caitlin had all but fretted herself into a frenzy, wringing her hands and pacing the room to which she’d been relegated during the commotion. Would he come back? When? And in what condition?

When one of the older men returned, snow caking his beard to the point where he could hardly speak for the ice which covered the lower half of his face, and reported having lost sight of the Anderson sons, she was certain she’d die.

Judging by Ross Anderson’s reaction, he thought he would as well.

But it was Rodric’s name he repeated over and over. Rodric he demanded someone look for. Not Alan. No one else seemed to notice this or think it strange. Perhaps she’d noticed because she, too, was so concerned for him that she saw his father’s panic for what it was.

He loved Rodric as she did.

Alan? Alan was his son, his heir, the one who would take his father’s place one day by sheer luck of the order in which he’d been born.

Yet Ross did not much care for him. He protected his son, yes, perhaps a bit too fiercely.

Caitlin had never been one to agree with her stepfather on anything, but she couldn’t help believing he was correct when he declared Alan Anderson to be in dire need of a good whipping.

Perhaps if he’d received that whipping from a young age, and as regularly as necessary, he would’ve been a bit better disciplined instead of flying into a rage of temper whenever he didn’t get his way.

Yet Ross had never seen fit to mete out such punishment. And his son had grown wild. The wilder he grew, the greater the distance between him and his father’s affections.

She’d always recalled that storm, the type of squall which would’ve been remembered for its fierceness even if it hadn’t otherwise been so momentous. She had never forgotten the rejoicing in her heart when Rodric had stumbled in, half-dead but still breathing, still smiling through his chattering teeth when their eyes met from across the great hall.

“Caitlin!”

Her head snapped around at the sound of her cousin’s call.

Fiona was visible in the doorway of the house, the kitchen hearth burning and crackling behind her.

She stood, stretching after sitting for so long in the same position. She’d lost track of time, the sun having set, the sky dark. A few stars already twinkled above.

“Yes, I’m here!” she called back, taking a few steps toward the house.

Kent’s beloved horse sat just beyond the door, meaning he’d returned from his ride to the village.

Fiona waved her arms. “Come quickly! Word from home!”