Iain curled his fingers into the linens of his massive four-poster bed in an attempt to stop its spinning. Unfortunately, the whirling only increased. Now that he was fully awake, the bed dipped and tilted in rhythm with the throbbing in his head.

Equally bad, his ears rang and his eyes stung worse than the time when, as wee laddies, Donall had laughingly blown a handful of sand into his face.

Iain grimaced, the memory driving a spike of bitterness into the middle of his pounding forehead. Not wanting to feel sorry for himself, he tightened his grip on the bed.

But how could he ignore the pain inside him?

When was the last time he’d laughed?

He couldn’t recall, and never had he felt less inclined than now.

Pushing up on his elbows, he squinted into the brightness of a chamber far too sun-filled to be his own.

Someone had opened the shutters, allowing light to flood his room. A refuge he purposely kept in cool and blessed shadow.

Everyone knew it, too.

“By the hounds!” He glared at the windows. “What depraved arse-?” He broke off, collapsing against the pillows as his head seemingly burst into a hundred jagged-edged fragments.

“Odin’s balls,” he snarled through gritted teeth. And it was then that a new thought came to him.

A bad one...

Perhaps he only imagined he lay aching and bleak-hearted in his bed?

Maybe he had sprinted into the flames, and now found himself in the antechamber to Satan’s own fiery pit? The brightness stabbing his eyes, not the sun’s rays, but the flames of hell.

Not as pleased at the possibility as he’d thought he’d be, he forced himself to endure the glaring light long enough to survey his surroundings a bit more thoroughly.

When he did, he felt both relief and annoyance.

If he’d died and gone to hell, his most persistent tormentors had followed him. They were all here, his closest kinsmen and friends. And they peered at him with such cold disapproval it was a wonder they didn’t have icicles hanging from their brows.

All save Amicia, his raven-haired sister.

She stood wringing her hands, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen.

“On my soul, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said, her voice dulled by anguish. “But I thought…” Her words ended in a sob, and she swiped the back of her hand beneath her eyes. “Can you forgive me?”

“For what?” Iain glanced at his brother, but Donall’s stony face offered nary a clue.

A quick look at the others proved equally fruitless. Gerbert returned his stare but said nothing. Donall’s wife, Lady Isolde, hovered just inside the door, her troubled gaze on her husband.

Gavin MacFie, Donall’s most trusted friend, sat in one of the room’s window embrasures, carefully wiping soot from one of Baldoon’s most prized reliquary containers. A strapping, auburn-haired man loved for his sunny disposition, he held Iain’s stare for a long, uncomfortable moment before giving a sad shake of his head and returning his attention to the small bejeweled chest on his knees.

Iain frowned.

He hadn’t missed the pity in Gavin’s hazel eyes. Eyes that usually brimmed with good cheer.

Silence stretched between the room’s occupants, its weight at contrast to the crisp salt air pouring through the high arch-topped windows. Something wasn’t right. Sure of it, Iain took a closer glance in that direction. Someone hadn’t just opened the shutters – they were no longer there.

“I dinnae believe my eyes!” He blinked, a whirl of images flashing through his mind. The most telling was his sister rushing at him, only to crash a wine jug on his head.

The memory now clear, he touched the knot on his forehead. The lump pulsed hotly. Just fingering it sent bolts of pain clear to his toes. Now he knew the reason for Amicia’s tears.

“Stop crying, lass,” he rasped, appalled by the effort it cost him to form those few words. “I am no’ vexed with you.”

“You aren’t?” Amicia swiped her cheek. “You do not blame me for striking you?”

“Nae,” he assured her. “I know why you did, and I thank you.” He gave her a tight smile, a small one.

The best he could manage.

And only for her.

The others were a different matter.

Summoning strength, he flung back the covers, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and held fast to its edges until the spinning lessened.

Then he heaved himself to his feet and turned to the soul he held responsible for transforming his bedchamber into a sea of eye-gouging brilliance.

The grizzle-headed steward had even set a fire blazing in the hearth and lit all the candles in the room. The wall torches hadn’t been ignored either. Long neglected, each one now hissed and crackled with well-burning flames. Iain resisted the urge to wince in their dazzling light.

“As I mind it, Gerbert, I told you no’ to lay a fire in here, to keep all tapers and oil lamps dark, and” – he paused for emphasis – “to leave the windows shuttered.”

“So ye did.”

“Yet you ignored my orders?”

Gerbert thrust out his chin. “I always heed orders. Have done all my years.”

Iain folded his arms. “Till now.”

The steward just looked at him.

Iain drew a deep breath, then released it slowly. “Where are the shutters?”

More silence met his gaze, but he caught a flash of pity in the graybeard’s hazy blue eyes. The same commiseration he’d noted on Gavin’s face moments before.

And that one avoided all further eye contact with him. The big Islesman held his shaggy, auburn head low over the jeweled reliquary casket. He kept polishing its silver casing though not a speck of soot remained.

The precious container for holy relics gleamed brighter than a bairn’s well-scrubbed behind.

A glance at his sister-in-law, Lady Isolde, reaped no more than a polite shrug.

That, and a telling glance at her husband.

Iain also looked at him.

“It was you,” he said, squinting in the sun’s glare slanting through the now-bare windows. “You ordered the removal of the shutters.”

Donall didn’t deny it.

“You go too far, brother.” Iain’s hands clenched at his sides. Honor demanded he abide by Donall’s edicts. He was laird, his word law, and Iain accepted his lot as younger son.

But never before had Donall crossed the threshold to his private quarters as laird.

Only as brother and friend.

That he’d do so now struck deep.

“Have I no’ bled enough this day?” He gestured with his arm, taking in the roaring hearth fire and the countless lit tapers. “Would you see my quarters reduced to a charred wilderness as penance for my sins?”

He strode to the stripped windows, purposely avoiding the recessed alcove claimed by Gavin MacFie, then whirled around. “Or did you hope to blind me by roasting my eyes?”

“You have done that yourself.” Donall glanced at Gavin, still busy shining the reliquary casket. “We seek to un-blind you.”

“I only wish to be left alone, undisturbed.”

“And we want to help you.”

“Then be gone.”

Turning back to the window, Iain gripped the cold stone ledge. He stared out at the vastness of the Hebridean Sea, his gaze going to the near-submerged islet where Lileas, his sweet lady wife, had met her doom.

The Lady Rock.

A seaweed-festooned hump of rock barely breaking the surface, its black-glistening crest deceptively benign in the late afternoon light.

How he loathed the tidal rock, its presence a grim reminder of everything he’d lost.

All he’d done wrong.

His throat thickened as grief and guilt wrung his heart and a knot of pain tightened in his gut.

With effort, he tore his gaze from the Lady Rock’s jagged face and focused on the endless expanse of blue-, green-, and amethyst-shaded water. Iced with white-crested waves, the sea’s beauty hurt his heart and pierced his soul.

Once, he’d loved the stirring views from these walls. He’d been so proud that such wonder surrounded Doon. Indeed, he’d felt blessed, sure a grander place couldn’t exist.

Now…

He inhaled deeply, then turned back to the room. “Donall, I would slay dragons for you,” he said, measuring each word. “Even give my life if you required it of me. But ne’er before have you entered this chamber as my better.”

Donall took a step toward him. “Dinnae think I do so gladly.”

“You should no’ do so at all. Name any penance and I shall accept it. I will not abide your intrusion here, nor the desecration of my private quarters.”

He slid a look at Gerbert, then started across the room.

“I expect the shutters back in place by sunrise on the morrow,” he declared, striding past Donall to reach the shadows of the corridor.

“Hold.” His brother’s arm shot out, stopping him with a grip to his elbow.

“You will no’ be here on the morrow,” Donall informed him. “This time you went too far. It grieves me to-”

“To what?” Iain jerked free. “Cast me in the dungeon? Banish me to prowl the hills outside Baldoon’s walls? Send me naked into the heather and scrub?”

“Nothing so odious.”

“What then? Shall I count the stones in every cairn dotting Doon’s high moors?”

“Iain, please,” Amicia cried. “And you, Donall, can we not just leave him be?” She raised beseeching hands. “He’s suffered enough.”

“Aye, he has,” Donall agreed, his tone grim. “As his brother, my heart sympathizes. My duty as laird demands I punish him. Perhaps in the execution of his penance, he will come to suffer less.”

At a nod from Donall, Gavin left the window embrasure to join them, the bejeweled reliquary casket held in his hands.

Light reflected off the glittering gemstones embedded in the small chest’s silver-and-enamel casing, each jewel shooting off beams of color.

Rays that streaked straight at Iain’s aching eyes. He blinked as multihued dots danced across his vision. But when his sight cleared, a cloud must’ve passed over the sun, for the room lay in shadow.

His relief proved fleeting.

The stain on Gavin’s cheeks and his downcast eyes bode ill.

He knew something Iain didn’t.

His gut clenching, Iain glanced at the reliquary casket. For centuries the MacLeans’ most prized possession, it contained a holy relic of inestimable value: a fragment of the True Cross.

A horrible thought popped into his mind. Steeling himself, he eyed his brother.

“Dinnae tell me you’d see me martyred?”

Rather than answer, Donall turned to a nearby table and poured himself a cup of wine, draining it in one long swallow. His face grim, he dragged the back of his hand over his mouth.

“You would have to commit a more grievous sin than burning the chapel for me to pass such harsh judgment on you.

“Even then, I could no’ be so cruel.” He leveled a look on Iain. “No’ to you.”

“Then what is this about?”

“The consequences of your deeds.” Donall began pacing the chamber, his strides taking him back and forth between the hearth and the now-empty window embrasure. “I would make a pilgrim of you, no’ a martyr.”

“A what?” Iain almost choked. Never had he heard anything more ludicrous.

He wasn’t even a devout man.

Truth be told, he believed in scarce little beyond that the sun rose each day to plague him.

He stared at Donall, his brows arching ever higher. “I did no’ mishear you? You mean to make a penitent of me?”

The sort that roams the land in a heavy cloak and wide-brimmed hat, a wooden staff clutched in one hand, a beggar’s bowl in the other?

The image froze his blood.

“A pilgrim and an emissary of goodwill,” his brother amended.

Iain stared at him, seeing little difference.

His stomach plummeted. “I’ve ne’er heard anything more pointless. You’d be wiser to order me to clean the cesspit.”

“Not so.” Donall stopped pacing. “Your pilgrimage will appease the saints, and the old ones before them, for the destruction of a sacred place. It is also my hope that the journey will teach you to master your temper. I, and everyone beneath this roof have tolerated enough.”

“I have reason to-” Iain bit back his argument.

His brother had the rights of it.

He had become the bane of his clan, fouling the mood and robbing the smile of anyone fool enough to near him.

A fate he could blame on no one but himself. So he dragged a hand down over his face, carefully avoiding the still-aching lump on his forehead.

“Have done,” he gritted, meeting Donall’s eye. “Tell me of this penance.”

Donall held his gaze. “It is more a mission of goodwill.”

“Toward whom?”

“The deserving brothers of Duncairn Cathedral.” The words held a subtle warning.

Refusal would not be tolerated.

Iain frowned. “I have nothing to say about this?”

“Your actions spoke for you. Truths that cannae be undone.”

“I’ll no’ argue that.”

“Try to see the journey as charitable.” Donall struck a different tone. “You’ll know Duncairn’s status. More of St. Columba’s relics are sheltered within its walls than anywhere else in the land. A foster brother of our father once served as bishop there. Da himself was a generous benefactor.”

“Could you no’ choose a more distant place?” Iain stared at his brother, disbelieving. “Duncairn lies in the heart of the mainland. I would need two full moons to near its boundaries.”

“Time is no’ important. Nor the hardship of the journey.” Donall remained firm. “Duncairn is needy. The English have repeatedly fallen upon the cathedral and its holdings in recent years. So have the Disinheriteds, those landless Scottish lords who serve them. Together, they’ve ransacked and stolen, burned orchards, and even cut down sleeping churchmen.”

“Holy men have been slaughtered while washing the feet of the poor.” Gerbert shook his head, clucked his tongue. “Churchmen are easy prey, nae match for warrior robbers.”

“So they need my sword arm?”

“Only if they are attacked when you are there. They are receiving spearmen from other clans.” Donall signaled to someone outside the open door and one of his younger squires entered the room, two leather satchels clutched in his hands.

The lad deposited them at Iain’s feet before almost stumbling over his own in a hasty retreat.

Iain cocked a brow. “You are so eager to see me gone that you’ve packed for me?”

“Those are gifts.” Donall resumed his pacing, his hands clasped behind his back. “Duncairn has lost much. Marauders have stolen silver cups and salvers, golden crosses, an illuminated manuscript with jewel-set bindings, and more.”

Halting beside his wife, he slung an arm about her waist and drew her near. “The thieving bastards snatch anything of value they can carry.”

“So we are to replenish their coffers?”

Donall nodded. “Our collection of relics and treasures is ample enough for us to easily restore a portion of their lost wealth.” He paused to rub his forehead. “In doing so, we can attempt to atone for the sacrilege you committed by setting fire to the chapel.”

Iain frowned. “You’d send them our greatest wealth? So I am granted remission of my sins?”

Nae, he does this so you can reclaim the life you should have had.

The words, feminine and sweet, came close to Iain’s ear. Soft as a sigh, and in a soothing, sympathetic tone. Iain glanced at Lady Isolde, but his brother’s wife hadn’t spoken.

Nor had she left her husband’s side.

Amicia still fretted across the room, too hampered by sniffles to whisper in his ear.

So who had?

A chill icing his skin, Iain turned to his brother, only to find Donall’s gaze on the reliquary in Gavin’s hands.

Iain looked at it, too. And the longer he did, the more the tiny chest seemed to glow, its glittering gemstones staring at him like so many colorful eyes, each one brimming with accusation.

Brought back from the Holy Land by a distant forebear who’d gone on Crusade, the casket and the holy relic contained within had been in the MacLeans’ possession for a long time.

By all reckoning, at least two hundred years.

It was the clan’s greatest treasure.

His father and every MacLean laird before him would roar in their graves if it left Baldoon.

Some even claimed tragedy would visit the clan if ever it did.

“The tragedy has already come to pass,” Donall said, confirming Iain’s suspicion that, at times, his brother could read minds. “A heavy sacrifice must be made lest greater ill befall this house.” He paused, his dark eyes narrowing. “Or would you rather I ordered you tossed o’er the cliffs?”

“Nae.”

For reasons I cannae explain, I find I am no’ so eager to die, after all.

“So my penance is to deliver our family’s most valued treasure into the hands of Duncairn’s holy men?” Those words he spoke aloud.

His brother nodded.

“Taking gifts to Duncairn to replace what they’ve lost is your duty as my brother, and son of this house.” Donall regarded him for a long moment, then slid a meaningful look at Gavin. “He will accompany you.”

“MacFie?” Iain glanced at the burly Islesman.

Gavin stood head and shoulders over most men. He had an honest, open face, and warm hazel eyes. He was quick to smile and never spoke poorly of anyone. His thick auburn hair could be called unruly, but he kept his beard neatly trimmed.

He also swung a wicked sword, when fighting on the side he deemed worthy.

At the moment, he shuffled his feet in the floor rushes and looked more uncomfortable than Iain had ever seen him.

His ill ease fueled Iain’s own.

Iain looked back to his brother. “Do the good saints have a score to settle with him as well?”

“Nary a one.” Donall sounded tired. “Gavin goes along to keep an eye on you.” He paused, and a look close to sympathy clouded his face. “He has orders to make certain you fulfill your penance.”

“At last, the whole of it.” Iain folded his arms. “I knew there’d be more.”

“So there is.”

“Then speak. Dinnae spare me now.”

“I want you gone before daybreak,” Donall said, his voice surprisingly soft for such harsh words. “On your journey into Scotland’s heart, you will stop at every sacred place you happen upon. Be it Christian or of the old ones. Holy well or tree, hallowed cross, martyr’s shrine, ancient cairn, or standing stone, I care not. At each such site, you are to kneel and pray to be purged of your temper.”

“You’ve charged MacFie with assuring I do?”

“So it is.” Donall gave him a tight-lipped nod.

The MacFie’s face turned nearly the same shade as his unruly hair.

The regret in Donall’s eyes hit Iain harder.

“Is that all?” Iain managed, his voice blessedly void of emotion.

Donall lifted a hand, and for a beat, Iain thought he’d reach for him, perhaps grasp him in a brotherly embrace – something he could’ve used – but Donall lowered his hand as quickly.

“There is more, aye,” he admitted, the words thick and choked-sounding, as if dredged from the darkest corner of his soul.

Iain waited, his defenses already throwing up shields.

“I loathe that we’ve come to this.” Donall’s lairdly reserve broke. A shudder ran the length of him, and when it passed, he was once again all clan leader, his face expressionless.

“This clan has suffered greatly from your moods and temper. You must now bear the fury of the storm you’ve called upon yourself.”

Iain stared at him, hoping no one else heard the roar of his blood, the knocking of his heart.

“Meaning?” He folded his arms. “What else is there to say?”

“That you, Iain, younger son of the great House of MacLean, shall ne’er again set foot on Doon lest you master your temper,” Donall declared. “As I and the council of elders have decided, so be it.”