The next day, Jain made her way through the winding lanes of Elign with a basket resting on her hip. She’d fallen into a deep and restless sleep after her conversation with her parents. When she woke up Jain still had a lot to think about, so she decided to go for a walk to clear her head and restock a few supplies they’d run out of in the kitchen. They used to say that she’d been “kissed by fire” when they first brought her into the village. It was in reference to her hair, but Jain didn’t like the association – it reminded her too much of what happened along the coast.

Her shoes padded down the dirt path, past the cottages toward the keep in the center of the village.

Eventually, she came to the road where Bruce’s smithy was located. To avoid seeing Alan, she took one of the side streets that went along the kitchens instead. She kept thinking about what Eamon said, “If ye really care about him, then ye have to tell him who ye really are.”

He was right of course, but she didn’t know how to broach the subject.

As she came to the kitchen door along the back, she caught the smell of some meats pie and bannock that were cooling just inside. Out of habit Jain went inside to say, “hello”, and maybe steal a piece of bannock while she was in there.

Her hand was on the door when a conversation across the road pricked her ears. She angled her head towards the men to listen and heard them talking about a raid that had taken place.

“It’s the strangest thing,” one of them said in astonishment. “They took food and supplies but left everything else intact. It’s like a completely different group of Vikings than we’ve encountered in the past. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I thought they stayed by the coast,” another argued. “Are they moving inland? It doesn’t seem possible.”

“It would seem so. We should call fer aid from the surrounding clans before it’s too late. Keenan has to do something, or they’ll be on our doorstep in nae time at all.”

Jain’s heartrate picked up a bit at the news and she started walking through the square. In her rush she nearly ran headlong into Keenan and lost her footing. “Whoa there, lass.” He caught her with his arm.

Jain gasped, stepping back on her heel and staring up at him in shock. “Uncle Keenan. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

He gazed down at her while she regained her balance. “Dinnae worry about that, Jain. Where are ye going in such a rush?”

“Just to buy some ingredients for a mustard plaster,” she responded with a blush. “We’ve run out at the house and Aileen has fallen ill. Moira needs some willow bark for her tincture as well. On my way back I was going to pick some wild flowers to cheer them up.”

Keenan sighed, his expression darkening slightly. “I’m sorry to hear that Aileen is ill, especially with her mam gone. She’s a fearless woman, my sister – with the heart of a lion. I gave up a long time ago, trying to reign her in. I just wish she wasn’t away from home so often.”

Jain smiled at him, even though what he said was true. She admired her aunt’s ability to come and go as she pleased. For all intents and purposes, she was a free woman and unbound to any man. She cleared her throat before speaking. “Ye dinnae approve?”

The chieftain sighed. “Nae, I do not. Any other woman in her position would have remarried by now, or would be content assisting Lady Bridget in the keep. Instead, she goes gallivanting off fer days, sometimes weeks at a time, and I worry.”

Jain hesitated. “Mayhap she doesn’t wish to be bound to another man, or remain idle in the keep, doing needlework day after day,” Jain suggested.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “What do ye mean?”

“She is not an old woman. She may have many years left to her life. Ye think her ambition strange, but she delights in having a purpose, and no one could deny the benefit her work brings to the clan.”

Nora’s travels increased their coin substantially, by taking beautifully decorated garments, trinkets, and woven baskets made by widows in the village who would have otherwise been unable to contribute to their community. Nora put herself at risk and did the legwork to make their ventures profitable.

Keenan stared at her for a moment while he appeared to be considering that. “Ye admire her.”

Jain nodded, swallowing the lump that was rising in her throat. “I do, very much. And ye dinnae need to worry about Aileen. Moira and I will take good care of her.”

Keenan patted her on the shoulder and stepped out of the way so she could continue. She exhaled nervously before walking down the path. After she took a few steps, her uncle called after her and said, “Oh, Jain?”

“Aye, my laird?” she asked, turning back to look at him.

“Pick some fer me and Lady Gracie as well, won’t ye? I’ve got a lot to do with the search fer Heather going on. It would bring me joy to look at, which I could sorely use at the moment.”

Jain curtsied and then hurried off down the path. Keenan was always so kind to her, and she cared about him dearly, but part of her wondered if he would be as generous with his praise if he knew the whole truth about her. It was his job to uphold the law and protect the people – all the people. If Keenan ever found out she was actually Norse she might be exiled from the clan. Norsemen, Vikings, were despised and outright hated after the destruction they’d wrought. Her uncle was a good man, but fierce with judgment. The elders were not prone to sentimentality. They had to be practical. Not even Moira knew the truth about her lineage—only Eamon.

She didn’t look back until she was leaving the village.

Jain left the road she was following came to a cresting hill. She let out a tired sigh. Everything she could see was green, rolling land of the Scottish Highlands. The ground was scattered with heather blossoms and thistles, which was the reason for her voyage.

She sat, looking out across the valley to the river running down between the hills. Every time she saw the running water it made her yearn for the fjords of her home back north. The small village her family came from was right along the coast. The cottages nestled in the mountainside up against the water and the men would catch fish to feed their families. Everyone in their village sailed, they were shipbuilders and voyagers at heart, and that call of the sea stuck with Jain as well.

Jain’s mother had taken ill when the men were gone one summer on a raid. When her father came home she was already dead. After that he started taking her with them on voyages across the sea vowing to never leave another one of them behind.

It devastated her father to know that in his efforts to provide for his family back home, he still could lose everything without being near. He wouldn’t let his greatest treasures out of his sight again, so on the next year’s trip, all three children were along for the ride. While it was not unusual to bring the young men and boys to learn and assist, little Jain too joined them on the long, harrowing journey, with extended bouts of boredom and toil punctuated by spates of terrible excitement.

For years, Jain travelled with them on the sea, learned the way of sailing and stayed out of the way when the men fought. For a girl, she was unusually adaptable to ship life and made herself useful in any way she could. Occasionally, she even took up the sword herself. She asked for one of their craftsmen to make a special sword fashioned just her size, but her father refused. He told her that if she was going to wield a sword she would do it properly, or not at all. In the beginning Jain had difficulty lifting the weapon until her arms were strong enough. Her father would just chuckle and remind her it was fortunate they didn’t use the same long swords as the English.

Her father and her older brothers, Ragnar and Leif, would practice with her until she was strong enough. They hoped she would never have to fight, but if the time came she would know how to defend herself.

It wasn’t until they came to Scotland in hopes of starting a new settlement that her seafaring life was over.

Jain remembered crying out in terror at the sound of clashing swords while her kinsmen prepared themselves for battle. Strange men rode over the hill on horseback with axes and torches held high, screaming furiously as they approached. The Norsemen were strong and fought bravely to protect their land, but were unprepared for the vicious backlash of the local clan. Her father had shouted for Jain to hide before he threw her in their house. The walls had not yet been finished, and a beam of wood had fallen across the floor with a hammer and nails around it. While her kinsmen fought, Jain crouched in a tiny space beneath her bed and watched through cracks in the wood.

They’d only made landfall a few weeks before. It wasn’t like their other expeditions. They’d brought women and children with them.

They fought savagely, defending their home as best they could. Jain had scuttled into a crevasse and watched them attack each other. Many of the brave men died right before her eyes. Bjorn and Hakkon went down in a single blow, a swordsman cut through one and then the other. She saw them fall and leave crimson stains on the earth below.

The next thing she’d smelled was smoke as men set fire to their cottages and destroyed everything her kinsmen had worked so hard to build. Throughout that battle, none of them fought more bravely than her father. When he saw them light the roof of his own house, he attacked with vicious fury. The horrible man who helped destroy their settlement had the higher ground. He rode by on horseback and ran Erik through with a sword.

She’d covered her mouth to muffle a scream that escaped her lips and stinging tears streamed down her face as she trembled in the now smoldering house. Leif and Ragnar were nowhere to be seen. They could have been dead for all she knew. She peered out between the slats of wood in the wall and saw them running towards the ships. Once on board, the Vikings had the upper hand and a few managed to escape, but Jain was left behind.

It happened so fast. There wasn’t anything she could do. The longship disappeared across the water as a beam of the roof collapsed. Jain remembered screaming again when it crashed to the ground beside her.

As Jain recalled the memory, her hands began to sweat. It was the darkest and most horrible day of her life. Yet, there had been a ray of sunshine when Eamon and Moira took her in. Even knowing about her past, Eamon loved her just the same.

After the massacre, Jain went looking for her brothers, but she didn’t find their bodies among the slain. In her darkest moments, that was what got her through – hope that they survived. That’s what she was doing when she heard the hoofbeats in the distance and went to go hide. Clan Gordon happened upon the demolished Viking village and assumed it was the beginnings of a new Scottish settlement that was destroyed by Vikings—when in fact it was the opposite.

Jain was a Viking, born of warriors across the sea – those were her true roots. The memories of her past helped to form the woman she’d become, the good and the bad.

If she could survive that, the massacre and destruction of her village and entire family, she could survive just about anything. Like a flower, Jain knew she had to bloom where she was planted. That didn’t make it any easier. That didn’t stop her dreaming. The men who destroyed her village, or Scotsmen as she now understood them to be, had destroyed her world. They took everything away from her. Jain never spoke of it, but she was proud of her northern heritage – it was one of the few things that remained intact and couldn’t be taken away from her. Jain worried that if she married a man from Elign, and bore him children, she really would be Scottish.

In that moment, she decided it was time to let Alan know the truth. She couldn’t keep her secret from him any longer. She loved him, and if they were going to build a life together, it had to start with honesty.