Helena stumbled several times as Geoffrey dragged her through the sleeping castle, but his steely grip on her bound wrists kept her on her feet and staggering after him.

A distant voice screamed at her to resist, to fight him, but her head spun wildly and her limbs seemed weighted with iron. She felt as though she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs through her bruised and battered throat.

As they crossed through the great hall, Helena noticed a flicker of movement at the door to the kitchens. Ida stood there, horror widening her eyes. Several sleepy scullery maids appeared behind her, their faces transforming with terror as they saw Helena being dragged away.

“Stop there, milord!” Ida said, stepping forward.

“Do not dare interfere, woman!” Geoffrey snapped over his shoulder, yanking the hall’s doors open and pulling Helena into the frigid night air.

He lifted a lit torch from its sconce on one side of the door, never slowing.

Through the throbbing pulse in her ears, Helena became vaguely aware of the attention Geoffrey was drawing. A murmur of confusion rippled through the men positioned on the wall enclosing the yard. Behind her, she saw the double doorway to the great hall fill with Ida, the other servants, and even bleary-eyed Brian, the cook.

Geoffrey paid the onlookers no mind. He dragged Helena toward an empty hay wagon that had been left against the wall.

“This will be your pyre, witch,” he hissed. He threw her into the bed of the wagon. Blessedly, a mat of leftover straw padded her body as she landed on the wooden planks.

Before she could scramble away, Geoffrey grabbed her wrists once more and with his free hand, he tied a bit of cloth from her bindings to one of the wagon’s wooden slats, securing her in place.

When he was satisfied that she was immobilized, he stepped back, the flaming torch casting monstrous shadows over his grinning face.

“Dinnae ye hurt her, milord!” Ida shouted, stepping forward into the yard.

Geoffrey leapt toward her, swinging the torch wildly.

“Stay back!” he commanded.

Several of the maids screamed in terror, cowering into the hall’s doorway.

“Else you’ll meet her fate—the fate of a witch!” At Geoffrey’s screamed word, everyone froze.

This was it. The moment her father and brother had feared so greatly had finally come to pass. Helena had been named a witch before all in the castle.

Gasps and murmurs rang in Helena’s ears. She swept her gaze over their shocked faces, praying against all odds that they would not turn on her.

“She is touched by the Devil,” Geoffrey said loudly, swinging back around and pointing the torch at her. “Her father told me so with his dying breath.”

Some last spark of resistance kindled deep inside Helena.

“You killed him!” she croaked, her voice ragged.

Stunned murmurs rippled through those gathered.

“Silence!” Geoffrey bellowed. “Do not poison our ears with your dark magic.” He stepped toward the wagon, dropping his voice. “Craigmoor is mine—you will not take it from me, bitch. I’ll see you burn to ash first.”

He lowered the torch to the remnants of straw at her feet. The stalks were so dry that the flames practically leapt from the torch to the straw.

“Nay!” Ida shrieked, dashing forward.

Geoffrey spun and swung the torch at her once again. “Back I say, woman!”

Ida fell backward away from the flaming torch, but the others had begun moving behind her.

Helena pulled against the bindings holding her to the wagon, but her limbs were weak and heavy. Smoke filled her lungs with her next breath. The flames danced across the bed of the wagon until they were right at her feet.

Just as it had in the tunnels, the blue fog of her visions seeped across her mind. She pulled herself as far away from the flames as she could, but they licked upward to her, catching on her cloak.

With a rasping cry, she squeezed her eyes closed against the burn of acrid smoke. Heat radiated up her right leg where the flames lapped at her wool cloak and skirts.

Helena let her head fall back and forced her eyes open, gazing at the stars pricking through the clouds overhead one last time. She already knew what would happen next.

Or did she? The blue mist suddenly retreated from her eyes as she stared up through the smoke. This was where her vision had ended—with fire consuming her skirts. Beyond that, the vision hadn’t shown her what would come next. Her ultimate fate lay unseen.

Her burning eyes swept over the men on the wall. Some—those loyal to Geoffrey—looked at her with dead eyes, but the others, the ones who had served her father, stared in horror.

Her gaze landed on the gatehouse. In a blinding moment of clarity, she knew what she had to do. She might not survive this, but the others in the castle still could.

“Open the gate!” she screamed. “Raise the portcullis!” Her voice was a raw scrape, yet she continued on. “Save yourselves from this madman!”

A handful of men suddenly bolted into action. They scrambled into the gatehouse, reaching for the winches that controlled the portcullis. A few of Geoffrey’s soldiers moved to stop them, but others drew their weapons and squared off against Geoffrey’s men.

“Stop that!” Geoffrey snapped. “What are you doing?”

Through the billowing smoke, Helena could see that Geoffrey’s attention was now fixed on the battle raging on the wall between the men working to raise the portcullis and those trying to stop them.

The leather on her boots charred, filling her nostrils with the smell of burning flesh. The flames on her cloak were up to her knees now, and her skirts were singed around her ankles.

Her ankle. Her boot. The dagger.

She flung her boot over the edge of the wagon so that her foot dangled just in front of her bound hands. Her fingers clawed wildly at the hot leather until at last they brushed the dagger’s hilt.

Helena yanked the dagger out and twisted it in her grasp to drag it along the cloth binding her wrists. Suddenly, the cloth snapped and her hands were free. She jerked the blade to the cloak’s ties around her neck and slashed through them. The heavy wool fell away, freeing her from most of the flames that had clawed at her.

Without hesitation, she hurled herself over the side of the wagon and onto the yard’s flagstones. She rolled against the rain-dampened stones until the flames on her skirts were dead.

Geoffrey had scrambled partway up the stairs leading to the battlements to stop the men from cranking up the portcullis, but he turned then, his wild blue eyes locking on Helena.

“You simply refuse to die, don’t you?” he growled, leaping back down the stairs and into the yard.

Helena rose slowly, her legs wobbling and her vision blurred with tears and smoke. She gripped the dagger in her hand so tightly that it shook.

Geoffrey prowled toward her, the torch still raised in his hand.

“This castle is not yours,” she rasped. “It is these people’s.” She swept her gaze over the men fighting on the battlements, then to the cluster of maids and servants who still stood in the hall’s door, Ida at their front.

Geoffrey glanced dismissively at them over his shoulder.

“They are sheep—just like your father. They need to be told what to do, led with an iron fist.”

“You know naught of my father, or of leadership,” she hissed.

Behind Geoffrey, the frightened servants began to shift and part. With his back turned and his attention on Helena as he stalked toward her, Geoffrey didn’t notice.

Helena squinted through her bleary eyes over Geoffrey’s shoulder.

Suddenly, Logan filled the doorway. The front of his tunic was covered in blood, as was the dagger he clenched in his reddened hand. He swayed on his feet as he staggered forward.

Helena’s heart lurched and her breath caught in her ragged throat.

“…to end this once and for all,” Geoffrey was saying.

Just then, the portcullis groaned briefly on the other side of the wooden gate. The men still loyal to her father—to her—must have succeeded. A battle still raged on the wall, but the men had managed to begin winching up the portcullis.

Geoffrey cursed, his gaze darting to the castle’s entrance. A roar erupted on the other side—the Bruce’s army must have been waiting in position. Geoffrey’s eyes widened, shifting back to Helena.

“It is over,” she breathed, her knees nearly buckling under her.

“Nay!” Geoffrey roared. He lunged for her, swinging the torch.

But before he could reach her, Logan raised the bloody dagger behind him, bellowing as he threw it. Geoffrey jerked, then froze, his eyes wide. As he turned to Logan, Helena saw the dagger protruding from his back.

Geoffrey screamed in outrage, reaching for his sword, but it wasn’t on his hip, for he’d left it in the tunnels. He lurched forward and lifted the torch, preparing to bring it down on Logan’s head.

Logan must have used the last of his strength staggering from the tunnels and throwing the dagger, for he stood before Geoffrey, swaying on his feet but unmoving as Geoffrey began to swing the torch at him.

Helena surged forward, throwing herself in front of Logan. Just as the torch descended toward them both, she plunged her dagger into Geoffrey’s chest.

His arm halted abruptly as a sputtering breath left his lungs. The torch clattered to the flagstones, the flames hissing in a puddle.

Geoffrey stumbled back, his blue eyes blazing as they fixed on the dagger protruding from his chest. With a wordless cry of disbelief, he sank to his knees, then slumped onto his side, one dagger jutting from his back, the other from his front.

Just then, the portcullis groaned again, but instead of a short burst of sound as before, the creaking noise continued as the portcullis was raised fluidly. One of the soldiers battling Geoffrey’s remaining men leapt from the wall down into the yard and sprinted to the gate. With a heave against the enormous oak crossbar over the gate, he hoisted it out of position.

The gates exploded inward and a sea of Scottish warriors poured in, weapons raised and battle cries in their throats.

The last of Helena’s strength spent, she collapsed to the ground. “Save my father’s men!” she screamed to no one in particular.

Ida was suddenly by her side, dragging her from the rapidly filling yard back to the doorway of the great hall.

“Allies, show yerselves!” Logan barked over the cacophony.

The loyal soldiers disentangled themselves from Geoffrey’s men, raising the hilts of their swords in the air to show that they were not the enemy.

To Helena’s shock, only a few dozen of Geoffrey’s soldiers remained. They looked around, suddenly surrounded by a sea of Scottish and English alike who were ready to kill them. Those now-leaderless men surrendered quickly.

“Helena!”

Logan was suddenly at her side, kneeling on the wet flagstones before the hall’s door.

“I thought you were dead,” she choked out, a wave of tears suddenly breaking over her cheeks. “I saw you die. I saw myself die.”

“But we lived,” he murmured. “Because of ye. Ye are the strongest, bravest woman I’ve ever kenned, Helena.”

“Bloody hell, Mackenzie.” Colin was pushing through the crowd toward them. “Whatever yer ‘plan’ was, it was damned mad.” His gaze dropped to the blood covering Logan’s tunic. “I’ll fetch the camp’s healer,” he said gravely. He glanced at Helena where she slumped in Ida’s hold. “For both of ye.”

“I’ll help,” Ida said, rising. “Brian, boil water. Bridget and Kira, fetch clean linens. Ye other lassies, help me get the two of them into the great hall.”

As the servants rushed to see Ida’s orders completed, Helena took Logan’s hand in hers. Their gazes locked, and all her pain, all her fears, were chased away by the glow of love pulsing in Logan’s eyes.

Even as they were both lifted and carried into the great hall, Helena held tight to Logan.