“Are ye ready for this, Helena?”

Despite Logan’s low, soft voice, Helena jumped. Her nerves were pulled tighter than a bow string.

“Aye,” she said on a shaky exhale.

After explaining her claim to Craigmoor and her plan to turn it over to the Scots to avoid a long and costly siege, Helena and the others had discussed at length how they might wrest the castle from Geoffrey without harming the innocents inside.

As Helena had feared, the best they’d come up with was to call a temporary truce to allow Helena to present herself—on this side of the wall, Logan insisted, and surrounded by armed warriors—to Geoffrey and at least attempt to give him an opportunity to surrender.

The knot in Helena’s stomach told her that it would not work, and that only one solution remained, but she was willing to try.

As she and Logan exited the tent Colin had given them for their use, Helena looked back through the canvas flap and gave Mairin a reassuring smile.

Though Mairin lifted her gaze to Helena, she did not return the smile. Instead, her eyes were glassy and haunted, just as they had been in those first few sennights Helena had known her in the Highlands.

Helena couldn’t help but feel responsible. Mairin wouldn’t have been dragged from the stability and routines she’d begun developing in the Corps’ camp if it weren’t for her. So much of the vibrant, big-hearted, clever girl Helena had begun to see in Mairin had faded away, and her distress and silence had returned.

“Come,” Logan gently urged. Helena didn’t miss the worried glance he cast at Mairin before he let the tent flap fall.

Helena raised her cloak’s hood against a cold drizzle. It was as if a cloud had settled into the valley where Craigmoor sat, enveloping them all in a gray, frigid dampness. The gloom made the air seem heavy with foreboding—or mayhap that was simply her mind churning over all that had transpired that day.

“I believe you, you know,” she said abruptly.

Logan stopped and turned to her, his gaze searching.

“That you are innocent of your father’s death,” she added. She watched as emotion flickered behind his eyes, his copper-stubbled jaw working for a moment.

“Why?” he asked at last. “Just as Reid said, there is naught to prove that I didnae kill him.”

“Other than your word.”

“And ye believe that?” His soft question held a cautious edge, as if he genuinely thought she might not.

“Aye,” she replied steadily.

When he tilted his russet head uncertainly, she went on.

“You have never hidden the fact that your past contains darkness,” she said. “You have done things you aren’t proud of. But you have never lied about them.”

She reached for him, her palm cupping his face where his scar cut a white line down his cheek. “I know what kind of man you are. If you say you didn’t do it, then I believe you.”

He held her gaze for a long heartbeat, letting her see all the emotion in his eyes—gratitude, awe, and most of all, love.

“I love ye, Helena,” he said, putting words to what she’d already read in his gray gaze.

“I love you too,” she murmured, reluctantly letting her hand slip from his face.

His features fell into their familiar hard lines. “Come, we’d best keep going.”

At Helena’s nod, they walked on.

As he guided her through the camp toward the castle, Colin and Finn fell in at their sides. Reid and the Mackenzie men were nowhere to be seen, but a few more warriors, bristling with weapons and carrying heavy shields, joined them as they strode on.

Ahead, the castle loomed, its wet, dark stones cutting a stark line against the overcast sky. The towers flew no flags, giving Craigmoor an eerie, imposing stillness.

The warriors with shields moved in front of their little group. One man unfurled a white pendant, the symbol of a truce.

When they reached the edge of the camp, the castle was temporarily blocked from view by the large wooden barricades the Bruce’s men had erected to defend against arrow fire along their perimeter.

Drawing a deep breath, Helena followed the others as they crossed through the protective wooden wall and into the open space separating the army from the castle.

A shout echoed from behind the curtain wall as they approached.

Suddenly the wall bristled with archers. They aimed nocked arrows directly at the group from the battlements, filling every crenel and arrow-slit.

The men surrounding Helena halted suddenly, and the warriors collapsed inward, raising their shields against the impending rain of arrows.

“We come under the banner of peace!” Colin shouted to the wall.

“Surrendering already?” someone called from the battlements.

Fear and recognition spiked hard in Helena’s belly.

“That’s him,” she breathed. “That is Geoffrey.”

Logan tensed at her side. Bending to see through the slits between the shields, he scanned the wall with his gaze, but he didn’t know what he was looking for.

“Nay, English,” Colin replied. “But we’ll give ye an opportunity to do so. Yer people inside the castle dinnae need to suffer through a siege. And ye may even walk away with yer skin if ye surrender now.”

Geoffrey guffawed. “What can you possibly say to convince me of such a foolish course of action, barbarian?”

That was enough. Geoffrey had taken her home, beaten her, threatened her, and now he stood on Craigmoor’s walls, willing to let all those inside die for his pride.

Helena yanked back the hood of her cloak and rose on her toes so that she could see Geoffrey over the shields.

“Mayhap I can convince you.”

Even from this distance, she could tell that Geoffrey’s blue eyes widened.

“You,” he hissed. “The Devil’s spawn has returned.”

Helena’s brief spark of bravery was nearly snuffed out then. The memory of her vision flooded back. Why had the image of her burning returned that morning? Had she never truly escaped the fiery death of a witch? Did her fate still rest in Geoffrey’s hands, as she’d seen?

She pressed the terrifying possibility away. She’d changed what she’d seen in a vision once before. As Logan had said, the future was not written in stone.

“This castle was given to the care of the Quincey family by King Edward himself,” she said, willing her voice to rise and carry over the stone walls—and reach the archers, some of whom had once been loyal to her father. “As I am the only Quincey left, Craigmoor is rightfully mine. You have no claim on this castle.”

A few of the archers’ gazes drifted from Helena to Geoffrey, their bowstrings slackening a hair’s breadth.

Geoffrey glowered down at her, his faded blond hair beginning to drip as the rain intensified.

“You were to be my wife,” he spat. “That gives me claim enough.”

“But we were never married,” she shot back. “Whether you are following English law or Scottish, an engagement isn’t enough to transfer a single coin of my dowry, let alone a castle.”

Geoffrey cocked his head at her, a sinister smile pulling his lips back in a snarl.

“Aye, you ran before I could wed and bed you,” he said. “But I know the truth about you, Lady Helena. Would you like me to tell every man here what you really are?”

Involuntarily, Helena shrank back with a gasp. What would happen if he named her a witch here and now, in front of all these people? Would they turn on her? Would they question and test her, as she’d heard done to other women accused of witchcraft, or would they simply burn her, fearing her curse?

Logan would defend her with his life, she had no doubt. And Finn and Colin would not be swayed so easily by the words of an Englishman. But what of the men inside the castle—the men loyal to Geoffrey, and her father’s soldiers who now served him as well?

“That’s enough!” Logan barked, his gaze riveted to Geoffrey.

Geoffrey turned his sneer on Logan. “And who are you?”

“I am the man who will ensure that ye never hurt Helena again,” Logan growled.

“Bold words from the likes of those who have failed to leave a scratch on my castle,” Geoffrey replied airily, though Helena did not miss the blue fire in his eyes as he glared at Logan.

“Ye ken how this works,” Colin said. “We may no’ have broken through yet, but we can wait. Is that what ye want? For this siege to last six months? A year? Ye’ll die a slow death, and the castle ye covet so much will become yer tomb.”

Helena’s stomach clenched and twisted at the thought.

“Ye and the others inside neednae suffer,” Colin went on. “We are giving ye this chance.”

“I will never surrender to you savages!” Geoffrey bellowed, his body jerking with rage. “This castle is mine! Now be gone before my archers forget that you came here like the cowardly dogs you are, waving that white flag.”

“I have heard enough,” Finn said lowly to Colin. “We gave the fool a chance.”

Colin nodded, but Helena’s heart screamed inside her ribcage. Slim though the possibility of reasoning with Geoffrey had been, some part of her had held out hope that she would be able to save her people so easily.

As the warriors surrounding her slowly began to back toward the wooden barricade, that hope crumbled to dust. As Colin had said, the siege could last months, and Geoffrey still would not surrender.

There was only one option left, one chance to save the innocents inside Craigmoor and oust Geoffrey for good.

She took Logan’s hand and squeezed it.

“Are ye all right?” he murmured, lowering his head to hers as they continued their retreat.

“I…I have a plan,” she whispered.

He blinked in surprise. “Aye?”

“Aye,” she said, “but only you can know about it.”