Thane could only allow himself to rule the country he loved if he completely and totally broke away from his father and turned the meaning of the name Campbell into something else entirely. Children could not go around afraid of the name. Women could not worry about their intuition, praying it was not some latent sixth sense surfacing. Men could not lie awake at night and wonder if a Campbell would be coming for them in the morning.
Campbell had to become a name the people loved.
“I am Thane Campbell. First of the new line of kings. Thane Campbell, named by the Coronation Stone, paired with Macbeth’s Seer, and fated to help Scotland break free and rise up.”
Suddenly bashful, he spun to make sure no one had followed him. Only a small bird hopped from a wide fern to a mossy rock. It chirped lightly at him.
“I am Thane Campbell and I’m a fool.” He rubbed his face harshly, shoving his glasses into his wind-tangled hair.
When he turned toward the house, he saw Myles coming out and heading toward the caramels.
“You shouldn’t eat those!” Thane gestured toward the box. “You just had the gum this morning!” It might be too much for his system or even for his brain.
Myles obviously didn’t hear because he lifted the box lid and popped one into his mouth. Waving a hand, Myles chewed while Thane began the run back. When Thane was still a stone’s throw from the house, Myles leaned forward to boak his treat all over the unsuspecting grass. The Dionadair who’d cheered Thane on were still at the window. One pointed and another laughed.
Myles, always a good sport, wiped his mouth with his sleeve then bowed to his audience.
“I tried to stop you.” Thane put a hand on Myles’s shoulder. “Why don’t you have a seat? I’ll fetch some water. You shouldn’t mix altered sweets.”
“I hadn’t had anything for over two hours.”
“This is all experimental. I really don’t think it’s a good idea to eat more than one type of candy in forty-eight hours. You must metabolize through one—”
Myles held up a hand. “Got it. Got it. Only one type of yummy at a time or you spill your breakfast all over granny’s petunias.”
“Oh I don’t think it would merely be vomiting if you’d eaten them closer together.”
Myles’s frown deepened. “So like…” He held his hands near his temples. “Kaboom?”
“Aye. Maybe. Probably less dramatic but just as deadly. Seizures. Cardiac arrest. Something of that sort as a first step toward the grave.”
“You are kind of a poet.”
Thane glared.
“No, really. That was like a song lyric. First step toward the grave…” He began humming.
Thane assumed he wouldn’t boak again, so he started to leave, but Myles grabbed his sleeve.
“Hey, I need some advice, man,” Myles said. “I love my mother like a snowman loves summer, but I’m thinking she should at least know some of what’s going on over here with me.”
Myles’s mother ran a cotton plantation in the southern colonies. From what Thane had heard, she was a horrible woman who paid her workers very little. She acted like some sort of queen in her remote corner of the world. Had loads of money, for certain.
“You’d have to be very careful.”
“No kidding.”
“I just mean…she may want to get involved.”
“To save me? Yeah, no. She won’t. That won’t be a problem.”
Thane put a hand on Myles’s shoulder. “Sorry she’s like that, pal.”
“I’m used to it,” Myles said, but the pain in his eyes told another tale. “I just don’t want her trying to contact me at the townhouse and screwing something up.”
“Aye. Well, get with Lewis and the others. See if you can come up with a coded message to send to her via a safe phone. Just to tell her there has been trouble, but you’re fine.”
“For now. Should I mention I might be dead soon?”
Thane laughed without humor. “Might want to leave that bit off.”
Myles saluted him. “Thanks for listening, Master of the Universe.”
Thane rolled his eyes. “No problem.” He clapped him on the back and went inside to find Aini. He needed someone sane to talk to, and that someone was neither himself nor Myles.
Chapter 3
To Light the Fuse
Bran spread the materials for a low explosive and a high explosive on the table by the safe house’s garden shed. He ran a careful hand over the complicated high-end detonators he’d nicked from the Campbell stores before Bass Rock. They’d been hidden in the lining of his coat and he wasn’t sorry at all for taking them. They were tricky buggers to make and having a good example to study would help Bran’s assistants craft more just like them to use against their enemies. A sealed, small barrel of gunpowder sat at the end of the table. He hoped they wouldn’t have to travel with it, but he had a sneaking suspicion they would.
The sound of boots on fallen leaves crunched behind him and he turned to see the three Dionadair that had agreed to work with him on the explosives side of this rebellion. All three were skinny malinky longlegs, to be sure. Their limbs were like saplings gnawed bare by overzealous wildlife, all pale and straight beneath their shirtsleeves. Despite their less than hearty bodies, the lads’ eyes held fire, and that was the most important thing. To deal with this kind of thing, they had to have a pretty serious helping of courage inside them.
“All right then, my men. Study what I’ve gathered here. This is what a deconstructed low explosive looks like. This kind are set up to burn. They won’t blast unless tightly cooped up in a proper container. This here is an example of a high explosive. These must have a detonator and will explode like the world is coming apart. This is very similar to what the Campbells used at your rebel barn the night they nearly offed their own leader, the idiots.” He pointed to the detonator. “I need help constructing a few more of these. I’d like to have four fully functional high explosives on hand when we head out of here to God knows where. Then, depending on what plan our leaders decide on, you three can make more and send them to where the fighting takes place. That’s not for us to worry about now, though. Our part of this is simply to get the explosives prepped. Do you understand? Any questions?”
“Aye. My brothers and I have all made explosives. We know what you’re wanting.” The tallest of them touched the detonator with finger and thumb. “What we’d like to know is why you’re in charge of this team and not the other way around?”
Bran wasn’t sure if he meant brothers as in blood kin or brothers as in brothers in arms. Regardless, they seemed to be of one mind as they stared him down. But Bran knew exactly how to deal with passionate folk dedicated to a cause. He’d had enough dealings with that to last a lifetime.
“I’m leading this group because your Seer and your Heir told me to do so, may they rise together.” He held up his hands and crossed his thumbs over his head.
The lads nodded and copied his gesture. The distrust in their faces faded. “Let’s get to work then,” the tallest said.
Side by side, they twisted metal, tucked components into their proper spots, and used pliers to make adjustments. The men did well, Bran thought. They were moving carefully, slowly, methodically, and keeping a good eye on that gunpowder, showing it the respect it deserved.
When they had the four completed explosives ready, Bran shifted them into a straw-lined wooden crate. One of the lads fit the top onto the crate and together they pushed it tightly closed. Bran dusted his hands and surveyed his team.
“If we get the call to head out into this madness as a group, good. If we don’t, and the opportunity to join me later arises, please speak up to your elders and do come find me. I trust you now and I hope you trust me too. I’d rather not work with this stuff around strangers. Do you agree?”
They nodded and Bran worried for a moment whether their skinny necks were up to the job of holding their heads on.
“It wouldn’t hurt for you to eat more and…do
some pushups, for God’s sake. You’re too thin, all of you.”
Bran took the long way around to enter the safe house through the kitchen door, his mind throwing out scenarios as he walked over gravel and grass.
Where exactly was Nathair now and what was the man up to? Nathair had lost his core unit, the men he trusted to do the jobs he considered highest priority. If he knew what had happened on Bass Rock, if he knew they were dead and gone, he’d build a new group, wouldn’t he?
The man had a knack for finding those who would follow him into the fire. The poor, the desperate, but the rich too. He had a way of persuading everyone within earshot that he had the truth of things and knew the way the world should be.
Thane had always fought it. Bran had seen the fight in Thane’s eyes a thousand times, that look he had when Nathair raged on about how the Campbells were God’s gift to the world. Bran seemed to have an antidote to Nathair’s rhetoric flowing in his veins. He was the only one Thane used to confide in and he alone spoke up in agreement with Thane’s tentative, early arguments with Nathair. It’s why Bran had stayed by Thane’s side. He wanted to be there for him always. The battle Thane fought, mentally and quite often physically, against his father was one no man should have to fight alone.
Bran pushed the safe house’s kitchen door open with more force than he’d intended and the white wood banged against the frame, startling a Dionadair in an apron.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, slipping out of the haze of cooking smoke and the scent of butter, into the low light of the main house.
If Nathair did have a new core unit of operatives, they would be fearsome to be sure. Nathair wouldn’t play around with the possibility that more kin would go to Thane’s side of things. Nathair’s new men would be even more ruthless, if that was possible. They’d be cold and professional.
A shiver ran over Bran as he closed himself into his small bedroom to think. The bed creaked under his weight and he put his head in his hands, remembering Bass Rock island—the ghosts and the wind, the roar and the truth.
“I hope it’s enough,” he said to the empty room. “Or we’re all good as dead where we stand.”
Chapter 4
Sleeping Leader
The stairs leading to the room where Owen slept zigzagged like a mountain trail. With every step, Aini practiced what she would say to rouse the head of the Dionadair rebels. Surely she could help him shake off the lingering stupor from the blood loss he suffered and put his mind to the task of the rebellion. This was Owen Bethune after all—owlish, practical, a cutthroat in herringbone—and this was the moment he’d been waiting for, working toward his entire life. He would know what to do next. The job of organizing rebels and supplies and attacks didn’t have to fall onto Aini’s and Thane’s shoulders.
She would ask him how he was feeling. Tell him about the candy they’d crafted. Inform him that she and Thane were ready to follow his orders and work as a team to defeat Nathair and, eventually, the king. His people needed him and his experience, his passion. Now was the time. He’d rise up out of bed, face flushed with resolve, and lead them to the future they were all hoping for. A future with the true Heir on the throne, Scotland as its own master, and freedom for all, including every single sixth-senser that chose to make this green land their home.
Dodie, Vera’s ox-like brother, stood guard outside Owen’s room. He gave Aini a respectful nod and mumbled, “Morning, Seer,” as she passed.
Pale yellow light soaked through Owen’s closed curtains and into the rumpled duvet. The sun illuminated the blue half-moons under the rebel leader’s eyes and the new wrinkles spanning his temples. Aini smoothed the blankets and pulled a straight-backed wooden chair beside the bed. She folded her hands in her lap and cleared her throat.
Owen’s eyes opened. “Seer.”
“How are you feeling?”
He ran a knuckle over the red stubble on his chin and reached for a glass of water on the nightstand.
Aini grabbed it and helped him take a drink. “Your informants should return soon. We need to know what your plans are.”
His eyes shuttered closed. “Ask Vera,” he mumbled.
Setting the glass back very carefully, Aini took a breath. “Vera isn’t you. We need you to lay out a plan.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“My mind…I’m still…foggy.”
Behind a tower of clean, folded cloth, a man bustled in. “Our leader needs his rest, Seer. Please.” He began unwrapping Owen’s wound with sharp movements.
“Fine. You can rest, Owen. But first, just tell me how we can approach the clans and get their support. Do you have any thoughts on that? And what should we have them do if we manage to talk them into joining us?”
Owen’s eyelids fluttered shut and he turned toward the nurse.
“With all respect, Seer, you must leave now,” the nurse said.
“This is the revolution you and your family have struggled toward.” Aini gripped Owen’s sleeve. “Now is your moment. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Please.”
The nurse stood. “Seer. You’ll never get anything from the man if he has no time to recover.”
Aini sighed, deflating.
The nurse shooed her out of the room with a nod and expectant eyes.
Shaking her head, she left as ordered. She didn’t want to hurt Owen, to keep him from healing properly, but surely he could still think up some strategy that would get Thane and her to Inveraray without trouble. Or tell them to do something she hadn’t even thought of, like go to another town and use part of the rebel network to contact some of the chieftains. There were countless ideas he might give them if he only had the will.
“Now Seer, it’s not polite to snarl at sick men.” Vera sashayed around the corner and put a hand on her hip. “I hear you don’t trust my guidance.”
Aini blew out a breath. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that Owen is your leader. Our leader.”
“No. You’re right. He does have a better head for strategy. But I have a plan and you’ll listen to it, won’t you? Besides, Owen will be up and well soon and then you can side with him against me again.” A sad grin passed over her mouth. “Ready to hear my thoughts?”
“Of course.” Aini was pretty certain this plan would involve maiming multiple people for no apparent reason and driving like madmen into a line of Campbells armed with nothing more than a bludgeon and some attitude.
“We head out at night once we hear Nathair is gone from the area along with his best men. Travel quick—”
Aini crossed her arms. “And arrive at the gates of Inveraray like bandits begging to be shot on site?”
“We’d stop first and clean up. We’d make a fine entrance.” Vera raised her chin.
“In the middle of the night.”
Vera spread her arms wide. “Then we send word first.”
“To whom?”
“Thane’s mother.”
That wasn’t a bad idea. “I’ll talk to Thane about discussing this with his mother and what he thinks the risks may be to her and us. You go talk to your brother. You know as well as I do that we need his brain.”
“Aye. I can’t argue that.” Vera gave Aini a respectful nod before heading into Owen’s room.
The door swung shut, and Aini stared at the clear plastic knob. She didn’t want to wrap Thane’s mother into this before they had a solid idea of what they were going to do and when. The heating vents switched on and blew Aini’s hair across her face as she walked downstairs. Gritting her teeth, she tucked the wayward strands of her unruly mane behind her ears. Her mind was full to bursting. Owen simply had to snap out of this.
In the small guest room she shared with Neve, Aini slid the top drawer of the sleek, modern dresser open. Two rows of tiny glass jars clinked together lightly, their green lids labeled in clear white letters. She grabbed up the rosemary, basil, juniper berry, peppermint, and clary sage. With the lids unscrewed, she took a
small spoonful of each and shifted the ingredients into her mortar’s smooth, marble interior. She twisted and pressed down with the pestle and the sharp scents of the concoction filled the room.
“If this doesn’t wake Owen up,” she mumbled to herself, “and get him planning for us, nothing will.”
“What are you up to?” Neve appeared at the door with a wooden spoon coated in melted chocolate. She licked the back and cocked her head at Aini.
“We’re headed into war, real war, and you’re eating chocolate?”
“I’d say that’s the best time to eat chocolate. A person needs comfort now more than ever.”
A smile broke over Aini’s mouth despite her worries’ attempt to drag the corners of her lips into a frown. “I love you, Neve.”
“Back at you, darling.” Neve offered the coated spoon.
Aini waved it off. “I’m making a little something to rouse our Owen.”
Neve sniffed at the mortar, then jumped back. “That would rouse my dead great aunt.”
Aini set the mortar down and dusted the dried rosemary off her hands. “Then it must be ready.”
Concoction in hand, Aini headed back toward Owen’s room. Dodie was gone and a new guard had replaced him. He didn’t say a word to Aini or Neve when they opened the door. Thankfully, the nurse wasn’t there, but Vera was drawing a fresh sheet up to Owen’s chin. Aini settled herself on the bed’s opposite side, beside the nightstand.
“What a smell!” Vera’s nose wrinkled at Aini’s concoction.
Aini scooped a portion and began to shift it into Owen’s untouched soup.
Vera reached across her brother and pushed the mortar away from the bowl. Herbs scattered over the small table. “You’re not feeding my brother that stinking mess.”
The guard at the door sucked a breath and leaned in to see what would make someone talk to the Seer that way.
“I mean,” Vera said, schooling her tone, “I don’t think it’ll help, Seer.” She fluttered her lashes, obviously trying to look young and penitent and failing miserably.
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