My Voice for My Heart

Chapter 5: Bhaltair

Bhaltair's Point of View

I was seething, but I kept my face blank and my emotions tightly under control.

My control kept Keela here at this keep. It kept her from fading away in a nunnery or dying in childbirth as a too-young wife.

I had explained everything to them, but I hadn't prepared them.

This. All of this, was my fault.

In the months after my brothers left, I had learned the depth of Lord Arden's hatred for Keela. He blamed her for his wife's death, and wanted her out of his sight, out of his life. He didn't care how that happened.

She was eleven, not even out of girlhood when I foiled his first attempt to marry her off. He had found a nearby lord, one whose wife had died recently and was looking to replace her, and who didn't care that his bride was still a child. The lord had offered support in times of war, should that support be needed.

I had talked Lord Arden out of that marriage by pointing out the need to extend our borders as well as secure allies. He had agreed, but not long after that, Keela had changed.

She had grown taller, more shapely. She was no longer a child, but a girl on the cusp of womanhood. Her father had taken one look at her and begun searching for husbands again. When he saw Keela speaking with Brother Francis, he decided that he didn't need alliances or land, he just needed her gone. So he spoke to Brother Francis about sending Keela to a convent to take vows.

Brother Francis, who loved Keela like a daughter, was able to put off Lord Arden. He wished for her to follow her heart, he said, God didn't want anything but a true and willingly given promise of faith.

Three more times in as many years I had to dissuade Lord Arden from marriages of convenience.

I kept Keela out of his sight.

It was hard.

It was so so so hard.

I wanted to go riding with her, to listen to her lessons, to help her with Latin or mathematics.

But I couldn't.

Each time Keela approached her father, or happened by him in the house, he would eye her contemplatively. I found that if I looked at her disapprovingly, she would keep her distance, she would disappear.

It broke my heart to do this.

The first time, she had looked at me in shock and confusion, "We're busy, Keela," I said to her harshly, "I don't have time for you."

She had opened her mouth to speak, "But..."

I had sighed, and rolled my eyes to the heavens. She had put two fingers over her lips and nodded, turning away and running blindly out of the room. Her father had not said a word and I realized, if she didn't speak, if he didn't see her, he forgot about her. He forgot about the pain she represented and she would be safe.

So I cultivated my sighs and my stares to inflict maximum hurt, and have the most impact.

It had worked.

And each evening, I practiced the physical skills I would need in battle, punishing my body until I ached as much outside as I did inside.

I watched her when she wasn't looking. When she took to sneaking out of the house and the keep, into the woods or through the glades, I followed her. I watched her, still holding onto habits of childhood, lining up sticks and poking them into the dirt to keep them upright before speaking to them.

"Rab," she had said to one, effectively snapping my heart in two, "Bhaltair was disappointed in me today. I think it was because my hair is messy. What should I do?"

She nodded as if he was speaking to her, and then, "I know. I have to brush it."

She had laid on her back, the stick versions of us surrounding her and looked up at the sky, "I need an Athol hug," she said, turning her head to look at a stick that was more branch that twig.

She picked it up and kissed it, "Thank you," she said, "I feel so much better."


It was scene I saw repeated over and over that first year, until she just laid under the tree and stared up at the sky. Her lips moving quietly every so often, speaking to my long-absent brothers.

I didn't tell them she did this.

When I visited, she was the first one they asked after. They wanted to know what she looked like, Ciaran demanded to know if she was eating well. They each had a concern and I had to alleviate each and every one of their fears.

Until I couldn't anymore and I had to tell them my fears.

They immediately wanted to leave their apprenticeships and trainings and we put into action a plan.

We had all agreed on the plan. The plan was the plan and it was a good one.

We would make her father think we didn't care about her. We would keep our distance while he was watching, and when he wasn't, we would build our relationship with her.

Because we loved her.

My brothers loved the memory of her, the potential that she had and who they imagined she would be when they returned.

But I loved the reality of her.

I loved the young woman I had watched grow and change, even when I had done nothing that had led her to become the amazing person she was.

I always planned for every circumstance, but I had not planned on my brothers' shock when they met Keela again, and I had not planned on Lady Maeve Early.

Coiseam had written to me, warning me in code that Lady Maeve would be joining them and that she had her eye fixed on marriage with Lord Arden. I had seen the way Maeve had eyed Keela with interest and the way she had eyed my brothers and myself when she thought we weren't looking.

She was playing a game and I didn't know what the end goal was.

So I told them to stick to the plan.

I looked around the dining hall, which was growing louder and more raucous as Lord Arden and his men imbibed more alcohol. I wanted to sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose against the threatening headache I could feel building between my eyes, but I didn't.

I ignored Cianran and Athol's poorly veiled plan to escape and I let Iasan follow them. Now I was left with angry and jealous men, who, though they were doing their best, could not stop the looks of longing, confusion, and sadness from crossing their faces.

What was I going to do?