The Highlander's Touch

THT | 4

Saeran!" Her sister's shrill voice echoed through the stone-walled room, making her jerk awake. "Saeran, you've slept in and Brodrick is asking after you! Can you be any more irresponsible? Do you wish for Brodrick to complain about you to The Lion? You shall be sent away if they are as displeased with you as I am!"

"I'm sorry," she muttered, voice laden with sleep, rubbing a hand over her face. "The men...they do not turn in till late."

"That is no excuse! None. Now get up." Blaine tossed things at Saeran, and one by one they hit her in the face, falling in her lap. She looked down, heart heavy. Trews. The damn trews. She fisted them in her lap and looked at her sister beseechingly.

"Do I have to?"

Blaine froze, then slowly turned around, her eyes glaring daggers. "Are you being ungrateful?" Her voice lashed at Saeran with the daggers that were in her eyes. Every time Saeran objected to something, that was her retort. She reminded Saeran of her duty and Blaine's own sacrifice with those four words nearly every day.

Saeran shook her head, staring down at the bits of clothing.

"No, Blaine," she answered heavily.

"Good," she hissed. "Now get up. The men wish to do more training or whatever it is you do with them during the day. I must speak with the new cook about the meal for tonight. Oh, and when you're done, find me. Mid day I should be tending to the gardens with Gwen. Make sure you're clean," she said, grimacing. "The scent of you is appalling when you're done with those men."

She left the room in a flurry of skirts and Saeran groaned, falling back into the bed.

Aye, well, maybe if you spent all of your day sparing with men thrice your size, you'd know the pain of it all. Alas, her sister had no care to know her pain. She was steadily ignoring all of the hardships that were being put on her shoulders.

Shortly after arriving, people had begun questioning her presence here. Blaine had had the most ingenious idea of claiming that Saeran was here to be the laird's squire.

At first, Saeran hadn't known what to make of it, so she'd ignored it—until Brodrick grabbed her in the middle of cleaning dishes with the cook and threw her into the training field.

The shock, and horror, of what Blaine had done to her hit her with the full force of a hundred men bearing down on her—which they had been! Every day, for the past fortnight, she had been forced to get up in the early hours of dawn—much earlier than the rest of the clan—bathe in the small creek running just a few paces from the gardens, and then prepare for a day of what the men felt was mock battle.

It was definitely not mock. She felt every strike and impact, and she had yet to recover from the first day's bout. The wounds, bruises, and aches were piling on top of each other as the day went by.

Tears of frustration stung her eyes as she sat up, throwing the trews on the ground angrily. She hated this. She hated her role as a boy. She hated listening to her sister remind her of her place, hated being reminded how brave Blaine was for doing this for Saeran.

Her sister wasn't brave! She was a lady, damnit, fixing and weeding flowers and bossing other people to do her work. No one was here to stop her, and no one had the courage to tell her otherwise, so she was, quite frankly, running wild. It was still better than what she suspected would happen when the laird returned. He had yet to come back, and Saeran was beginning to have hope that he never would, although it was a foolish hope at best.

She sniffed back her tears and slid out of bed, shivering when cool highland air breezed through the room through the open window. It helped the pains. Like yesterday, she couldn't always escape to the creek to soothe her aching muscles. She scrubbed a hand over her face, pushing back her golden waves, and took a moment to just...relax.