Urram - Rekindled Hope (Excerpt Only) [RELEASING MAY 7TH, 2024]

Chapter 2: At Long Last

MISTY swaths of fog lay about the castle walls, hiding the ground beneath its silvery mantle. The eastern horizon paled with dove's gold, a few low-lying clouds resting on the shoulders of the rising dawn. No wind stirred upon the battlements. It seemed as though the whole world held its breath, as if knowing what was to come that day.

Fiona rose early that morning, taking more care than usual to plait her unruly crimson curls out of her face and smooth the wrinkles in her green and ivory woollen dress. She arrayed her McCurragh plaid over her left shoulder, stabbing home her silver clan pin with a delicate boat engraved on it. She hesitated, glancing at her murky reflection in the piece of polished bronze hanging upon the wall. Her brother's pin, its metal smoothed from many years of holding it in her hands during the darker moments in her life, lay on the small table before her. She almost always wore it beneath her plaid, but today.... Something in her desired to let go of the past and face the future without clinging to old memories and faded dreams.

Fiona stood back, leaving the pin on the table. She had made up her mind. She walked over to the window and peered out at the misted world touched with amber and waking with the sun. A surge of excitement and nervousness rose up within her, as it had at random moments ever since the messenger had come yesterday. Her thoughts raced and ran into themselves, only one thing standing clear against the emotions racking her consciousness.

They will be here today after so long!

She wondered again what Angus and Malcolm would think of her now, whether they would even recognise her from the young lass she had been. Would they even want to maintain their friendship with her, strained by a year's silence? Or had their new acquaintances, which they surely had acquired, become more desirable? Even if she was the princess, it was rare that lads would be good companions to lasses, even if they had been her bodyguards at one time.

Sighing deeply, she turned and walked out of her room, headed for the Great Hall to break her fast.

Fiona met Annag there, eating with the rest who were up at sunrise. Sitting down among them, she listened absent-mindedly to the conversations taking place around her—mostly servants' gossip—but did not take part. Her mind buzzed with anticipation of what was to come that day and she swallowed her porridge with great difficulty, her throat tight with uncertain eagerness.

Occasionally she smiled at the two wee bairns sitting at the end of the table, who had to have their mother Elspeth's help to ensure their porridge actually reached their mouths and did not end up on the table, on their clothes, or flung at each other. Lilybet, who was little more than an infant, and Ranald, who was only a couple years older, were the youngest inhabitants at Caerdun. Unlike the other women at this table, Elspeth did not speak save to her two children, her voice low and murmuring.

Fiona tried to catch her gaze with a friendly expression, like she always tried to, but Elspeth did not seem to notice. However, considering how occupied she was with her bairns, Fiona did not count it against her. Not everyone had something so potentially joyful to look forward to this day like Fiona did. She pitied Elspeth, so young and so lonely, but Elspeth was not the sort of person to beg for sympathy. Whatever grief she suffered, she suffered in private. Aside from her quiet shyness, Fiona did not know what best to make of her, doubt sometimes whispering in the back of her mind that maybe Elspeth remained distant because Jamie died in her name. She could only try to be a friend, which Annag had told her Elspeth much appreciated, even if she had not found the courage to say so herself. After all, it had only been a year since Fiona had seen through the veil of another's pain, and Elspeth was quite different from that other blue-eyed and dark-haired soul.

Having finished her porridge, Annag rose to her feet and gave orders to several of the women there before exiting the hall, headed to her other duties. No sense in standing idle while they waited for the embassy to arrive.