Shaking his head again, Keegan tipped his head toward Melissa, eyeing her playfully if still exhausted as well.
“I will have meself a bath when I am certain Damon is well.”
Glancing down at the man in question, Melissa whispered low. “Ye hear that, Damon? Ye must wake up so we might rid ourselves of this foul-smelling lump that should be our brother.”
Willow wanted to laugh, but the tension in the room was still too great, and she could hardly summon more than a minute, crooked grin.
Just do it, Willow. Just ask him.
“I daenae mean to be a bother, Keegan, but I understand that…” This was the first time Willow had to speak the words to someone out loud. “I ken that Magnus is dead.”
At that, Keegan turned and regarded her. There was still a healthy distance between them, and Willow felt it as surely as anyone might see it.
“Aye.” The laird’s attention went back to his brother. “I killed him on the battlefield after he tried to murder Damon and me.”
Willow’s eyes welled with tears, but she fought them back, unwilling to let herself turn into a blubbering mess in front of her husband. She knew he would understand, but it felt wrong to be upset when Damon was still in rough shape.
“I ken that ye wish to leave him, but Lilith and I would like to return his body to the castle and bury him. We daenae wish to be seen as heartless as he was in life.”
Keegan cocked his head toward her, meeting Willow’s eyes. “Ye wish to bury him.”
She wasn’t sure if it was a question or statement, so Willow simply nodded. “Aye. Nae for him, but for us, me sister and me. To prove to ourselves that we arenae like him.”
Bobbing his head in a rhythmic nod, Keegan looked back down at his brother, and silence filled the room for several long moments.
“Verra well.”
The relief was instant, but it did not last. Willow could tell that Keegan was still upset, and worse, this even cut to him did not lend itself to the rage she was sure he contained. He was not screaming or carrying on in a frenzy. Keegan was so steady, almost calm. But he was also distant and closed off.
“I…thank ye.” Willow swallowed hard, dropping her head to stare at her fingers as they tangled in the tasseled edge of her shawl. “It seems as though yer brother will heal well, then? Collin looked…pleased with the work.”
There was no response from Keegan for much longer than Willow would have liked. Even Melissa looked between the two of them, which Willow noticed out of the corner of her eye.
“I can only hope. I am nae the healer. Still…”
The quiet returned, and Willow was desperate to fill it with anything. A jest, celebration of their win, anything that might break the horrid tension that filled the room and made her feel like she didn’t belong there—with Keegan.
She couldn’t bring herself to offer any of that, however. As much as it pained her, right now, she could not bring her usually unfailing sunny attitude to the conversation. Because in one of the few times it had ever happened, that sunlight within herdidfail. Willow was at a loss for what to say or do.
And so she was frozen in inaction.
“I watched him defend himself against several of yer brother’s warriors.”
Keegan’s voice knocked Willow out of her head, and she looked over at him as he pinned his gaze to his brother’s prone form. He’d yet to take his hand off his pommel, and Keegan was planted to the spot where he stood like a great oak.
“There were too many to match, and I had been almost certain that we would not win the day. I was prepared to give me life to protect me people, a people who dinnae ask for any of this. And when I was believed to be doin' the right thing—the kind and merciful thing—once again, it was proven to me that there is nay place in this world for that kind of thinkin'.”
“I…” Willow started, but her tongue was suddenly made of lead, her chest so heavy that she couldn’t manage a full breath. “I daenae understand.”
“Nay.” Keegan snapped his eyes to hers, and it hit her like a lightning bolt that she wished he didn’t, for it was not a look she’d ever want to see on her husband’s face. “Ye wouldnae understand, would ye? Ye havenae stood where I stand now. Ye havenae nearly lost everythin' to the same man over and over, and all because of the same damned mistake on yer part.”
Willow’s eyes burned, and she could feel the mask of strength she was wearing crumble away.
“Keegan, I?—”
“I cannae believe that I allowed meself to be distracted again. To believe that choosing the diplomatic path, the ‘kinder’one, would serve me. It had gotten in me way of protectin' me family—again. And I have nearly lost Damon to that foolish thinkin' just as I lost me parents.”
Her eyes flared wide, and Willow instinctively took a step backward. Keegan had told her of how he felt responsible for his parents’ death, that he couldn’t help but believe that because he’d argued for peace talks, it cost them their lives.