Page 65 of Marin’s Promise

“Aye,” she replied. No doubt everyone on both sides of the border remembered the Grahams and how they had wreaked such havoc and horrors on Werrick Castle. “My father tried to protect us, but he was knocked aside. We thought he was dead.” She shook her head at the memory, wishing to clear the image of her father laying still and bleeding. “My mother charged at the man who meant to kill us all. She did save us, but at a terrible cost to herself.”

Bran’s jaw tensed and he flicked his gaze away in angry understanding. Marin shuddered at the memory of finding her mother on the floor, her gown ripped, sobbing, not wanting to live. It had been Marin who helped her to her feet, who got her to Isla for healing.

“We discovered she was with child.” Marin glanced to the closed door of the solar. This was nothing she wanted Leila to hear, especially not when the girl was so loved and cared for now. For surely that was what truly mattered, was it not?

“Mother was despondent. She didn’t eat enough or sleep enough.” Marin spoke gently despite the closed door, ensuring their conversation remained fully private. “She was a ghost of her former self. Despite my efforts, I knew she would not be strong enough to survive the birth. And she did not.”

Bran put his hands on Marin’s shoulders in an oddly comforting act, as if he sought to help her continue standing upright. “That was Leila.”

Marin nodded.

“Her father…?”

Marin cringed at the question he didn't need to complete. “She is our sister and that's the only thing we’ve ever cared about.”

“Yer da?”

The image of her father's weathered face with his gray-white hair and summer-sky-blue eyes welled in her heart. “He loves her perhaps more than any of us, and we've never faulted him for it,” she answered. “She’s the center of our world, our mother’s last gift to us. Any doubt we might have harbored has only produced a fiercer affection for her.”

“Then why did ye run?” He asked the question gently, as though he worried that he might frighten her.

“Everyone needed me.” The memory squeezed around her chest like a vice. “When my mother died, everyone looked to me. I cared for Leila and for my sisters, trying as best I could to aid them through their bitter loss and heartache. Mother's loss was difficult on my father as well. It was as though the Northern Star had burnt out and he did not know which direction to walk without it. Without her.”

“Then there was ye.”

“Then there was me.” She drew in a deep breath, but the pressure around her chest seemed to grow tighter. The way it had that day. “I was too busy to accept my own grief.” She gave a mirthless chuckle. “I didn't know the battlements or strategy or how to handle the soldiers. Without my father, we would not have protection, nor would we have the funds necessary to stay fed and safe. I tried to rouse him, but he would not rally. And I felt so…so helpless.” Her voice caught and she drew a deep breath to calm herself. “Everyone needed me all the time and I had nothing left to give.”

She had to stop for a moment to keep from letting the dismal emotion swelling inside her consume her.

Bran leaned over her and pressed a kiss to her brow. It was so surprising a gesture, so loving, it took her aback. No one had given her their undivided attention like this. Aye, the servants did for their tasks, the men for their orders, even her sisters for advice. But no one had listened to her heart. Not like this. With his focus and his concern, he sprinkled seeds of trust into her heart.

And she knew then, she could tell him the truth.