The first shot shattered the window.
Rowan seized her around the waist and pulled her down as glass and splinters burst across the room. A second shot struck the mantel, showering stone dust into the fire. The mule screamed outside. Rowan rolled away, brought the rifle to his shoulder, and fired through the broken shutter.
A man cried out in the trees.
Maribel lay flat, heart hammering, cheek pressed to the floorboards. Fear tried to take her back to the bridal chamber, to the pearls, to Aunt Eveline’s voice saying survival meant silence.
She crawled toward the fallen tin cup, grabbed it, and threw it aside.
“What do I do?” she asked.
Rowan looked at her, then toward a smaller rifle leaning beside a crate.
“Ever fired one?”
“No.”
“Then tonight has been full of firsts.”
He shoved the rifle and a handful of cartridges toward her. “Load one at a time. Keep it pointed where you want thunder to go. Do not touch the trigger unless you mean it.”
Her hands shook. The cartridge slipped twice. On the third try it slid into place. Outside, Callum’s men spread through the trees. Rowan fired again. A muzzle flash answered. A bullet punched through the roof beam.
Smoke drifted in.
“They are at the lean-to,” Rowan said. “Trying to burn us out.”
Maribel smelled kerosene.
The fire outside caught with a hungry orange bloom. Heat licked through cracks in the wall. The mule broke its tether and bolted into the storm.
“Can we run?” she asked.
“Not through the door.”
“Then where?”
Rowan threw back the bearskin rug near the hearth and hooked two fingers through an iron ring hidden in the floor. A trapdoor lifted, revealing black earth and darkness.
Maribel stared. “You built a tunnel?”
“I distrust visitors.”
“Wise man.”
“First time anyone called it that.”
He dropped a satchel into the hole, then turned to her. “Go.”
“What about you?”
“I follow.”
The cabin shook as flames climbed the lean-to. Maribel lowered herself into the tunnel. Cold dirt scraped her palms. The space was narrow enough to turn each breath into a decision. She crawled forward with the rifle dragging beneath her, listening to Rowan pull the trapdoor shut behind them.
Above, boots crashed into the cabin.
A man shouted, “They’re gone!”
Another shot rang out, useless and furious.
The tunnel sloped downward through frozen earth, then opened behind a screen of brush in a ravine. Dawn had begun to stain the storm clouds gray. The cabin above burned like a warning to the sky.
Rowan emerged behind her, coughing. Blood darkened his sleeve.
“You’re hurt,” Maribel said.
“Splinter.”
“That is blood.”
“A bloody splinter.”
She caught his arm before he could move away. “Do not treat me like a fool.”
He looked down at her hand on his sleeve. She let go at once, but he did not rebuke her. Instead he leaned against the ravine wall and exhaled.
“A bullet grazed me.”
The wound ran along his upper arm, deep enough to soak his shirt. Maribel tore a strip from the hem of the ruined wedding gown still beneath her borrowed coat. The gown had been made for a ceremony. It would serve better as a bandage.
“This will hurt,” she said.
“Likely.”
She tied the cloth tight. Rowan’s face went pale, but he made no sound.
“You have done this before?” he asked.
“No.”
“You lie with confidence.”
“I learn quickly under pressure.”
“That I believe.”
They climbed as the sky brightened. Snow continued falling, softer now, smoothing the ravine behind them. Rowan knew paths invisible to her—deer trails, frozen creek beds, cuts between boulders. Still, blood loss slowed him. Twice he stumbled. Twice Maribel pretended not to notice his pride collapsing.
At the top of a ridge, they found a narrow shelf beneath an overhang. Rowan pulled her into its shadow moments before riders appeared below.
Callum rode at the front on his black horse, elegant as a funeral. Three men followed with rifles. A fourth led another horse, side-saddle already strapped, as though Maribel’s return were an errand delayed by weather.
Callum dismounted and looked up toward the ridge.
“Maribel,” he called. “This has become tiresome.”
Rowan’s hand tightened on his rifle.
Maribel whispered, “Can we outrun them?”
“No.”
“Can you shoot them?”
“Not all before they shoot back.”
“Then we speak.”
Rowan gave her a look. “That usually ranks low among survival plans.”
“It is the only weapon he believes I do not have.”
Before Rowan could answer, Maribel stepped from the overhang.
Callum saw her and smiled.
Not with relief. With possession restored in imagination.
“There you are.”
“Here I am.”
“You look dreadful.”
“I feel clear.”
His smile thinned. “Come down.”
“No.”
A flicker of impatience crossed his face. “This rebellion has cost one man his cabin, another his blood, and you any mercy society might have extended. You have made your point.”