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“You can't go to Ireland,” she stated simply.

“Och, love.” MacColla turned Haley to face him. They stood

at the water's edge, ready to sail once more.

They'd landed safely on Islay,  situated Colkitto at Dunyveg  Castle. Though they'd gathered almost a dozen men for their journey, the MacDonald castle had to be ready for what protracted siege might come, and neither provisions nor weapons could be spared. Not wanting to tax the already  overburdened Islay stronghold, they were to leave immediately for the northeastern coast of Ireland.

“
 
We
 
travel to Ireland,” he said. “I need to gather more men.

I have no choice.”

“You always have a ”-

“Hush,” he whispered, tucking a strand of hair behind her  ear. “Heed me,
 
leannan
. Campbell blazes through Kintyre.  My clansmen barely hold Dunyveg. With disaster to the left  of me and death to the right, my only choice is but to plow  forward.”

But Haley knew. Disaster and death lay before him as well.

MacColla looked at someone over her shoulder, and she turned to see a knot of approaching clansmen. Rollo managed stiffly, shuffling ten paces behind the group. He gave MacColla a grim nod.

That would mean all was ready. The time had come.

Heart skittering in her chest, Haley climbed into the boat.  The birlinn's bench was hard beneath her, and she was forced to sit rigidly upright, her discomfort doing nothing to calm her.

She looked across the sea as they set out, focused on those few sounds that filled the air, but they only agitated her.  The creak of wood as the men rowed. The small
 
splish
 
of oars dipping in and out of the water. The rhythmic slap of the sea against the hull. They approached closer to Ireland, and every noise tightened the knot in her stomach.

Hours passed with her staring sightlessly over the water, fear and uncertainty glazing her eyes. The sea was as calm as MacColla promised it would be, and the gray sky darkened so gradually, it seemed one moment it was day and the next night.

As the sky blackened, it exploded into millions of points of light. Just when she thought the vast bowl overhead might swallow her dark thoughts, she saw it. Terror shot through her.
 
Ireland.

It emerged from the shadows, stark and black, looming close. In that moment, she knew such hatred and fear for the place, it roiled in her stomach.

Ireland, that had once brought her such joy, now seemed an evil thing, monstrous and portentous, hovering before them like some great slumbering beast.

As they approached the shore, their boat began to bob wildly, fighting the waves that crested and broke along the sandy cove, shimmering pale in the starlight.

She inhaled sharply and looked up to the sky as if that could help tip back the fall of her tears.

Haley felt a hand on her thigh. His hand. Warm, loving.  But for how long? How long until this hero of old lay cold in his grave?

She shivered.

“What will be, will be,
 
leannan
” She felt his fingers, strong  and sure, stroking her cheek. He cupped her face, turned it  toward him.

She shut her eyes tight, unable to look at him, feeling her heart breaking already at the loss of him. Tears squeezed out.

Even before her eyes fluttered back open, she knew what she'd see: love for her tempered by the single -minded drive to do what he could for his clan. She'd see his confidence, his determination that what he did was the right thing. The
only
 
thing.

But she knew differently. Triumph wasn't what waited for him on the shores of Ireland. It was death.

And she knew, death alone would sway MacColla from his mission.

It would be up to her to set all to rights.

She opened her eyes, studied him. Shadows blackened his brow, his mouth. He returned her gaze and she knew he'd not be the first to look away.

Haley gripped his hand, felt the give of his flesh in her nails.

She had her own mission. She couldn't lose him.

She no longer cared about James Graham, whether he lived or died. No longer cared about some foolish weapon.  Studies and scholarship were meaningless now.

She knew only MacColla, and the future with him she so desperately craved.

Her father's voice came to her from far away. Those words he'd spoken at the bar, so long ago.
 
Our Haley knows what she needs to do.

Flashing back to Boston, to her brothers and her father, brought pain searing through her chest. And her mother. If only she'd gotten to see her mother one last time.

But Haley knew in her heart she had a second family now.  MacColla. Sitting next to her, clutching tight to her. Ready to give his own life for what he believed in. For
 
his
 
family.

There was no going back. She'd made her decision to be with MacColla.

Haley knew what she had to do. And this was it.

* * *

Their spirits deflated gradually over the following weeks.  They'd landed at Dundrum, in County Down, and had begun the long march south to County Cork at once.

Ireland was rocky and green, rolling endlessly before them.  Haley hadn't fully believed he intended hundreds of miles of hard marching, and quickly enough to elude the  Parliamentary army.

“It's a long damned way to Tipperary,” she grumbled at  some point on day ten. Ever since MacColla told her they  skirted south of the famous burgh, she'd had the old World  War I marching song stuck in her head.

“What do you cavil on about, lass?”

She looked to MacColla riding beside her. Black whiskers dusted his jaw and his shirt had seen better days, but he sat with a grin for her, as if he could will her into a better mood.

“Nothing,” she said, trying to muster half a smile. Tucking  the reins under her thigh, she leaned close to her horse's  neck, stretching the stiff muscles in her shoulders and  lower back. “It's just… well, when will we get there?”

“Soon now,
 
leannan
. A Lord Taaffe waits for us at a place

called Assolas House, in Duhallow.”

“Is he a Royalist?”

“Now there's a tricky question. Och, but what I'd do to  scrape this from my face,” MacColla mumbled, scratching  at his nascent beard. “A Royalist, you ask. Well, he is and  he is not. In Scotland, you've got the Covenanters  sympathizing with the English Parliament on one side. And  then there's the Royalists who stand with the king on the  other.”

“I know that.”

MacColla cut his eyes to her, smiling broadly. “Aye, I suppose you do then. Well, things get a wee bit more complicated in Ireland.”

Rolling his shoulders, he assessed the sun in the sky, as if control over their day's ride was a constant buzzing in the back of his mind.

He continued, “Men who are enemies in Scotland might find themselves allied in Ireland, driven by religion over clan. Here  the Catholic confederates fight to retake  Protestant lands. Confederates who have a long-standing
hatred
 
for England and her king. Do you see? The  Confederates are not naturally Royalist, aye?”

He watched her face, waiting for her to nod her understanding before he continued.

“But the king, he fancies his Catholic wife and is inclined  to let we savages be.” He gave a quick laugh. “While

Parliament would oust both Catholics
 
and
 
king. And so two enemies have found they have much in common. Irish  Catholics  supporting an English monarch. My father never thought he'd see the day,” he added with a chuckle.

“Will you fight?” she asked abruptly.

“If I must.”

She turned her face away sharply, unable to look at him.

“
Leannan
, I've simply come for more men. I rally troops to  return with me to help hold the MacDonald castle at  Dunyveg. But… ” He was quiet for a moment. “
Leannan
,  look at me. Please.”

“Don't,” she rasped. She turned her face back to him and  didn't bother to hide the angry tears that shimmered there .  “You need to go back to Scotland
 
now
. Fight there. Not  here.”

“Och, Haley lass. I fight where I must. I gather men, but  even now the Parliamentary army marches south. I'll not  turn back to Scotland, leaving my allies to face their enemy  alone. If the Munster army needs me on Irish soil, then  that is where I'll stand.”

They arrived two days later, and Haley's greatest fear was realized. It was as she suspected. The Munster army did indeed lay claim to MacColla.

They were welcomed at Assolas House, a lovely, two-story mansion, complete with a carpet of ivy covering the gray

stones of its facade and a river babbling gently beyond. The  grounds were lush, featuring flowers, fruits, and a serene  sweep of green lawn.

And Haley thought it hell.

She knew she needed to take control of the situation.

Needed to figure out how exactly to save MacColla from himself. But reasonable solutions eluded her. The only strategy she came up with would be to knock him on the head and whisk him as far as she could from Ireland .

But she knew, he'd only come to, and come back.

They sat at dinner with the Lord Taaffe and though she told herself she should've been grateful for a meal consisting of more than just oats and hare on a spit, she couldn't muster enough of an appetite to eat.

Rollo and the others had dined earlier, leaving just the three of them to, as Taaffe had put it, “more thoroughly acquaint themselves.” She wished she'd been able to dine with the soldiers, not being much in the acquainting mood.

Once inhabited by Catholic monks, the Assolas dining room featured a long, well-used table with benches on either side. Taaffe and MacColla sat directly across from each other.

And Haley saw immediately what a mess that was going to be.

Lord Theobald Taaffe was an antique. With his curled hair and fine waistcoat, he'd clearly gone straight from wealth and careful tutelage to a grand military posting.

He was broad chivalry, not blood and iron rations.

The sort of man who'd ride into battle well -groomed and

flanked by an  attendant to carry his provisions.

Not MacColla's sort at all.

Haley watched her love's face darken through the meal, forced as he was to sit captive to Taaffe's uninformed opining.

When the man announced that he'd sent a letter to the

enemy, proposing  they dispatch a like number of men to  fight for the purpose of recreation, MacColla's face turned  purple.

“A generous gamester am I” Taaffe elaborated, “but alas,

the Parliamentarians did not rise to my challenge.”

“You did what?” MacColla snarled. “Is it you think you can

resolve this war as though a game of dice?”

“The men have seemed dispirited of late. I'd thought a good

and chivalrous challenge would rouse the blood.”

“Gee,” Haley muttered, astounded by the absurdity, “that's

very… King Arthur of you.”

“This is no sport we play at,” MacColla said with steel in his  voice. “No joust, no tilts. You'll get your fill of blood once  the fighting begins.
 
Roused
 
indeed. Blood enough will spill

- the sod will weep with it.”

MacColla's near-growl brought her eyes to him. She saw him, truly saw him, for what he was. A blooded Highlander, eager for battle.

The flicker of humor she'd felt a moment before took a dark

turn. It was this buffoon seated across from them who'd be

by MacColla's side in battle.

“Ah, yes,” Taaffe agreed gravely. “Bloody days are upon us.  Even now we have an army of twelve hundred horse and  seven thousand foot rallied. Most are encamped at Kanturk  less than a league hence. The rest wait on Knocknanuss  Hill. The best strategic position in Cork, I dare say.”

Knocknanuss.
 
Haley sat upright on the hard bench, her heart thumping to life.

“Though our foe marches toward us, we still strongly  outnumber… But, dear girl”  - Taaffe turned his attention to  Haley  - “are you ill?”

He turned to MacColla. “I beg your forgiveness, sir. How dare I speak of such dark matters before one of the fairer ”-

“What did you say?” Haley interrupted.

“I fear you swoon ”-

“No,” she snapped. “
 
Where?
 
Where did you just say the

soldiers were?”

“Why, Knocknanuss Hill,  to be sure. Venture to the top,  and you shall be rewarded by the finest of landscapes  stretching before you.”

But his words were just a drone in her ears.