“Oh?” Hannah said, pointing toward the barn door that was slid open. Cain walked with Ginny tied to a long lead line. The little filly dodged around Ginny’s legs, flexing and leaping as if full of joy to be out, but she never wandered from her mother’s side.

Cain’s strides were confident and unrushed, as if he had all the time in the world despite the chaos that had erupted around them with people scurrying off to find their horses. He stopped before her. “Luna will follow Ginny around the fires,” he said, handing her the lead.

“I should find Gilla, too,” Ella said.

“She is with Gideon’s horses inside the bailey,” Hannah said. “I will fetch her along with my own.” Excitement lit her face, and she ran toward Girnigoe.

Ella looked left and right. People and horses swarmed down from the hills. “There are so many.”

Cain clicked his tongue, and Ginny began to follow him as he walked toward the ring of three fires, spread far apart in the meadow. Ella quickened her step to follow. “Our warriors and stable boys walked ours between the fires,” she called up ahead.

Cain looked over his shoulder. “We have too many. ’Tis better to have the whole clan help.”

Luna nudged her hand where she walked almost completely under her mother. “Good eve,” Ella said, smiling down at the sweet pale horse, her brown eyes thickly lashed. “This is my first blessing, too.”

“Ye have never walked around the fires at Midsummer?” Cain asked, turning to stride backward. The three fires had been made in a triangular pattern, the farthest one set slightly off due east. Starting in the east, the animals would walk westward like the circling of the sun through the day.

Ella shook her head, her loose hair keeping her warm in the cooling night air. “I was sent inside as the night came where my mother would bless me by having me walk between lit candles.” She shrugged. “I have not done so since she died twelve years ago.” Her gaze moved out over the meadow beyond. If she could escape, she would not have to wed Cain or kill him. But he would follow her, striking out at Dunrobin.

“’Tis time ye receive the blessing then.” He turned forward to lead them between two of the fires. Dodging others, they came out on the other side as Hannah hurried forward with Gilla and another black horse clopping behind her.

“Joshua already had them haltered. Here is your lady,” Hannah said, breathing heavily, and handed her the lead.

Gilla’s ear twitched as she took in the chaos growing around them, but she had been trained not to spook. Ella rubbed her palm down Gilla’s nose, the mare’s lips searching her hand for a carrot or apple that she did not have.