A river enchanted, p.31
A River Enchanted, page 31
Jack stood. She had captivated him, and he needed a distraction before the truth spilled out of him. Before he confessed how his feelings for her were becoming entwined with everything—his dreams, aspirations, desires. He wanted to reassure her, to answer her without words, but first he walked to his bureau, where a bottle of birk wine sat.
He poured them each a sparkling glass. Her fingers were cold as they brushed his, accepting his offering. She didn’t remain seated but rose, so their eyes were nearly level, with little space between them. They drank to their wounds, their regrets, and their hopes, to the past, to how the choices each had made unknowingly brought them back together.
“My heart doesn’t yearn for the mainland,” he said at last. “I thought I told you, Adaira, that it’s safe to say I won’t be returning.”
“And yet you’ve told me from the beginning that the mainland is your home,” she countered.
Jack wanted to tell her that he had been withering away there, bit by bit. So infinitesimally that he hadn’t realized how faded he was until he returned to Cadence and found that he could set down roots in a place, roots deep and entwined.
Instead, he whispered, “Yes, but I once thought home was simply a place. Four walls to hold you at night while you slept. But I was wrong. It’s people. It’s being with the ones that you love, and maybe even the ones that you hate.” He couldn’t help but smile, watching how his words raced across her skin, making her flush.
Adaira set aside her glass. Her eyes were keen when she looked at him and said, “Do you know that I once hated you?”
He laughed, and the sound spread through his chest, warm and rich as the wine. “I thought we were telling each other things we did not know.”
“I was glad to see you leave that evening ten years ago,” she confessed. “I stood on the hill at dusk and watched you board the boat. I watched until I could no longer see you, and I counted it a triumph, for my old menace would no longer haunt the isle. I had defeated and banished you, and you would no longer steal my thistles, or feed me pimpleberries, or yank the ribbons from my braids. You can imagine my shock when I saw you weeks ago. After all this time when I had convinced myself that you were my nemesis, that I was destined to hate you even ten years later … I felt a portion of gladness again, but it had nothing to do with your leaving.”
Jack set his glass down and shifted closer to her. The wound in his arm was beginning to itch; it was healing swiftly, and soon this moment would be lost to them. He gently traced the golden light that danced on her cheek.
“Are you telling me that you were glad to see me, Adaira?”
“I was,” she said, and her breath caught beneath his caress. “I was glad to feel something stir within me after years of being cold and empty. I just never imagined I would find it in you.”
It was like she had stolen the very words from his mouth. And he wanted them back.
He brushed her lips with his own, a taunting kiss. She tasted like dark red fruit, like the summer berries that grew wild on the fells, and she took hold of his tunic and drew him closer until they were sharing the same sweetened breath. The air crackled as their raiment caught the static between them. Jack’s mouth was gentle as he drank her sighs and memorized her mouth. But all too soon he felt an obliterating ache in his chest. Dazed, he realized that he was overwhelmed by Adaira, by the feelings she roused within him. He wondered how something as soft as a brushing of lips could resound with such agony in his body.
She must have felt it too. She broke the kiss and released her hold on him, stepping away. Her face was composed, her eyes calm. But her mouth was swollen from his, and she rolled her lips together as if tasting a lingering trace of him.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
Jack merely stared at her, uncertain what sort of hunger she spoke of. Half a beat later, he was thankful for his silence, because Adaira said, “I think our next conversation will go down better with a plate of haggis.”
He had forgotten all about her initial intention to discuss the meeting with Innes. He watched as she strode to the door and sent a request with one of the servants to bring dinner up to Jack’s room. She approached his desk and took hold of it, inching it across the floor toward the hearth. She seemed to burn with endless energy, while he was utterly zapped and frozen, as if drunk from their kiss. But he joined her at last, helping her carry the table to the fire and their two chairs. His musical composition was still carefully piled on the polished oak. Adaira noticed it, and he saw that, while she couldn’t read the notes, she studied them intently.
“Is this your ballad for the wind?” she inquired in a careful tone.
“It is.”
“Nearly complete?”
“Not quite.”
He was relieved that dinner arrived then. He didn’t know if Adaira would forbid him to play the ballad. But his health was fine. He still suffered from bouts of headaches and throbbing fingers, but it would take many years for such symptoms to kill him.
Jack carefully cleared the table, and they sat across from each other with steaming plates of haggis and potatoes and wilted greens, bread and a crock of butter arranged between them. He didn’t notice until he was pouring them each a fresh glass of wine that the wound in his arm had healed and the truth enchantment had fully waned in power, leaving behind nothing more than a cold, tender scab on his skin. And yet, when he looked at Adaira, he realized that the words and affection they had shared were not lost to either of them. The feelings hung like stars above them, waiting for another moment to align, and he felt the anticipation in his bones, humming like a harp string.
“What do you wish to discuss, Adaira?” he asked.
She gave him a half smile. “Eat first, Jack.”
He heeded her but soon noticed she was struggling to eat, as if her mind was overcome with thoughts. She studied her palm, the cold scar now marking it, and drank her wine to the dregs.
“All right,” she eventually said. “I have a plan to take our lasses back.”
Jack set down his fork, watching her intently. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like it, but he was quiet, waiting for her to explain.
Adaira took him completely by surprise when she asked, “Could you finish the ballad for the wind tomorrow?”
His brow lowered. “Is this your way of asking me to play, Adaira?”
“Yes. But with one condition, Jack.”
He groaned. “What is that?”
Adaira drew the glass vial with the Orenna and set it down before him. “You consume this flower before you play.”
She had been saving this blossom for days now, uncertain when to use it. He studied it, seemingly innocent in the glass, and said, “What is your reasoning behind this?”
“I’ve talked to Sidra,” Adaira said. “She has consumed one, and said it granted her the ability to see the spirit realm. It gave her unnatural strength, speed, and awareness. I think it will guard you from the worst of the magic’s cost.”
Jack sighed. “But what if it affects me otherwise? What if it interferes with my ability to play?”
“Then you won’t play. We’ll wait until its effects have passed, and you’ll play in your own strength, with your tonics prepared,” she answered. “Because you’re right, Jack. The wind knows where the lasses are in the west. If they can provide us with the exact location, then we can execute a plan to save them.”
“And you think we’ll be able to do so after Innes Breccan provides us with enough flowers to eat and cross the clan line unnoticed?” Jack said.
Adaira nodded. “Yes.”
His stomach clenched. He felt a pulse of dread, thinking how many things could go wrong. Imagining sneaking through the west like a shadow. Being caught and imprisoned or possibly killed.
“What if you’re wrong, Adaira?” he asked. “What if the Orenna flower doesn’t grant the power to cross over the clan line?”
“I think there’s a strong possibility it does,” she said. “How else would the Breccans be doing it? If the flower grants them heightened awareness and power between our realm and the spirits’ realm, how could it not?”
“But if they knew of this earlier, why didn’t they harness this flower before?” Jack argued. “Why not use it to their advantage when they raid? It seems they only began to use it weeks ago, with the sole purpose to steal lasses.”
“And the most recent of raids,” Adaira added. “You claim you saw more Breccans than Torin counted.”
He sighed, leaning back in his chair. His sister had also seen a Breccan standing in their garden that night, and he worried Frae was next. She would be easy to snatch, so close to the clan line.
“Perhaps the Breccans didn’t know of the Orenna flower until now,” Adaira said. “Either way, whether it is or it isn’t the secret to crossing, we’re going to find the location of the lasses via the wind, and then we are going to steal into the west to take them back.”
“Then we should prepare for war, Adaira,” Jack said. “For whatever reason the Breccans are taking eastern lasses, they’ll be angry when they discover we used the object of their trade to deceive them and sneak into the west.”
“I don’t think I can make peace with a clan that steals children,” she said.
He nodded, but that icy feeling was creeping up his spine. What would war on the isle look like? Could the Tamerlaines prevail against a clan built of warriors? If they lost, what would become of Adaira?
Jack stared at her, lost in terrible thoughts.
The firelight and shadows danced over her, and her eyes glittered like two dark gemstones as she held his gaze. The sun was beginning to set; he had been oblivious to the fading light. Only an hour ago, he and Adaira had stood in a different world, with time crystallized around them. Now time rushed, caught up in an alarming current. He could feel it pull on him, the minutes slipping away one by one.
“If this is what you want,” he said. “Then I am with you.”
She stood and walked to his side. He felt her fingers in his hair, a faint caress.
“Thank you,” she breathed. “I should leave you now. The sun is setting, and I know you need to return to Mirin’s. But if you’re ready to play tomorrow, come find me.”
She retreated to her chamber before he could say another word. But she left the Orenna behind, and Jack tucked the vial away in his pocket as he began to pack up his music.
He hadn’t given himself time to think deeply about what had happened today. He didn’t have the chance until he was walking home to Mirin’s.
He thought about the night of the raid, and he could hear Frae’s voice saying to him in the dark, There’s a Breccan in our backyard. Perhaps the man had come to steal his little sister away, but perhaps he had stood as a sentry over their home, to deflect a raid from descending upon them.
Jack saw his mother in his mind’s eye, remaining on the lands she had earned despite the danger of the clan line that was so close to her croft. He recalled all the times he had asked for his father’s name, and every time Mirin had been unwilling to share even the smallest of morsels about him.
Walking the hills, Jack unsheathed his dirk. The only tangible legacy he now possessed, for he had been given no name, no lands. He had been granted nothing but a lone blade enchanted with truth, as if Jack’s father had anticipated all of the lies and secrets his son would be raised beneath.
Jack would have never believed it possible, not until Torin claimed that Breccans were passing over the clan line without notice, and Adaira claimed they were stealing the girls of the east. If they crossed secretly now, perhaps they had done so then, long ago when Jack’s mother lived alone on the edge of the border.
He had always wondered if he had ever unknowingly seen his father in the city market, on the road, in the castle hall. Jack had always wondered, and those thoughts had fallen on fallow ground over the years, left to rot. But no longer.
He had always wondered why his father had never claimed him. He now knew why.
His father was a Breccan.
CHAPTER 21
Torin rode back to the croft, eager to see Sidra. The meeting at the clan line had gone better than expected, and this was the most hopeful he had felt in a long time. If Innes Breccan continued to be agreeable and provided them with Orenna flowers, then they would be one step closer to finding Maisie and the other lasses. He could be days away from holding his daughter. Days away from carrying her home.
He just needed to be patient. Torin inhaled, slow and deep, to calm his heart.
He dismounted and left his horse by the gate. It had rained here while he had been away; the front yard glistened in the sunlight. He then noticed that Yirr wasn’t guarding the front door, and Torin felt his first pang of unease. He stepped inside, opening his mouth to call for Sidra.
His voice was still dust in his throat. His wound still ached.
Torin swallowed and searched the rooms. Her basket of herbs and ointments was sitting on the shelf, so Torin knew she wasn’t visiting her patients. Perhaps she had returned to the garden. He walked the rows, but Sidra was absent. He stood for a moment in the midst of the towering stalks, lush flowers, and vegetables ripe on the vine. She wasn’t here, but Torin could feel a trace of her among the green living things of the earth, amongst the wildflowers.
He next rushed up the hill to his father’s, but she wasn’t with Graeme.
Torin returned to his yard, frowning. He realized that he had no inkling where she had gone, and that brought him to his knees beside the herbs. He thought again of the last time he had spoken to her. The things that had come from his mouth—sharp, angry, and prideful.
She had said that she loved him, even at his worst. And he hadn’t responded. He had never told her how he felt, and now the chance had been stolen from him.
But in this forced silence, he had noticed the weeds overcoming the garden. He had noticed the sorrow in Sidra’s eyes and the exhaustion in her posture. She was hurting, and he wanted to help her carry that pain, as she had carried his.
He looked at his hands, lined with dirt and grime, scarred from blades.
Which will you choose for your hands, Torin? she had once said to him, words that had offended him. But they had been living words—a phrase that wouldn’t die no matter how he tried to snuff it. Words like seeds that had slowly been germinating in him, unfurling new growth.
He dwelt on his dreams. The ghosts of the men he had killed. He wanted to change.
He rose and fetched his horse. He didn’t even know where he was going, and he rode aimlessly, listening to the wind and studying the ground beneath him. He remembered the first day he had met Sidra. How he had fallen from his horse.
Torin turned the stallion south and rode to the most peaceful place on the isle, where Sidra had been born. The Vale of Stonehaven.
Sidra first visited her grandmother’s grave in the vale. She knelt and spoke to the grass, the soil, and the stone that held a trace of the woman who had raised her. She also stopped at her mother’s grave, although Sidra held no remembrances of her. After she lingered in the valley’s cemetery, she walked to the cottage where she had grown up.
This ground was marked by memories. She passed through them one by one. First the stream that led to a loch where Sidra had spent time with her taciturn father, catching fish from the rapids. Next came the orchard, where she had experienced her first kiss. The paddocks where she had guarded the sheep with her brother. And lastly, the kail yard, where she first discovered her faith in the earth spirits. Where she had spent hours beside her grandmother, with soil cupped in her hands. Where she had learned the secret of herbs and the might of a small seed. This ground had seen her grow from child to girl to woman, and she hoped it would feel like reuniting with an intimate friend.
The cottage looked the same as she remembered; her father and brother had diligently kept up with the work. The kail yard, though, was a disaster, unorganized and beset with weeds. The trees were heavy laden with fruit in the orchard, and the sheep still roamed the hills like tufts of clouds. But Sidra acknowledged, with an ache in her soul, that this place no longer felt like home.
Yirr whined beside her.
She glanced down at the dog and touched his head, but his eyes were on the sheep. She released him to run and herd. Alone, she passed through the gate and stood in the kail yard, surveying the mess. Slowly, she knelt.
The soil was damp. She could feel it seeping through her dress as she began to pull up the weeds, examining them.
A weed is just a plant out of place, her grandmother had once said to her. Treat them kindly, even if they are a nuisance, for they can make a faithful ally amongst the spirits.
Sidra smiled, cradling one of the weeds. It was beautiful, with small white blooms. She didn’t know its name, and she tucked it away into her pocket to press and examine later.
She moved across the rows, harvesting the fruits that were ready, knocking away insects that were chewing the leaves. The dirt soon crowded her fingernails, and her skirt was muddy, but she was remembering.
She remembered all the times her brother Irving got lost on the hills as a boy. But Sidra never had, not with wildflowers in her hair and trust in her heart. She had always felt safe on the summits and in the vale. She remembered seasons of plenty, how this garden had overflowed with harvest. She had never gone hungry or wanted for food. She remembered the first time Senga had let her dress a wound on her own. How day by day, the injury had closed and healed itself beneath Sidra’s attentive care. As if there were magic at her fingertips.
Her memories drew closer to the present, and she wanted to fight them. But the deeper she put her hands into the soil, the brighter her thoughts flared.
She remembered tasting the Orenna flower, and how her eyes had been open. She had gone to the hillside and beheld the crushed heather. She had seen how the spirits wept when she fell, and how, even when she had lain unconscious, they embraced her. She remembered the treacherous spirit of the loch, and the other, the blazing tendril of gold, urging her to rise. To break the surface.
