Part 1 – A Song for Water
It was safest to cross the ocean at night, when the moon and stars shone on the water. At least, that’s what Jack had been raised to believe. He wasn’t sure if those old convictions still held true these days.
It was midnight, and he had just arrived at Woe, a fishing village on the northern coast of the mainland. Jack thought the name was fitting as he covered his nose; the place reeked of herring. Iron yard gates were tinged with rust, and the houses sat crooked on stilts, every shutter bolted against the relentless howl of the wind. Even the tavern was closed, its fire banked, its ale casks long since corked. The only movement came from the stray cats lapping up the milk left for them on door stoops, from the bobbing dance of cogs and rowboats in the quay.
This place was dark and quiet with dreams.
Ten years ago, he had made his first and only ocean crossing. From the isle to the mainland, a passage that took two hours if the wind was favorable. He had arrived at this very village, borne over the starlit water by an old sailor. The man had been weathered and wiry from years of wind and sun, undaunted by the thought of approaching the isle in his rowboat.
Jack remembered it well: his first moment stepping onto mainland soil. He had been eleven years old, and his initial impression was that it smelled different here, even in the dead of night. Like damp rope, fish, and woodsmoke. Like a rotting storybook. Even the land beneath his boots had felt strange, as if it grew harder and drier the farther south he traveled.
“Where are the voices in the wind?” he had asked the sailor.
“The folk don’t speak here, lad,” the man had said, shaking his head when he thought Jack wasn’t looking.
It took a few more weeks before Jack learned that children born and raised on the Isle of Cadence were rumored to be half wild and strange themselves. Not many came to the mainland as Jack had done. Far fewer stayed as long as he had.
Even after ten years, it was impossible for Jack to forget that first mainland meal he had partaken of, how dry and terrible it had tasted. The first time he had stepped into the university, awed by its vastness and the music that echoed through its winding corridors. The moment he realized that he was never returning home to the isle.
Jack sighed, and the memories turned to dust. It was late. He had been traveling for a sennight, and now he was here, defying all logic and ready to make the crossing again. He just needed to find the old sailor.
He walked one of the streets, trying to whet his recollection as to where to find the dauntless man who had previously carried him over the water. Cats scattered, and an empty tonic bottle rolled over the mismatched cobbles, seeming to follow him. He finally noticed a door that felt familiar, right on the edge of town. A lantern hung on the porch, casting tepid light over a peeling red door. Yes, there had been a red door, Jack recalled. And a knocker made from brass, shaped like an octopus. This was the fearless sailor’s house.
Jack had once stood in this very place, and he nearly saw his past self—a scrawny, windswept boy, scowling to hide the tears in his eyes.
“Follow me, lad,” the sailor had said after docking his boat, leading Jack up the steps to the red door. It was the dead of night and bitterly cold. Quite the mainland welcome. “You’ll sleep here, and then come morning you’ll take the coach south to the university.”
Jack nodded, but he hadn’t slept that night. He had laid down on the floor of the sailor’s house, wrapped in his plaid, and closed his eyes. All he could think of was the isle. The moon thistles would soon bloom, and he hated his mother for sending him away.
Somehow, he had grown from that agonizing moment, putting down roots in a foreign place. Although truth be told, he still felt scrawny and angry at his mother.
He ascended the rickety porch stairs, hair tangling across his eyes. He was hungry, and his patience was thin, even if he was knocking at midnight. He clanged the brass octopus on the door, again and again. He didn’t relent, not until he heard a curse through the wood, and the sound of locks turning. A man cracked open the door and squinted at him.
“What do you want?”
At once, Jack knew this wasn’t the sailor he sought. This man was too young, although the elements had already carved their influence on his face. A fisherman, most likely, by the smell of oysters, smoke, and cheap ale that spilled from his house.
“I’m looking for a sailor to carry me to Cadence,” said Jack. “One lived here years ago and bore me from the isle to the mainland.”
“That would be my father,” the fisherman replied harshly. “And he’s dead, so he can’t take you.” He made to shut the door, but Jack set his foot down, catching the wood.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Can you guide me?”
The man’s bloodshot eyes widened; he hacked up a laugh. “To Cadence? No, no I can’t.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Afraid?” The fisherman’s humor broke like an old rope. “I don’t know where you’ve been the last decade or two, but the clans of the isle are territorial, and they don’t take kindly to any visitors. If you are fool enough to go and visit, you’ll need to send a request with a raven. And then you’ll need to wait for the crossing to be approved by whichever laird you’re seeking to bother. And since the lairds of the isle are on their own time frame … expect to wait a while. Or even better—you can wait for the autumnal equinox, when the next trade happens. In fact, I would recommend you wait until then.”
Wordlessly, Jack withdrew a sheet of folded parchment from his cloak pocket. He handed the letter to the fisherman, who frowned as he glanced over it by lantern light.
Jack had the message memorized. He had read it countless times since it arrived the previous week, interrupting his life in the most profound of ways.
Your presence is required at once for urgent business. Please return to Cadence with your harp upon receipt.
Beneath the languid handwriting was his laird’s signature, and beneath it was the press of Alastair Tamerlaine’s signet ring in wine-dark ink, turning this request into an order.
After a decade with hardly any contact with his clan, Jack had been summoned home.
“A Tamerlaine, are you?” the fisherman said, handing the letter back. Jack belatedly realized the man probably was illiterate but had recognized the crest.
Jack nodded, and the fisherman studied him intently.
He endured the scrutiny, knowing there was nothing extraordinary about his appearance. He was tall and thin, as if he had been underfed for years, built from sharp angles and unyielding pride. His eyes were dark, his hair was brown. His skin was pallid and pale, from all the hours he spent indoors, instructing and composing music. He was dressed in his customary gray shirt and trousers, raiment now stained from greasy tavern meals.
“You look like one of us,” the fisherman said.
Jack didn’t know if he should be pleased or offended.
“What’s that on your back?” the fisherman persisted, staring at the one bag Jack was carrying.
“My harp,” Jack replied tersely.
“That explains it then. You came here to be schooled?”
“Indeed. I’m a bard. I was educated at the university in Faldare. Now, will you carry me to the isle?”
“For a price.”
“How much?”
“I don’t want your money. I want a Cadence-forged dirk,” the fisherman said. “I would like a dagger to cut through anything: ropes, nets, scales … my rival’s good fortune.”
Jack wasn’t surprised by his request for an enchanted blade. Such things could only be forged on Cadence, but they were created with a steep price.
“Yes, I can arrange that for you,” Jack said after only a moment of doubt. In the back of his mind, he thought of his mother’s dirk with its silver hilt, and how she kept it sheathed at her side, although Jack had never once seen her use it. But he knew the dagger was enchanted; the glamour was evident when one didn’t look directly upon the weapon. It cast a slight haze, as though firelight had been hammered into the steel.
There was no telling how much his mother had paid Una Carlow to forge it for her. Or how much Una had, in turn, suffered for rendering the blade.
He held out his hand. The fisherman shook it.
“Very well,” the man said. “We’ll leave at daybreak.” He went to shut the door again, but Jack refused to remove his foot.
“We must go now,” he said. “While it’s dark. This is the safest time to make the crossing.”
The fisherman’s eyes bugged. “Are you daft? I wouldn’t cross those waters at night if you paid me a hundred enchanted dirks!”
“You must trust me on this,” Jack answered. “Ravens may carry messages to the lairds by day, and the trade cog may glide on the first of the season, but the best time to cross is at night, when the ocean reflects the moon and the stars.”
When the spirits of the water are easily appeased, Jack added inwardly.
The fisherman gaped. Jack waited—he would stand here all night and all of the next day if he had to—and the fisherman must have sensed it. He relented.
“Very well. For two Cadence dirks, I will carry you across the water tonight. Meet me by my boat in a few minutes. It’s that one, in the berth on the far right.”
Jack glanced over his shoulder to look at the darkened quay. Weak moonlight gleamed on the hulls and masts, and he found the fisherman’s boat, a modest vessel that had once been his father’s. The very boat that had originally carried Jack in his first crossing.
He stepped down the stoop, and the door latched behind him. He momentarily wondered if the fisherman was fooling him, agreeing to simply get Jack off his porch, but Jack walked briskly to the quay in good faith, the wind nearly pushing him down as he strode over the damp road.
He lifted his eyes to the darkness. There was a wavering trail of celestial light on the ocean, the silver path the fisherman needed to follow to reach Cadence. A sickle moon hung in the sky like a smile, surrounded by freckles of stars. It would have been ideal if the moon was full, but Jack couldn’t afford to wait for it to wax.
He didn’t know why his laird had summoned him home, but he sensed it wasn’t for a joyous reunion.
It felt as if he had waited an hour before he saw a firefly of lantern light approaching. The fisherman walked hunched against the wind, a waxed overmantle shielding him, his face trapped in a scowl.
“You had better be good to your word, bard,” he said. “I want two Cadence dirks for all of this trouble.”
“Yes, well, you know where to find me if I’m not,” Jack said, brusquely.
The fisherman glared at him, one eye bigger than the other. Then, conceding, he nodded at his boat, saying, “Climb aboard.”
And Jack took his first step off the mainland.
The ocean was rough at first.
Jack gripped the boat’s gunwale, his stomach churning as the vessel rose and fell in a precarious dance. The waves rolled, but the brawny fisherman cut through them, rowing the two of them farther out to sea. He followed the trail of moonlight as Jack suggested, and soon the ocean became gentler. The wind continued to howl, but it was still the wind of the mainland, carrying nothing but cold salt in its breath.
Jack glanced over his shoulder, watching the lanterns of Woe turn to tiny flecks of light, his eyes smarting, and he knew they were about to enter the isle’s waters. He could sense it as if Cadence had a gaze, finding him in the darkness, fixating on him.
“A body washed to shore a month ago,” the fisherman said, breaking Jack’s reverie. “Gave us all a bit of fright in Woe.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“A Breccan, by the woad tattoos on his bloated skin. His blue plaid arrived shortly after him.” The man paused in his speech, but he continued to row, the paddles dipping into the water in a mesmerizing rhythm. “A slit throat. I suppose it was the work of one of your clansmen, who then dumped the misfortunate soul in the ocean. To let us clean up the mess when the tides brought the corpse to our shores.”
Jack was silent as he stared at the fisherman, but a shiver chased his bones. Even after all these years away, the sound of his enemy’s name sent a spear of dread through him.
“Perhaps one of his own did it to him,” Jack said. “The Breccans are known for their bloodthirsty ways.”
The fisherman chuckled. “Should I dare to believe a Tamerlaine is unbiased?”
Jack could have told him stories of raids. How the Breccans often crossed the clan line and stole from the Tamerlaines during the winter months. They plundered and wounded; they pillaged without remorse, and Jack felt his hatred rise like smoke as he remembered being a young boy riddled by the fear of them.
“How did the feud begin, bard?” the fisherman pressed on. “Do any of you even remember why you hate each other, or do you simply follow the path your ancestors set for you?”
Jack sighed. He just wanted a swift, quiet passage over the water. But he knew the story. It was an old, blood-soaked saga that shifted like the constellations, depending on who did the retelling—the east or the west, the Tamerlaines or the Breccans.
He mulled over it. The current of the water gentled, and the hiss of the wind fell to a coaxing whisper. Even the moon hung lower, keen for him to share the legend. The fisherman sensed it as well. He was quiet, rowing at a slower pace, waiting for Jack to give the story breath.
“Before the clans, there were the folk,” Jack began. “The earth, the air, the water, and the fire. They gave life and balance to Cadence. But soon the spirits grew lonely and weary of hearing their own voices, of seeing their own faces. The northern wind blew a ship off course and it crashed on the rocks of the isle. Amid the flotsam was a fierce and arrogant clan, the Breccans, who had been seeking a new land to claim.
“Not long after that, the southern wind blew a ship off course, and it found the isle. They were the Tamerlaine clan, and they too established a home on Cadence. The island was balanced between them, with the Breccans in the west and the Tamerlaines in the east. And the spirits blessed the work of their hands.
“In the beginning, it was peaceful. But soon, the two clans began to have more and more altercations and scuffles with each other, until whispers of war began to haunt the air. Joan Tamerlaine, the Laird of the East, hoped she could stave off conflict by uniting the isle as one. She would agree to marriage with the Breccan laird as long as peace was upheld and empathy was encouraged between the clans, in spite of their differences. When Fingal Breccan beheld her beauty, he decided that he, too, wanted harmony. ‘Come and be my wife,’ he said, ‘and let our two clans join as one.’
“Joan married him and lived with Fingal in the west, but as the days passed Fingal continued to delay on formally reaching a peace agreement. Joan soon learned that the ways of the Breccans were rigid and cruel, and she couldn’t adapt to them. Disheartened by the bloodshed, she strove to share the customs of the east, in hopes that they might also find a place in the west, granting goodness to the clan. But Fingal became angry with her desires, thinking she would only weaken the west, and he refused to see Tamerlaine ways celebrated.
“It wasn’t long until the peace was hanging on by a fragile thread and Joan realized Fingal had no intention of uniting the isle. He said one thing but enacted another behind her back, and the Breccans began to raid the east, stealing from the Tamerlaines. Joan, longing for home and to be rid of Fingal, soon departed, but she made it only as far as the center of the isle before Fingal caught up with her.
“They quarreled, they fought. Joan drew her dirk and cut herself loose from him—name, vow, spirit, and body, but not her heart, because it was never his. She bestowed a tiny nick upon his throat, the very place where she had once kissed him in the night, when she dreamt of the east. The small wound swiftly drained him, and Fingal felt his life ebb away. When he fell, he took her with him, forcing his own dagger into her chest, to pierce the heart he could never earn.
“They cursed each other and their clans, and they died entwined, stained in each other’s blood, in the place where the east meets the west. The spirits felt the rift as the clan line was drawn, and the earth drank the mortals’ blood, strife, and violent end. Peace became a distant dream, and that is why the Breccans continue to raid and steal, hungry to have what is not theirs, and why the Tamerlaines continue to defend themselves, cutting throats and piercing hearts with blades.”
The fisherman, leaning toward the tale, had ceased rowing. When Jack fell silent, the man shook himself and frowned, returning to his oars. The sickle moon continued its arc across the sky, the stars dimmed their fires, and the wind began to howl now that the story was over.
The ocean resumed its billowing tide as Jack set his eyes on the distant isle, his first glimpse of it in ten long years.
Cadence was darker than night, a shadow against the ocean and the starry sky. Long and rugged, it stretched before them like a sprawled dragon sleeping on the waves. Jack’s heart stirred at the sight, traitor that it was. Soon, he would be walking the ground he had grown up on, and he didn’t know if he would be welcomed or not.
He hadn’t written to his mother in three years.
“You’re a deranged lot, that’s what I think,” the fisherman muttered. “All this nonsense and talk of spirits.”
“You don’t revere the folk?” Jack asked, but he knew the answer. There were no faerie spirits on the mainland. Only the patina of gods and saints, carved into the sanctuaries of kirks.
The fisherman snorted. “Have you ever seen a spirit, lad?”
“I’ve seen evidence of them,” Jack replied carefully. “They don’t often reveal themselves to mortal eyes.” He inevitably recalled the countless hours he had spent roaming the hills as a boy, eager to snare a spirit amid the heather. Of course, he never had.
“Sounds like a bucket of chum to me.”
Jack made no reply as the vessel glided closer.
He could see the golden lichens on the eastern rocks, luminescent. They marked the Tamerlaine coastline, and Jack’s memories surged. He remembered how things that grew on the isle were peculiar, bent to enchantment. He had explored the coast countless times, to Mirin’s great frustration and worry. But every girl and boy of the isle had been drawn to the whirlpools and eddies and secret caves of the coast. In the day and in the night, when the lichen glowed, golden as leftover sunlight on the rocks.
He noticed they were drifting. The fisherman was rowing, but they were angled away from the lichen, as if the boat was hooked to the dark stretch of western coast.
“We’re sailing into Breccan waters,” Jack said, a knot of alarm in his throat. “Here, row us to the east.”
The fisherman heaved, directing the boat the way Jack instructed, but their progress was painfully slow. Something was wrong, Jack realized, and the moment he acknowledged there was trouble, the wind abated and the ocean turned glassy, smooth like a mirror. It was quiet, a roaring silence that raised his hackles.
Tap.
The fisherman ceased rowing, his eyes wide as full moons. “Did you hear that?”
Jack lifted his hand. Be quiet, he wanted to say but held his tongue, waiting for the warning to come again.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
He felt it in the soles of his shoes. Something was in the water, clicking its long nails on the underside of the hull. Testing for a weak spot.
“Mother of gods,” the fisherman whispered, sweat shining on his face. “What is making that racket?”
Jack swallowed. He could feel his own perspiration beading his brow, the tension within him taut as a harp string as the claws beneath continued tapping.
The mainlander’s scorn had caused this. He had offended the folk of the water, who must have gathered in the foam of the sea to hear Jack’s legend. And now both men would pay for it with a sinking boat and a watery grave.
“Do you revere the spirits?” Jack asked in a low tone, staring at the fisherman.
The man only gaped, and then a flicker of fear crossed over his face. He began to turn the boat around, rowing with great heaves back to Woe.
“What are you doing?” Jack cried.
“I go no further,” the fisherman said. “I want nothing to do with your isle and whatever haunts these waters.”
Jack narrowed his eyes. “We had an agreement.”
“Either jump overboard and swim your way to shore, or you’ll be coming back with me.”
“Then I suppose I’ll have your dirks forged three-quarters of the way. How would you like that?”
“Keep your dirks.”
Jack was speechless. The fisherman had almost hauled them out of the isle’s waters, and Jack couldn’t go back to the mainland. Not when he was so close to home, when he could see the lichen and taste the cold sweetness of the mountains.
He stood and turned in the boat, carelessly rocking it. He could swim the distance if he left his cloak and leather satchel of clothes behind. He could swim to the shore, but he would be in enemy waters.
And he needed his harp. Laird Alastair had requested it.
He quickly opened his satchel and found his harp within, hiding in a sleeve of oilskin. The saltwater would ruin the instrument, and Jack was struck by an idea. He dug deeper into his bag and found the square of Tamerlaine plaid, which he hadn’t worn since the day he left the isle.
His mother had woven it for him when he was eight, when he had started to get into fistfights at the isle school. She had enchanted it by weaving a secret into the pattern, and he had been delighted when his nemesis was rewarded with a broken hand the next time he tried to punch Jack in the stomach.
Jack stared at the scrap of seemingly innocent plaid now. It was soft when draped on the floor but strong as steel when it was put to use guarding something like a heart or a pair of lungs. Or in this desperate case, a harp about to be submerged.
Jack wrapped his instrument in the checkered wool and slid it back into its sleeve. He needed to swim to shore before the fisherman dragged him farther away from it.
He shed his cloak, embraced his harp, and jumped overboard.
The water was bitterly cold. The shock of it stole his breath as the ocean swallowed him whole. He broke the surface with a gasp, hair plastered to his face, chapped lips stinging from the salt. The fisherman continued to row farther and farther away, leaving a ripple of fear on the surface.
Jack spat in the mainlander’s wake before turning to the isle. He prayed the spirits of the water would be benevolent to him as he began to swim to Cadence. He set his eyes on the glow of the lichen, trying to pull himself to the safety of the Tamerlaine shore. But the moment he treaded the ocean, the waves rolled and the tide returned with a laugh. He was drawn under, jerked by the current.
Fear coursed through him, pounding in his veins until he realized that he broke the surface every time he reached for it. By the third lungful of air, Jack sensed the spirits were toying with him. If they wanted to drown him, they would have done it by now.
Of course, he thought, struggling to swim as the tide pulled him under again. Of course, his return wouldn’t be effortless. He should have expected this sort of homecoming.
He scraped his palm on the reef. His left shoe was ripped from his foot. He cradled his harp with one hand and stretched out the other, hoping to find the surface. Only water greeted him this time, rippling through his fingers. In the dark, he opened his eyes and was startled when he saw a woman, darting past him in the water with gleaming scales, her long hair tickling his face.
He shivered and nearly forgot to swim.
The waves eventually had enough of him and coughed him out on a sandy stretch of beach. That was the only mercy they gave him. On the sand, he spluttered and crawled. He knew instantly that he was on Breccan soil, and the thought made his bones melt like wax. It took Jack a moment to rise and gain his bearings.
He could see the clan line. It was marked by rocks that sat in a row like teeth on the beach, running all the way into the ocean, where their tops eventually descended into the depths. It was roughly a kilometer away, and the distant glow of the lichen beckoned him to hurry, hurry.
Jack ran, one foot bare and frigid, the other squishing in a wet shoe. He wove around tangles of driftwood and a small eddy that gleamed like a dream about to break. He crawled under a rock arch, slipped over another boulder that was crinkled with moss, and finally reached the clan line.
He hefted himself over the rocks damp from sea mist. With a gasp, he stumbled onto Tamerlaine territory. But he could finally breathe, and he stood on the sand and made himself inhale, deep and slow. One moment, it was quiet and peaceful, save for the rush of the tide. The next? Jack was knocked off his feet. He hit the ground, harp flying. His teeth went through his lip, and he struggled beneath the weight of someone manhandling him.
He had forgotten all about the East Guard in his desperation to reach Tamerlaine land.
“I have him!” called out his attacker, who actually sounded more like a zealous lad.
Jack wheezed but couldn’t find his voice. The weight on his chest lifted, and he felt two hands, hard like iron manacles, latch themselves to his ankles and drag him across the beach. Desperate, he reached out to recover his harp. He had no doubt that he would need to show Mirin’s plaid to prove who he was, since the laird’s letter had been in his cloak, now abandoned in the rowboat. But his arms were too heavy. Fuming, he relented to being toted.
“Can I kill him, captain?” the lad who was dragging Jack asked, all too eager.
“Maybe. Bring him yonder.”
That voice. Deep as a ravine with a trace of mirth. Terribly familiar, even after all these years away.
Just my fortune, Jack thought, closing his eyes as sand stung his face.
At last, the dragging ceased, and he lay on his back, exhausted.
“Is he alone?”
“Yes, captain.”
“Armed?”
“No, sir.”
Silence. And then Jack heard the crunch of boots on the sand and sensed someone looming over him. Carefully, he opened his eyes. Even in the dark with nothing but starlight to limn the guard’s face, Jack recognized him.
The constellations crowned Torin Tamerlaine as he stared down at Jack.
“Hand me your dirk, Roban,” said Torin, to which Jack’s shock morphed into terror.
Torin didn’t recognize him. But why should he? The last time Torin had seen and spoken to him, Jack had been ten years old, wailing, with thirteen thistle needles embedded in his face.
“Torin,” Jack wheezed.
Torin paused, but the dirk was in his grip now. “What did you say?”
Jack held up his hands, sputtering. “It’s me … Jack Tam … erlaine.”
Torin seemed to turn into rock. He didn’t move, blade poised above Jack, like an omen about to fall. And then he barked, “Bring me a lantern, Roban.”
The lad Roban scampered away, then returned with a lantern swinging in his hand. Torin took it and lowered the light, so it would spill across Jack’s face.
Jack squinted against the brightness. He tasted blood on his tongue, his lip swelling almost as much as his mortification, as he waited.
“By the spirits,” Torin said. The light finally receded, leaving splotches in Jack’s sight. “I don’t believe it.”
And he must have seen a trace of who Jack had been ten years ago. A malcontent, dark-eyed boy. Because Torin Tamerlaine threw his head back and laughed.
“Don’t just lie there. Stand up and let me get a better look at you, lad.”
Jack reluctantly obeyed Torin’s request. He stood and brushed the sand from his drenched clothes, wincing as his palm burned.
He delayed the inevitable, afraid to look at the guard he had once aspired to be. Jack studied his mismatched feet, the cut on his hand. All the while, he felt Torin’s gaze bore into him, and eventually he had to answer it.
He was surprised to discover they were now the same great height. But that was where their similarity ended.
Torin was built for the isle: broad shouldered and thick waisted, with sturdy, slightly bowed legs and arms corded with muscle. His hands were huge, his right one still casually holding the dirk’s hilt, and his face was cut square and anchored with a trim beard. His blue eyes were set wide, and one too many spars had left his nose crooked. His hair was long and bound back by two plaits, blond as a wheat field, even at midnight. He wore the same garments Jack remembered him by: a dark woolen tunic that reached his knees, a leather jerkin studded with silver, a hunting plaid of brown and red draped across his chest, held fast by a brooch set with the Tamerlaine crest. No trousers, but not many men of the isle bothered with them. Torin sported the customary knee-high boots made from untanned hide, shaped to his legs and held in place by leather thongs.
Jack wondered what Torin thought of him in return. Perhaps that he was too skinny, or looked weak and scrawny. That he was too pale from sitting indoors. That his clothes were drab and terrible, and his eyes jaded.
But Torin nodded his approval. “You’ve grown, lad. How old are you now?”
“I’ll be twenty-two this autumn,” said Jack.
“Good, good.” Torin glanced at Roban, who stood nearby, scrutinizing Jack. “It’s all right, Roban. He’s one of us. Mirin’s boy, in fact.”
That seemed to shock Roban. He couldn’t have been older than fifteen, and his voice cracked when he cried, “You’re Mirin’s son? She speaks of you often. You’re a bard!”
Jack nodded, wary.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a bard,” Roban continued.
“Yes, well,” Jack said, with a twinge of annoyance, “I hope you didn’t break my harp at the clan line.”
Roban’s lopsided smile dimmed. He stood frozen until Torin ordered him to recover the instrument. While Roban was gone, humbly searching, Jack followed Torin to a small campfire in the maw of a sea cave.
“Sit, Jack,” Torin said. He unbuckled his plaid and tossed it across the fire to Jack. “Dry yourself.”
Jack caught it awkwardly. He knew the moment he touched the plaid that this was one of Mirin’s enchanted weavings. What secret of Torin’s had she woven into it, Jack wondered with irritation, but he was too cold and wet to resist it. He draped the checkered wool around himself and stretched his hands out to the fire.
“Are you hungry?” Torin asked.
“No, I’m fine.” Jack’s stomach was still roiling from the voyage across the water, from the horror of being on Breccan soil, from nearly having every tooth knocked loose by Roban. He realized his hands were shaking. Torin noticed as well and extended a flask to Jack before he settled across the fire from him.
“I noticed you arrived from the west,” Torin said with a hint of suspicion.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Jack replied. “The mainlander rowing me to the isle turned coward. I had no choice but to swim, and the current brought me to the west.”
He took a bracing sip from the flask. The heather ale was refreshing, stirring his blood. He took a second swallow and felt steadier, stronger—owing, he knew, to consuming something that had been brewed on the isle. Food and drink here boasted flavor tenfold over mainland fare.
He glanced at Torin. Now that they were in the light, he could see the captain’s crest on his brooch. A leaping stag with a ruby in its eye. He also noticed the scar on Torin’s left palm.
“You’ve been promoted to captain,” said Jack. Although that was no surprise. Torin had been the most favored of guards from a very young age.
“Three years ago,” Torin replied. His face softened, as if his old recollections were as close as yesterday. “The last time I saw you, Jack, you were yea high, and you had—”
“Thirteen thistle needles in my face,” Jack finished drolly. “Does the East Guard still hold that challenge?”
“Every third spring equinox. I have yet to see another injury like yours, however.”
Jack stared at the fire. “You know, I always wanted to be one of the guard. I thought I could prove myself worthy of the east that night.”
“By falling on an armful of thistles?”
“I didn’t fall on them. They were shoved into my face.”
Torin scoffed. “By whom?”
By your lovely cousin, Jack wanted to reply, but he remembered that Torin was fiercely devoted to Adaira and most likely thought she was incapable of being so fiendish.
“No one important,” Jack replied, despite the glaring truth that Adaira was the Heiress of the East.
He almost asked Torin about her, but thought better of it. Jack hadn’t envisioned his childhood rival in years, but he now imagined Adaira as wed, maybe with a few bairns of her own. He imagined she was even more beloved than she had been as a youth.
Dwelling on her reminded Jack there was a gap in his knowledge. He didn’t know what had been happening on the isle while he was away, steeped in music. He didn’t know why Laird Alastair had summoned him. He didn’t know how many raids had occurred, if the Breccans were still a looming threat when the ice came.
Emboldened, he met Torin’s stare. “You meet every stray who crosses the clan line with instant death?”
“I wouldn’t have killed you, lad.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Torin was quiet, but he didn’t break their gaze. The firelight flickered over his rugged features, but there was no regret, no hint of shame in him. “It depends. Some stray Breccans are truly fooled by the spirits’ mischief. They misstep and they mean no harm. Others are scouting.”
“Have there been any raids recently?” Jack asked, dreading to learn if Mirin had been lying to him in her past letters. His mother lived close to western territory.
“There hasn’t been a raid since last winter. But I expect one will come soon. Once the cold arrives.”
“Where did this most recent raid happen?”
“The Elliotts’ croft,” Torin replied, but his eyes were sharp, as if he were beginning to piece together the lack of Jack’s knowledge. “You’re worried about your mum? Mirin’s farm hasn’t been raided since you were a lad.”
Jack remembered, although he had been so young he sometimes wondered if he had dreamt it. A group of Breccans had arrived one winter night, their horses turning the snow muddy in the yard. Mirin had held Jack in the corner of their house, one hand pressing his face into her chest so he couldn’t see, the other wielding a sword. Jack had listened as the Breccans took what they wanted—winter provisions and livestock from the byre and a few silver marks. They broke pottery, overturned piles of Mirin’s weavings. Quickly they went, as if they were underwater, holding their breaths, knowing they had only a moment before the East Guard arrived.
They hadn’t touched or spoken to Mirin or Jack. The two of them were inconsequential. Nor had Mirin challenged them. Calm she had been, inhaling long draws, but Jack remembered hearing the beat of her heart, swift as wings.
“Why have you come home, Jack?” Torin asked quietly. “None of us ever thought you would return. We assumed you had created a new life for yourself, as a bard on the mainland.”
“I’m only here for a brief visit,” Jack replied. “Laird Alastair asked me to return.”
Torin’s brows arched. “Did he now?”
“Yes. Do you know why?”
“I think I know why he’s summoned you,” Torin said. “We’ve been facing a terrible trouble. It’s been weighing heavily on the entire clan.”
Jack’s pulse quickened. “I don’t see how I can do anything about the Breccans’ raids.”
“It’s not the raids,” Torin replied. His eyes were glazed, as if he had seen a wraith. “No, it’s something much worse than that.”
Jack began to feel the cold creep into his skin. He was remembering the taste of isle-bred fear, how it felt to be lost when the land shifted. How storms could break at a moment’s notice. How the folk could be benevolent one day, and malevolent the next. How their capricious natures flowed like a river.
This place had always been dangerous, unpredictable. Wonders bloomed alongside dreads. But nothing could prepare him for what Torin said next.
“It’s our lasses, Jack,” he said. “Our girls are going missing.”
