Jack spent the next day studying Lorna’s music for the earth. He gathered pieces of nature, holding them in his hands, breathing their fragrance, studying their intricacy alongside her music. She had written a stanza for the grass, for the wildflowers, for the stones, for the trees, for the bracken. There were many different elements to this ballad, and Jack wanted to perfect them all, thinking that so long as he respected the earth and strove to honor it, there would be no need for him to be worried when he played.
But there was one problem.
His hands still ached, down to his fingertips.
“Jack?” Mirin knocked on the bedroom door. “May I enter?”
He hesitated, wondering if he should hide the strange harvest on his desk. In the end, he let it be, although he turned over Lorna’s music. “Yes. Come in, Mum.”
Mirin stepped inside, holding a bowl. She approached his desk, and while she noticed the stray pieces of nature scattered before him, she said nothing until she set the soup down.
“You need to eat.”
Jack eyed the nettle soup. “I’m not hungry, Mum.”
“I know you’re not,” said Mirin. “But you still need to eat.”
“I’ll eat later.”
“You should eat now,” she insisted. “It’ll help you recover faster.”
Jack glanced up at her, sharply. But when he saw the worry lining Mirin’s expression, he let his protest fade.
“You thought I wouldn’t notice?” she said. “Oh, Jack.”
“It’s nothing to fret about, Mum.”
“As I’m sure you’d like for me to say to you,” she countered. “Prove me wrong and take a few sips.”
He sighed but relented, lifting the edge of the bowl to his lips. He drank until his stomach began to churn, and he set it aside.
“What’s ailing you the most?” Mirin persisted.
“My hands,” he said, curling his fingers inwards. Every knuckle emitted a vibrant ache, and he wasn’t sure how long he would be able to play his harp.
“Have you seen Sidra about it?”
“No.”
“You should visit her. She’ll be able to provide you with tonics that will help ease your symptoms.”
“I don’t want something that will dull my senses,” he said.
“They won’t,” Mirin replied. “Sidra knows what to mix to avoid such things.”
She slipped out of the room, leaving behind the bowl of nettle soup. Jack stared at it, then flexed his hands again. After considering Mirin’s suggestion for a few more minutes, he knew she was right.
Jack had never been one to ask for help, but if he was to play this long ballad, he needed it.
He rose from his desk, packed up his harp, and walked to Sidra’s house.
Sidra wanted to lose herself in work. When she was in the company of her herbs, she didn’t think about Maisie being lost, frightened, or dead. When she held her pestle and mortar, Sidra didn’t think about being assaulted on the hill that had previously held nothing but good memories for her. When she brought ingredients together, she didn’t think of the new strain on her marriage to Torin, because the one thing they had built it on had vanished.
No, she thought only of nettles and bogbean, spoonwort and coltsfoot, elderflower and primrose.
When it was dark, she feared being alone in this cottage. But in the light? She wanted to be on familiar ground, working. She wanted to make something good with her hands, or else she felt utterly useless.
She wanted to be here, in case Maisie found her way home.
Torin and the East Guard had all been tirelessly working—searching homes for the kidnapper and the lasses, searching graveyards for the flowers—and Sidra had concocted a new tonic for them. One that would keep them sharp and alert, even on little sleep. She was almost done with a new batch when a tentative knock sounded on her door.
Sidra paused. She wasn’t expecting anyone, and she almost reached for her paring knife, her heart quickening.
“Sidra?” a voice called.
She recognized it. Jack Tamerlaine, the bard. One of the last people she ever expected to call upon her.
Sidra quickly answered the door. Jack stood in her yard, squinting against the sunlight. He had brought his harp, which surprised her.
“I hope I’m not bothering you,” he began, hesitant.
“No, not at all,” Sidra replied. Her voice was hoarse from weeping, from a long night with little sleep. “How can I help you, Jack?”
“I wanted to see if you could make a tonic for me.”
She nodded, motioning him to step inside. She shut the door and returned to her table. He was gazing down at all of her herbs, as if she had caught a rainbow and laid it over the wood.
“I want to say how sorry I am,” he said, glancing at her. “About Maisie.”
Sidra nodded. Her throat was suddenly too narrow to speak.
“And I wanted to tell you that I’m doing everything that I can to help find her,” Jack said. It seemed like he wanted to say more but refrained. He flexed one of his hands; the motion caught Sidra’s attention.
“Your hands ail you?” she asked.
“Yes. They ache when I play certain songs.”
“Is that all of your symptoms?”
“No, there are others.”
She listened as he described them. Sidra had assisted with enough magic-imposed illnesses to know Jack was suffering from one. Most magic wielders suffered from headaches, chills, loss of appetite, and fevers. Others developed hacking coughs, insomnia, pain in their extremities, even nosebleeds. It seemed Jack was experiencing several symptoms, which meant he had cast a powerful magic. And while she didn’t have the details of its inspiration, she knew the magic had to come from his craft. From his music.
She wondered if he had come home just for the missing lasses or if he’d inadvertently become caught up in the mystery after he arrived. There seemed little that a bard could do to help find the clan’s girls, even as talented as Jack likely was, but Sidra knew there was unspoken power in music. She remembered being a young girl, sitting in the hall on full moon feast nights. She remembered inhaling Lorna Tamerlaine’s songs as if they were air.
An unexpected peace settled over Sidra as she worked to make Jack two different remedies: a salve to spread on his hands when they ached, and a tonic for him to drink to ease his headaches. There was nothing she could do for the nosebleeds, save instruct him on how to apply pressure to ease the bleeding when it happened.
“That’s fine, Sidra,” he said. “It’s my hands I’m most concerned about.”
He sat in a chair and watched her work. She was lost in her thoughts when he asked, “Have many of your patients died prematurely from wielding magic?”
Sidra paused, glancing across the table at him. “Yes. Although there are many factors at play.”
“Such as what?”
“How often the magic is wielded,” Sidra began, crushing a medley of herbs and ingredients together. “How long the magic is cast. And the depth of the magic. A weaver, for instance, casts deep magic standing at the loom, and it takes a good while to weave an enchanted plaid. But someone like a fisherman, making an enchanted net, can work faster and not have to worry about details as much. The magical cost, then, is not as demanding for a fisherman as it is for a weaver.”
Jack was silent. Sidra looked at him and saw how pale he was. She should have used a different example, because she read his mind: he was worrying about Mirin.
“Your mother is very wise and cautious,” Sidra added. “She takes time between enchanted commissions, and she is very faithful about drinking her tonics.”
“Yes. But the cost has already stolen some of her best years, hasn’t it?” he countered.
Sidra finished making the salve. She picked up the bowl and approached Jack, hating to see the sadness in his eyes.
“I may know the secrets of herbs,” she said. “But I’m not a seer. I can’t foretell what is to come, but I do know that the people who wield magic are made of a different mettle than most. They are passionate about what they do; their craft is as much a part of them as breathing. To deny it would be like losing a piece of themselves. And while there is a cost and a direct consequence to spinning enchantments, none of them see it as a burden but as a gift.”
Jack was silent, scowling. But he was listening to her.
“So yes, the magic might steal years from you,” she said. “Yes, it will make you ill and you will have to learn how to care for yourself in a new way. But I don’t think you’ll choose to give up your craft either, will you, Jack?”
“No,” he said.
“Then hold out your hands.”
He obliged, with his harp balanced carefully on his lap. Sidra spread the salve over the backs of his hands, over every knuckle and vein.
“It might take a moment to feel its effects,” she said, transferring the rest of the salve into a jar he could take with him.
Jack closed his eyes. After a minute, he flexed his hands again and grinned. “Yes, this has been a tremendous help. Thank you, Sidra.”
She brought him his tonic and the salve. Jack tucked both jars in his pocket before asking, “How much do I owe you?”
Sidra returned to the table. “You owe me nothing.”
“I was worried you might say that,” Jack said wryly. He began to remove his harp from its skin. “I would like to play for you, while you work. If you will let me.”
Sidra was stunned. She stared as he propped the harp against his left shoulder. It had been so long since she had enjoyed music.
She smiled. “I would love that.”
“Do you have any requests?” Jack asked as he tuned the harp.
“I do, in fact. Lorna used to play a ballad on feast nights. I believe it was called ‘The Last Moon of Autumn.’”
“I know the very one,” Jack replied.
He began to strum. His notes filled the chamber, driving away the sadness and the shadows. Sidra closed her eyes, amazed at how the song could take her back in time to a bittersweet moment. She was sixteen, her hair in two long braids, anchored by red ribbons. She was sitting in the castle hall with her grandmother, listening to Lorna play her harp. This very song.
A slight breeze touched her face.
Sidra opened her eyes and saw the front door was agape. Adaira stood on the threshold, frozen by Jack’s music as it continued to trickle through the cottage. Sidra studied her friend closely; she had never seen this expression on Adaira’s face before, as if all the longings within her had gathered into one place.
Jack was wholly unaware he had a new audience member until he reached the end. His music faded in the air and he glanced up, his eyes finding Adaira. The silence felt tense, as if the two of them wanted to speak but couldn’t.
Sidra broke the spell.
“That was beautiful,” she said. “Thank you, Jack.”
He nodded and began to put his harp away. “I appreciate your help, Sidra.”
“My door is always open to you.” She watched as he rose and approached the threshold. Adaira angled her body so he could slip past her, and they still said nothing to each other, even as the air crackled.
Now that Jack was gone, Adaira entered the house, shutting the door. Sidra knew she had come to be with her, to keep her company, and to help create the guards’ tonics.
Adaira glanced over the table and rolled up her sleeves. “Tell me what to do, Sid.”
Sometimes this was what Sidra loved best about Adaira. Her willingness to get dirty, to learn new things. How direct she was.
She was the younger sister Sidra never had but always yearned for.
“Crush this stack of herbs for me,” Sidra said, edging the pestle and mortar toward her.
Adaira began to work, crushing with intensity. Sidra understood it, that nagging feeling: I need to do something. I need to do something that has meaning.
“What did you help him with?” Adaira eventually asked.
“Who do you speak of, Adi?”
“Jack, of course. Why was he here?”
Sidra reached for an empty bottle. She began to pour the tonic within it. “You know I can’t say why.”
Adaira pressed her lips together. She was tempted to draw it out of Sidra, and as the future laird, perhaps she could. But Sidra held her patients’ secrets like her own, and Adaira knew it.
The women fell silent, working together in tandem. Adaira was corking the bottles when she finally spoke again, her tone heavy.
“I need your advice, Sid.” She hesitated. “I don’t want to burden you with this. Not when you’re going through so much yourself. But time is not on my side.”
“Tell me what’s on your mind, Adi,” Sidra said gently.
She listened as Adaira spoke about the confidential trade, the letters she had been writing to Moray Breccan. The invitation to visit the west, and the first trade exchange, both of which were to be done alone.
“Sometimes I worry that I’m choosing the wrong path,” Adaira said with a sigh. “That my inexperience is going to doom us. That I’m foolish to yearn for peace.”
“It’s not a foolish dream,” Sidra was swift to respond. “And you are right to seek a new way of life for our clan, Adaira. For too long we’ve been raised on fear and hatred, and it’s time for things to change. I think many of the Tamerlaines inwardly feel the same and would follow you anywhere, even if that means a few difficult years of rethinking who we are and what this isle beneath our feet should become.”
Adaira met Sidra’s gaze. “I’m relieved you agree, Sid. But I still have a problem with the trade.”
“Tell me.”
“The Breccans need our resources, but what do we need from them? Their enchanted plaids and swords that they use to attack us with? Do I dare ask for such things, knowing it’s counterproductive for this notion of peace I’m working to establish between us?”
Sidra was quiet, but her mind was racing.
“This is what my father and Torin persist in asking me,” Adaira continued. “The Breccans have nothing we need. This trade will favor them at our expense, and it may not even halt their raiding ways. Torin predicts this will happen—the trade will be good for a season, and we’ll give our stores to them. But come winter, the Breccans will decide to raid. Such an action would tip us into war.”
“There’s a chance Torin is right,” Sidra said. “It’s a possibility we must prepare for, as much as I wish to reassure you peace would be easy and bloodless to obtain.” Her gaze swept the table, absently passing over her herbs. Her eyes caught on the last Orenna flower, which she was storing in a glass vial. A chill coursed through her, and she rubbed her chest. Her bruises were aching today as her body began to heal. “But what if the Breccans have something we need?”
Adaira frowned. “What do you mean, Sid?”
Sidra reached for the vial. She held the Orenna flower up to the light and realized her hand was trembling. She hadn’t dared to think along these lines yet because Torin was determined to find her assaulter in the east, having felt no one crossing the clan line. But neither had he found a graveyard, peppered with small crimson blooms.
“Has Torin told you about this flower?”
“Briefly,” Adaira said. “He believes it may be aiding the kidnapper.”
Sidra nodded. “This flower is called Orenna, and it only grows on a small patch of dry, heartsick land. Somewhere on the isle, in a graveyard. We have yet to find such a place in the east.”
Adaira studied the flower. Her eyes widened. “You think …”
“This flower may be growing in the west,” Sidra concluded. “I haven’t said as much to Torin yet because I’m hopeful he will find the graveyard here. But if the Orenna flower is growing on Breccan soil, not only could we use it for ourselves, but it would mean that the west is somehow involved with our missing lasses.”
Adaira released a deep breath. “Torin hasn’t felt anyone crossing the clan line, though.”
“No, he hasn’t, which does lend credence to the perpetrator being one of our own,” Sidra said. “But maybe there is a trade happening that we don’t know of. Perhaps the culprit is secretly receiving flowers from the west.”
Adaira bit her lip. Sidra could sense how conflicted she was, and yet her eyes were bright. Feverish. Now that Adaira had entertained Sidra’s thoughts, she couldn’t unsee them.
“What is the best way for me to receive this information?” Adaira asked.
Sidra set the glass vial in her palm. “I think you go to meet Moray Breccan on the clan line in three days’ time, as he has requested. Generously bring him the best of the Tamerlaine oats, barley, honey, and wine. Whatever he offers you in return, accept with gratitude, but then ask him about this flower. Say you would like to trade for its blooms. If he says he doesn’t recognize it, then he might be speaking truth or he might be lying. If he does recognize the flower, then we know the west is involved, even if it’s something as simple as passing flowers over the clan line. Either way, you have a chance to discover it for yourself by participating in the trade, and I think you have the right to take someone with you.”
Adaira was silent, regarding the flower.
Sidra glanced down at her hands, where her golden wedding band gleamed on her finger. She and Torin had had no qualms about exchanging a blood vow at their wedding. They spoke the ancient words and cut their palms. Their hands were bound together, wound to wound. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. It was a vow not easily broken, although Sidra was beginning to wonder how long it would last without Maisie.
“The Breccans may deny you a guard,” Sidra said, watching Adaira. “Or your father. Or even a handmaiden. But they can’t deny you a husband.”
Adaira flushed, as if her mind had already gravitated toward such thoughts. She had been in no rush to marry in the past, which Sidra thought wise. But it was time for the future Laird of the East to take a partner. If she was going to forge a difficult and potentially bloody peace, she needed someone to carry her through it. To walk at her side. To confide in. To comfort her on long, lonely nights.
Sidra didn’t have to ask who Adaira was considering.
She already knew.
Adaira gave herself the rest of the day to think about it. A day she spent roaming the hills, searching for a sign. A day that produced no answers from Torin and the guard, despite their interviews and observations. When Adaira realized she wasn’t going to waver and that time was against her, she decided to move forward with her plans.
She waited until the moon rose, thinking she would be braver at night, and dressed simply in a dark dress and cloak. She rode to Mirin’s croft, following the stars.
She dismounted at the road and left her horse hobbled by a tree. Quietly walking through the yard, she located Jack’s bedroom window. He was still awake, as she hoped he would be. The candlelight seeped through his shutters, and she walked to them, a moth drawn to the fire.
Even so determined, she hesitated when she reached her destination. She stood at the window and debated with herself.
I can’t believe I’m doing this, she thought and finally knocked.
She was tempted to turn and run when she heard him cautiously unlatch his shutters. They swung open, at last revealing Jack. His scowl melted into disbelief when he saw it was her.
“Adaira?”
“I need to have a word with you, Jack.”
He glanced about his room before returning his gaze to her, standing in the moonlight. “Now?”
“Aye. It can’t wait.”
“Well, come in then. But be quiet. I don’t want you to wake my mum.” He extended his hand to her, and Adaira accepted it, shocked by how warm his fingers were as they entwined with her cold ones.
She lifted her hem and let Jack haul her up through the window. Her boots clunked on the top of his desk, which was strewn with all manner of oddities. Twigs, rocks, clumps of moss, braids of grass, wilted wildflowers. Adaira stepped down to the floor, still holding his hand, and she turned to gaze at the strange collection.
“What is all of this?” she asked.
“Preparation,” he replied. “I should be ready to play for the earth by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Good.” Adaira felt his fingers unwind from hers. He flexed his hand, and she wondered if he disliked touching her. Or maybe there was another reason he disengaged his hand. She watched as he walked to his bed, where Lorna’s music was scattered. He gathered up the loose sheets and attempted to straighten the wrinkled blanket, to offer her a place to sit.
“I prefer to stand,” she said when he turned to her. “But you should sit.”
Jack’s brows lowered with suspicion. “Why?”
“Trust me.”
To her surprise, he did. He sat on the edge of his bed and carefully set her mother’s composition beside his pillow. “Now then. Are you going to tell me why you’ve come to my room like a thief in the night?”
She smiled but delayed answering him while she meandered around his chamber, studying it. Jack was quiet, suffering through her examination of his things. She expected him to protest or rush her along—he was such an impatient man—but he was silent, and when she at last came to a stop before him, his eyes, inscrutable and deliciously dark, were fixed on hers. Almost as if he knew why she had come.
She shivered.
Her heart quickened as she knelt on one knee before him, a position she would take for no other man save her father.
Jack watched her intently. She didn’t know how exactly she had expected him to react—whether he would laugh, curse, frown, or scorn her. He did none of those things. As his eyes remained on her, she knew he realized the magnitude of her bending a knee to him.
Her hair flowed down her shoulders like a shield, and yet her courage wavered. He will never agree to this, she thought, but it was too late now. He must know her intentions, and she was too proud to alter her course.
“John Tamerlaine,” she began to say.
“Jack.”
Adaira blinked, astounded he had just interrupted her proposal. “Your given and legal name is John.”
“But I answer only to Jack.”
“Very well then,” Adaira said through her teeth, and she could feel the color rising in her face. “Jack Tamerlaine. Handfast yourself to me. Give me your vow and be my husband for a year and a day, and thereafter should we both desire it.”
Jack was silent, as if he expected her to say more. Adaira keenly felt the pain in her knee as she held her position. The prickling dread of waiting for his answer. When his silence dragged on, she let out a huff of air.
“What do you say, Jack? Give me an answer, so I may rise.”
He dragged his hand through his hair, leaving it more tousled than it had been before. His expression was solemn, conflicted, as he continued to regard her. “Why, Adaira? Why are you asking me? Is it because you need someone to go with you into the west?”
“Yes,” she said. She didn’t tell him the whole of it. She didn’t tell him that she was lonely, that she was overwhelmed some days with all the responsibilities that were set before her. That she sometimes wanted to be held and listened to and touched, that she wanted to be with someone who challenged her, sharpened her, made her laugh. Someone she could trust.
She looked at Jack and she saw that person. She didn’t love him, but maybe in time she would. If they decided to remain as one.
“You know what I am,” he said in a flat voice.
“A bard?”
“A bastard. I have no father, no proud lineage, no lands. I have nothing to offer you, Adaira.”
“There is much you can offer me,” she countered, heady from the mere thought of his music. Spirits below, he had no idea the power he wielded. “And those things you mention don’t matter to me.”
“But they matter to me,” Jack said, with a fist over his heart. He leaned closer to her, so that their breaths mingled. “People will be appalled when they realize you want to marry me. That you chose me. Out of all the men in the east, I am the most unworthy.”
“Let them,” Adaira said. “Let them be appalled, let them talk. Let them say whatever they want. It will soon fade, I promise you. And when it fades … it will be you and me and the truth. And that is all that matters in the end.”
She studied his face—the faint lines in his brow made from a stern countenance, the press of his lips, the brown hair dangling over his left eye—and realized he was still unconvinced. He was debating if he wanted to accept her or not, and Adaira didn’t know what she would do if he refused her. She didn’t need him; she could rule the east on her own. Likewise, she could ask another man to marry and accompany her into the west. But in some deep, hidden place she had found that she wanted her husband to be him.
She had thought it wiser and more enticing for both of them to offer him a handfast—a marriage by trial, which would last just over a year. If they came to hate one another again, they could part ways and be no longer bound by oath when the agreement ended. Or they could remain wed and take a blood vow, if they desired it.
“All of this,” he said. “Marrying your ‘old menace,’ choosing to bind yourself to me—someone far beneath you. All of this trouble only to visit and establish trade with our enemies? Why wouldn’t you choose a partner who could be your shield? A member of the guard, perhaps?”
He’s being ridiculously logical, Adaira thought. She wondered how to reply to him. She wanted to tell him that she could see through him—he was holding to logic in order to keep his emotions at bay. But then she saw the glint of doubt in him. She saw the hurt in his eyes. He was hiding a wound. He had never felt claimed; he had never felt as if he belonged here. She vividly remembered him saying those words to her.
“You’re right,” she said. “I could choose a member of the guard to bind myself to. I could choose anyone in the east who is eligible. Yet there’s a problem with such a choice, Jack.”
He was quiet. She could sense the battle raging within him, to remain aloof and uninterested, or to ask her to explain.
“What problem do you speak of, Adaira?” he eventually said.
“None of them are the one that I want,” she breathed.
She hadn’t been this vulnerable with someone in a long time. It was terrifying, and she could feel the heat in her skin, the flush creeping over her. Because Jack was silent.
“I know you have a life on the mainland waiting for you,” she rushed to add. “I know that our handfast would keep you away longer than you wanted. But the clan needs you. You can take up the mantle as Bard of the East, and even if we choose to end our marriage after a year and a day … you would remain bard here, should you desire it.”
Jack was like stone.
Adaira must have miscalculated. He must still detest her and the clan.
When she made to rise, he stretched out his hand, as if to touch her, but then he hesitated, just before his fingers could caress her hair. “Wait, Adaira. Wait.”
She paused, thinking her knee would be completely out of socket by the end of this tumultuous night. But she watched the hint of a smile overcome his face, and she was stunned by the beauty of it. The promise that gleamed within him, a man who rarely smiled.
“I honestly don’t even know what to say, Adaira.”
“You say yes or no, Jack.”
He covered his mouth with his hand, hiding his mirth, and stared at her with his ocean-dark eyes. But he rose, and he took hold of her fingers, bringing her with him, up to her tingling feet.
“Then my answer is yes,” he whispered. “I’ll marry you by handfast.”
Relief rushed through her. She nearly sagged, and then felt how near he stood to her, so close she could feel the warmth of his body.
“Good. Oh, that reminds me, bard,” she said and took a graceful step back, their hands still fastened. “I have a condition.”
“Gods,” Jack groaned. “You couldn’t tell me your condition before you asked me to wed you?”
“No, but you won’t mind.” Her eyes flickered to the bed behind him, and the words nearly caught in her throat like a bone. “Once we’re married, we keep to our separate beds. At least for now.” When she met his gaze again, she couldn’t discern if he was disappointed or relieved. His face was as composed as music, a language she couldn’t read.
“Agreed,” he said and squeezed her hands before releasing them. “And now I have something to say to you.”
Adaira waited, her heart beating far too swiftly for her liking. Jack was staring at her, as if he were about to divulge dire information.
“Well?” she prodded, bracing herself for the worst. “What is it?”
“Quite impatient, aren’t we?”
Adaira frowned, but she saw the amusement shining in his eyes. “You have made me wait quite a bit tonight, old menace.”
“Only for a minute or two,” he replied. “For which you will now have me for an entire year and a day, so I think it was worth the wait.”
“Time will tell, won’t it?” she quipped.
Jack snorted and crossed his arms, but she sensed he was enjoying their banter. “Perhaps I should tell you my news tomorrow then.”
“But tomorrow already has enough trouble planned,” Adaira said, biting her lip to resist begging him.
He grinned. She had never beheld such joy in him, and she almost reached out to trace his face.
“Then let me tell you now, heiress. I would be honored to play for the clan as Bard of the East.”
She swallowed, struggling to hide her elation. But a smile broke across her lips; she could feel tears pricking the corners of her eyes.
“That’s good news, Jack. Perhaps we can have a ceremony for you, and we can—”
“No ceremony,” he gently interrupted. “When I become your husband, I also become the clan’s bard. Don’t you agree that is best?”
Adaira nodded, rubbing her collarbone. “Yes, you’re right. This will help temper the clan’s expectations as well, since you might only play for a year and a day. I know there is a chance of you deciding to leave if our handfast breaks, and … yes, the clan should know that.”
Jack was silent for a beat. But his eyes held hers, and he whispered, “I think it’s fair enough to say that I won’t be returning to the mainland, Adaira.”
She breathed in his words and held them deep within her, uncertain how to respond. “Are you certain, Jack? You might change your mind a few months from now.”
“I’m certain. If I wanted to go back, I would have by now.”
“The clan … the clan will be very happy to hear this.”
“Yes,” he said. “When is the handfast?”
“It needs to be soon.”
“How soon?”
She hesitated before answering, “Two days?”
“Is that a question or a statement, Adaira?”
“I have to meet Moray Breccan at the clan line in three days for the trade of goods,” she said. “I would like for you to be there with me, as my husband.”
Jack stared at her, his lips parting. She knew this was happening fast. She could sense how he was reeling, and she worried that she had asked too much of him in one night.
“So we’ll play for the earth tomorrow,” he said, listing their tasks on his fingers. “The next day we’ll marry. And the day after that we’ll go to our deaths at the clan line for a trade?”
“We’re not going to die,” Adaira said. “But yes, that’s the plan, if I’m not asking too much of you.”
“It’s not too much,” said Jack. “Although I must confess … you have my thoughts spinning.”
“Then I should go,” she whispered. “Let you get some rest.”
A small voice told her to prepare herself. That come morning Jack would have changed his mind and she would be deposited back where she started.
She had been let down before, broken by silver-tongued promises, and she wanted to protect herself from it. She wanted to slip back into her old armor, even as Jack’s eyes traced her.
“I’ll come to you tomorrow, just after noontide,” he said. “There’s something I must attend to in the morning, but after that I’ll be ready to play.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you, Jack.”
He moved to clear off the center of his desk, so she could easily step on it this time without disturbing his fragments of nature. Jack offered his hand again, and she took it, her fingers like ice as she climbed onto the desk and slipped out the window, cloak flapping in her wake. Her ankles jarred when she hit the grass, and she stood for a moment, uncertain if she should bid her betrothed farewell.
She turned to see him leaning on his desk, staring at her as if he was trying to convince himself that this wasn’t a dream. The firelight limned his face, burned in his eyes like stars.
No, Adaira thought as she drew up her hood, her face shadowed and hidden from him. No further words were necessary.
Adaira wrote her response that night, not long after she returned from visiting Jack. She sat at her desk in her bedroom and listened to the fire as it crackled in her hearth, listened to the wind as it tapped on the glass. She took out a sheet of parchment, selected a fresh quill, and opened her pot of ink.
Dear Moray,
I have received your letter, and I agree to meet you at the clan line in three days’ time at noontide on the northern coast. I will bring the best my clan has to offer you, and I am eager to see what the west will offer in return. As you stated before, let this exchange between us be the first step toward peace, and a new season for our isle.
You asked me to come alone for the trade, and while I will meet you unarmed and without my guard, my husband will be present. We can then discuss my imminent visit to the west. We look forward to meeting you face-to-face.
Adaira Tamerlaine
HEIRESS OF THE EAST
She sealed it with her clan crest and watched the wax harden. It was midnight when she rose and carried the letter to the aviary, where she chose the sleekest raven to deliver her message.
She watched as it flew west, into the darkest hour of night.
