Torin had been speechless, uncertain what to say to the desperate woman. But it had turned his thoughts toward more dangerous, risky contemplations.
Jack was quiet, waiting for Torin’s attention. The wind carved a path between them, but there were no whispers within it that morning.
“I heard something strange last night,” Jack began, and Torin’s focus sharpened. He listened as Jack told him about the shutters rattling, the shadow that had fled into the hills.
“You saw them?” Torin demanded. “What did they look like? Which manner of spirit was it? Earth? Water?”
“I saw a shadow moving,” Jack corrected. He paused, hesitant. “I couldn’t determine how it was built. But it has me wondering … are the spirits becoming bolder? Have they been approaching houses with the intention to enter, uninvited?”
“It’s rare, but I’ve heard stories of them doing so in the past,” Torin replied. “And if it truly was a spirit knocking on your window last night … it’s a sign they’re growing cold and cruel. To steal a lass directly from her home.”
Jack frowned. “Could it mean that there is trouble brewing in the spirit’s realm?”
“Perhaps,” Torin said. “But there’s no true way of knowing, now, is there? If they refuse to manifest and speak directly to us, we can only wonder.” He sighed, motioning for his guards to gather. “If you think something might be hiding in the west hills, we’ll search there.”
Torin began to chart his course by the rising sun, heading toward Mirin’s croft, but Jack stopped him.
“You don’t think it was a Breccan scout, do you, Torin?”
Torin paused, let his guards pass by him before he responded. “If it was a Breccan, I would know. No one crosses the clan line without my knowledge.” And he flexed his left hand, the one that bore the scar.
Three years ago, Alastair had named Torin the Captain of the East Guard. After the ceremony, Torin had held out his hand, and the laird had cut his palm with his sword—steel enchanted with awareness. The pain had run deep, deeper than any other blade Torin had ever felt. It sank into his bones and relentlessly ached, as if his hand had been cleft in two. He had carried that pain and walked the edges of Eastern Cadence—her rugged coastline, her border between west and east—letting his blood drip on the earth and the water. Just as the Captain of the East Guard had done before him. No one could step foot on Eastern Cadence without him feeling it.
His blood was bound to the land.
He could have told Jack that the last scout he had intercepted had been on the southern shore of Cadence, near the place where Roban had confronted Jack the other night. But Torin didn’t.
He didn’t tell Jack it had been a Breccan warrior who had attempted to swim his way over, who foolishly believed that Torin couldn’t feel a trespasser in the eastern tides. He didn’t tell Jack that the Breccan had been armed and viciously fought Torin in the sand, or that Torin had interrogated the scout in the same cave where he had given his plaid and heather ale to Jack in welcome. He didn’t tell Jack that when the Breccan had remained silent, giving none of his plans away, Torin had killed him and dumped his body in the ocean.
No, he hadn’t told anyone of that night. Not even Sidra.
He parted ways with Jack, following the trail his guards had forged up the hill. And Torin had to finally ask himself … What? What was he was searching for? A ribbon, a shoe, a shred of clothing? A physical trace that would lead him somewhere? A door that opened to another realm? A manifested spirit who would be helpful and guide him to the girls? A body? His initial search for Eliza and Annabel had been unsuccessful, but perhaps that was because he was relying on his physical limitations.
When he reached his guards on the road, Torin sent them ahead to Mirin’s with orders to search her land. He trailed behind, his eyes sweeping the thick grass and the deer trails, and he was almost to Mirin’s croft when he came across a glen he had never encountered before. A narrow, deep valley with a river flowing along its floor, trickling over rocks.
He paused, wondering if this river would lead to a portal. Ever since he was a lad, Torin had longed to uncover one, to pass through a doorway that would usher him into the spirits’ domain.
Feeling compelled to search this glen, Torin slid down the steep bank and walked in the shallow currents. He followed its winding path, his eyes peeling the rocks and dangling roots for a hidden door. Water was seeping into his boots when he unexpectedly came upon a bothy built on the stony bank. It was small and rugged, almost unnoticeable if one didn’t look closely, built of woven branches and vines. A hole in its mossy roof let out puffs of smoke.
He stopped in the river, uncertain as to who occupied it. The hair rose on his arms the longer he regarded the bothy, as if this place was holy ground where spirits gathered. He cautiously moved forward, hand on the hilt of his sword, and knocked on the driftwood door.
“Come in,” a voice beckoned him, smooth and melodic. A young woman’s voice.
When Torin pushed the door, it creaked inward, but he remained on the threshold. He had never seen a spirit manifested. He had only ever heard their whispers on the wind, and felt their warmth in the fire, and breathed their fragrance in the grass, and drunk their generosity in the water from the loch. So he didn’t know what to expect as his eyes adjusted to the dim light.
“Are you afraid?” the woman said with a laugh. He still couldn’t see her in the shadows. “Come inside. I’m not a spirit, if that’s what you fear.”
He cautiously entered the bothy, stooping to avoid hitting his head on the mossy lintel.
There was a small peat fire burning in a ring of stones. A tiny table held a collection of books, a cauldron of parritch, and a bowl of blackberries. A shelf was crowded with carved figurines. A basket of branches sat beside a rocking chair, and in the chair was a woman, ancient and silver haired, her gnarled hands whittling a slender piece of wood.
Torin stared at her, confused, but her eyes remained on her work. The confident whisking of her knife and the wood shavings that fell with her motions. It almost looked as if she was carving a reflection of him …
“Ah, it is the esteemed Captain of the East Guard,” the woman said, glancing at him and recognizing his plaid and crest. Again, her voice was young and vibrant. “You were not expecting me to look like this, were you?”
He was silent, disturbed.
“Old and weathered, you would call me,” she continued, “with a voice that does not match how I appear.”
“Who are you?” Torin asked.
She finally ceased her whittling, piercing him with a set of watery blue eyes. “You wouldn’t know me. I don’t belong in your time, captain. That is why my body has aged, but my voice has not.”
“Then what time are you from? How did you come to live on this river?”
She nodded to her shelf of figurines. “Choose one, and I shall tell you. This is my penance for a vow I broke, long ago: I must tell visitors my story before I may answer a question of theirs in return, for this glen is cursed, beckoning only those who are in great need. But choose wisely, captain. A figurine as well as a question, for my voice will last only so long before it fades.”
Torin wanted to ask her about the missing girls but held the words back, heeding her warning. He turned to the shelf, gazing at the collection. There were more than he could count, a variety of women, men, and beasts hewn from all types of wood. But his eyes were drawn to one figurine in particular. Her hair was long, unbound, studded with flowers, and one hand rested over her heart, the other reaching out with invitation.