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!”