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.”
CHAPTER 2
Sometimes Sidra saw the ghost of Torin’s first wife sitting at the table. The visits occurred when one season ended and another began, when change could be felt in the air. Donella Tamerlaine’s ghost liked to bask in the morning light, dressed in leather armor and plaid, watching as Sidra stood in the kitchen by the fire, cooking breakfast for Maisie.