Jack finished knotting his boot tethers. He met Mirin’s gaze from the other side of the room. “I’m going to the Elliotts’.”
“That’s six kilometers from here, son.”
“Well, I’ll not sit here and do nothing. I’ll run there. Perhaps the land will aid me tonight.” He glanced down to the sword in his hand. “Do you have another sword, Mum?”
“No. A bow and a quiver.”
“May I use them?”
Mirin was silent, but then she looked at Frae. “Go and get the bow and quiver for your brother, Frae.”
Frae scampered into the bedroom for the second time that night, her fingers like ice as she found the weapons. When she returned, she saw her mother had knotted a plaid across Jack’s chest, to guard his heart and his lungs. It was enchanted. Mirin had woven it for him years ago, and he didn’t look thrilled to be wearing it until Mirin took a firm hold of his chin—Frae knew that meant she was very angry—and stared at Jack, saying, “You wear the plaid and go, or you don’t and stay here with us, Jack. Which will it be?”
He decided to wear the plaid, as Frae knew he would. She didn’t understand why he hated the enchantment so much, and she brought him the quiver and the bow, her heart hammering fiercely in her chest.
Jack smiled at her, as if it was a peaceful night. It calmed her as he buckled the quiver to his shoulder. He set the sword in her hands. “I’ll return soon.”
And then he was gone. Frae stood by the fire, numb at first until her fear returned, swelling like a wasp sting. The hilt of the sword was warm and heavy in her grip. She stared at it as if she had never seen a sword before.
“Remember the third rule, Frae?” Mirin said as she poured them a cup of tea.
Frae remembered. The rules brought her back to life, and she walked into her bedchamber yet again and found her own plaid, folded on the bench.
Frae returned to the fire and stood before her mother as Mirin wrapped the plaid around her thin body, knotting it firmly at Frae’s shoulder.
“There,” said Mirin. “That’s how the guards wear their plaids too.”
Frae tried to smile, but her eyes burned with tears. She wished Jack had stayed in the house.
She propped the weapon on the tea table and curled up beside her mother on the divan, determined to stay awake, listening to every sound—the howl of the wind, the occasional rattle of the shutters, the creaks of the cottage, the pop of the fire. Sounds that made her stiffen, until she set her head on Mirin’s lap and her mother caressed her hair, humming a happy song. A song Frae had not heard in a long time.
She drifted to sleep, but the stranger with his blue tattoos and his great horse followed her into her dreams.
Torin was standing on the hill between his croft and his father’s, desperate for an answer as to where his daughter had been taken. He always began in the place where Sidra had stabbed the culprit, following her descent down the hill until anger burned in his marrow. Sidra had lain here, unconscious for only the spirits knew how long. Whoever this man was, Torin was going to find and kill him. As he crouched in the crushed heather, he thought about how he would slowly end this person’s life. The sky above him teemed with stars and a waxing moon, and he let out a frustrated sigh when suddenly his left hand began to ache, as if he had plunged it into ice water. The throbbing quickly intensified, stealing his breath.
Torin waited for the pain to either subside or expand, counting the pulses. Five trespassers. He closed his eyes, seeing the place where the Breccans had crossed. The Elliotts’ croft.
He wanted to be surprised that the Breccans were raiding in summer, the day after the successful trade. But Torin could only chide himself.
He should have expected this.
He turned and ran back to the cottage, which was dark. Sidra was staying with Graeme at night, to Torin’s immense relief. He didn’t want her to be alone, and he couldn’t afford to sleep. Only a span of an hour here and there when his exhaustion was debilitating. But he had learned how to push his body, to find an unexpected thread of strength even when he felt like he had reached the end of himself.
He tapped into that source as he approached his stallion in the byre. Torin tacked and mounted him, then set off at a gallop along the western road, his teeth cutting the wind. When the road curved back to the east, Torin departed from it and rode across the hills, heading directly for the Elliotts’.
The raid might be over by the time he reached the farm, he thought with irritation. He hadn’t doubled the watchmen at the clan line yet; traditionally, he waited to do so until after the autumnal equinox, when the weather began to turn cold. This attack was very unexpected, and Torin felt scattered and unprepared. His eyes watered as the wind bit his face and clawed his hair.
A new season of peace, Adaira had said with such hope that Torin had wanted to believe her.
But now all he could envision was how foolish he had been to let her put herself in a vulnerable situation, meeting with the Breccan on the northern shore. To let her give up their food and drink. To expose their knowledge of the Orenna flower.
His cousin’s voice came again, a whisper in his mind. What are you afraid of, Torin? Give this fear a name, so I can put your mind at ease.
A sound slipped from him. His stomach had ached for days now, ever since he had opened his father’s door and beheld Sidra, battered and devastated. When he had realized Maisie had been taken.
I’m afraid of losing everything I love. The east, his purpose. The people woven into his life.
He had been too proud to say it to Adaira, but he confessed it now as he flew across the hills. He didn’t want to think about the ones he had lost, but they rose like specters. His mother, whom he vaguely remembered, whose voice had been gentle but sad. He had been so young when she abandoned him. Donella, once a vibrant soul, had faded in his mind over the years. He had been so defiant when she died. Maisie, his own flesh and blood that he had failed to protect and was currently failing to find. Sidra, who was bound to him by a blood vow. She had arrived home drenched from the cursed loch, her eyes searching and lost.
You have become more to me than mere words spoken on a midsummer night.
He had retraced that revelation of hers endless times in the past few hours. So much that he felt the groove of it in his thoughts. He had been startled by her confession—he thought her so far above him. He’d never expected to earn her love, and he didn’t know how to show her how deeply he felt for her.
But Torin didn’t have time to think about this.
He was almost to the Elliotts’ when a moving shadow caught his attention. It was on the path ahead of him, pressing west. He realized it was a man, running, and Torin unsheathed his sword, urging his stead to quicken his pace.
The runner heard his approach and whirled with an arrow nocked on his bow. Torin was preparing to strike when the man lowered his weapon, then tucked and rolled to avoid being trampled by the horse.
Torin turned the stallion about, nearly unseating himself in his haste, and his gaze swept the moonlit grass. The man with the bow was easy to find, a thin shadow rising from the ground, brushing dirt from his clothes.
“That’s the second time you’ve almost killed me, Torin.”
Jack’s unmistakable, peevish voice.
“Dammit, Jack!” Torin could have strangled him. “What are you doing?”