It always came back to the loom. Mirin couldn’t afford to leave it, even for a matter of days. Her weaving was her livelihood, and if she let fear of the Breccans rule her, then she’d never get anything done.
He paused, closing his eyes to rest them. His hand was cramping from writing for hours, and his head throbbed with a dull ache. He needed sleep, but he wanted the music more.
When Mirin rapped on his door, he frowned, turning in the chair. “Come in.”
His mother appeared, a dirk balanced on her palm.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you, Jack, but there’s something I’ve been meaning to give to you.”
He rose to meet her in the center of the chamber, surprised when she extended the blade to him. He recognized it as the enchanted weapon she wore at her belt.
“Your dirk?”
“It was never mine, Jack. This blade has always been yours, a gift to you from your father. He made me vow to give it to you when you came of age, but you were away on the mainland at the time, and so I give it to you now, as a wedding gift.”
He stared at her, then at the dirk. He thought about all of the moments he had seen it fastened to her side, how she had been carrying it for years. It was a simple weapon with the faint radiance of an enchantment.
Jack hesitated before taking the hilt, unsheathing the slender blade. He caught his reflection in the steel, and curiosity built within him.
“This blade is enchanted,” he stated. “What with?”
Mirin tilted her head. “I don’t know. Your father never told me, and I have never properly used it.”
His father. This was the first time Mirin had spoken that word in so many breaths, and Jack didn’t know what to make of it. Was it her way of inviting him to ask the questions he had been burying for years?
Jack slid the blade back into its scabbard. “Mum …” He lost his courage. He struggled to speak the words, and he glanced at Mirin. “Did my father … did he hurt you? Is that why you sent me away to the mainland? So you wouldn’t have to be reminded of him when you looked at me?”
Mirin reached across the distance and took his hand. Her affection was a shock to him at first. “No, Jack. You and Frae were both made in love.” She paused, and Jack could hear her breaths, rasping as her cough flared. “I loved your father, as he did me.”
Loved. She cast the word in the past, and Jack wouldn’t press her for more answers. Not as he once would have done before, bitter and impatient and angry. He gently squeezed her fingers, and Mirin smiled at him, a sad but honest smile, before her hand slipped away from his.
“You’re busy working, I see,” she said in a lighter tone, indicating the ink stains on his fingers.
“Yes. A new ballad.”
“I can’t wait to hear it then,” Mirin said, stepping away. “Don’t let me keep you any longer from your music.”
Jack wanted to say that she wasn’t keeping him from anything. That he would like for her to stay and talk with him a while longer. To make up for all the years lost to them.
But he also sensed the worry in his mother. She was anxious, although she was too proud to admit it.
She slipped from the room, latching the door behind her. Jack stood frozen, studying the dirk.
He knew that he would never ask his mother again about the name of his father, but there was now another way for him to learn the truth.
It was resting in his hands, a blade created from steel and enchantment.
CHAPTER 20
Sidra woke to an empty bed. She lingered in the blankets for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the dawn. She slid her hand to Torin’s side of the mattress and found it cold, as if he had been gone for a while.
Her heart was heavy as she rose. She was surprised to find a fire burning in the hearth, a cauldron of parritch cooking, and the tea kettle simmering. But there was no sign of Torin in the cottage, and Sidra frowned as she peeked out the front shutters. The yard was empty, save for the plants, dancing to the morning breeze.
She went to the back door and cracked it open.
He was there, kneeling in the garden. Sidra watched for a moment, startled as she realized Torin held a kitten in one hand while he weeded with the other. He was uprooting all the wild things she had let grow in her herbs and vegetables, setting them aside in a pile. She glanced down when she felt something claw at her stocking. The other cats had gathered on the stoop, where he had set out a bowl of milk for them.
She didn’t know what to think, but she was smiling when she looked at Torin again.
He hadn’t heard the door open, and he steadily continued to work, eventually setting the kitten down so he could gather up all the weeds. He stood and walked to the edge of the garden, where he tossed the weeds over the stone wall. Sidra was amused by that—she always took the weeds to a pile down the hill—and stepped out to greet him.
Torin saw her as he returned. The corner of his mouth tugged upward, as if he were embarrassed to be caught gardening.
“You’re up early,” Sidra remarked, hoping to hear his voice.
He only lifted his dirt-steaked hand, and she noticed the wound on his forearm was still weeping. Her mood instantly fell, and she beckoned him inside.
Torin washed his hands before sitting at the table, enduring her ministrations. She saw that the wound on his shoulder had closed up overnight, leaving behind a cold, gleaming scar. The cut of fear. But the wound that had stolen his voice and words still festered, and Sidra swallowed as she applied a new salve and rebandaged it.
“Perhaps I should find another healer to tend to you,” she said, gathering the soiled linens.
Torin was quick to stop her, grasping her chemise. He shook his head, adamant. His faith in her was absolute, as if it had never crossed his mind that she might be unable to restore his voice. To distract her from her statement, he rose and served the parritch.
Sidra sat when he motioned her to, and she let him fill her bowl with clumpy oats.
“I didn’t realize you knew how to cook parritch,” she said.
Torin made a motion with his hand, as if to say, What islander doesn’t know how to make parritch?
The oats smelled a bit burned, but Sidra added some cream and berries and was able to force a few spoonfuls down before Torin tasted his own cooking. His face puckered, but he scraped the bowl clean, wasting nothing.
His appetite was back. He was doing chores around the house, which he had never done before. Sidra knew he was trying to prove to her that he was better, so she would permit him to escort Adaira at noontide.
Together, they washed the bowls and the cauldron, where burnt oats were now welded to the bottom. They both dressed for the day, and Sidra asked Torin to drape and pin the plaid over her again. She read through her grandmother’s old healing account while Torin returned to the yard, determined to free the garden of weeds. He left the back door open so he could behold Sidra from time to time as he moved down the rows.
She watched him, thinking how much he had changed over the past few days.
She closed her eyes when the ache within her turned vibrant, as if she had stepped into the point of a sword.
She had given her vow to him four years ago. She had chosen to weave her future with Torin’s, because she knew life would be good with him. She would have a little companion in Maisie. She would have her own croft at last; her father and brother would no longer hover over her. She would have a cottage to conduct her profession of healing, a kail yard to grow all the things she loved. And it felt like her own place, because Torin was rarely there, which Sidra liked in the beginning.