“Where are we?” he asked. “Are we in the west?”
“The west? No, we’re still in the cave on the mountain ledge of Tilting Thom. You’ve been passed out for hours.”
He swallowed. It felt like a splinter was lodged in his throat.
“Hours?” He looked at her again. “Why didn’t you leave me?”
“Don’t you remember the last thing you said to me? You asked me to remain with you.”
The memories gathered in his mind with an ache as he remembered all that had passed earlier on the mountain. But in the darkness that had followed, there had been dreams. Vivid, stark dreams. He blinked and saw a lingering trace of them, as if Bane had pressed his thumbs against Jack’s eyes, making the colors swarm.
“Do you feel strong enough to sit forward?” Adaira asked him gently, and when Jack floundered, she laced her fingers with his and eased him up.
He saw the mouth of the cave, streaked with rain. The hour was gray, bewitching. And there sat his harp at his feet, warped in the fading light.
“I’m so sorry, Jack,” Adaira whispered, mournful.
He stared at the ruined instrument for a moment. It felt like a piece of him had died, broken and fallen away into oblivion, and he struggled to hide the wave of emotion that crested within him.
Adaira looked away. Her hair was unbraided and loose, beaded with mist. She hid half of her face behind its curtain. “What do you make of the wind’s answer?”
Jack hesitated, recalling those piercing words. Bane had made a wild claim about Mirin, one that Jack would have scoffed at had he not recently realized his mother had once been in love with a Breccan.
He didn’t think Mirin knew anything about where the lasses were being held, but she did know something. She had been hiding her knowledge for years, weaving those secrets into the plaids she dressed him and Frae in.
Jack glanced at Adaira. She was pale, her mouth pressed into a thin line. He worried the truth might change the tentative bond they had formed, and his heart dropped. To reveal his suspicions about Mirin would be to reveal his suspicions about his father.
“The wind could be tricking us,” he said. “But either way, I ask one thing of you, Adaira.”
She met his gaze. “Anything, Jack.”
“Let me speak to my mother first. Privately. If there’s something she knows, she’ll most likely be forthright if I’m the one asking.”
Adaira paused. Jack could read the flash of her thoughts—she wanted to go directly to Mirin. She wanted the answers this afternoon. But Adaira nodded and whispered, “Yes, I’ll agree to that.”
They sat for a moment more in silence, until a burst of cold shocked them both. The storm swelled, and the rain drove deeper into the cave, stinging their faces like needles. A voice haunted the gust, a sound of misery. There was a gasp, like a final draw of breath. Somewhere on the isle, life was being extinguished, snuffed by the deadly brunt of northern wind. The hair rose on Jack’s arms as he listened.
Adaira must have heard it as well. She stood and stared into the storm. “Do you feel strong enough to walk down the mountain? I worry that I’ve been away far too long.”
He nodded, and she hauled him up to his feet. The world spun for a moment, and he caught his balance on the cave wall. He watched as Adaira knelt and slipped his harp back into its sheath, strapping it to her back. When she returned to his side and offered her arm, he accepted her assistance.
He leaned upon her shoulder, and they approached the cave mouth together. But Adaira paused before the sheet of rain and said, “Why did you ask me if we were in the west when you woke?”
He suddenly hated that he didn’t know what she was thinking. If it raised suspicions about him now that Bane had tossed Mirin’s name before them like a snare.
But the truth was … his body had been with Adaira in the east, but his mind had been roaming the west.
“Because I saw it,” he said. “In my dreams.”
The descent was slow and precarious, the rain refusing to relent and only beating harder upon them. Adaira kept Jack on her left, between her and the mountain wall, because she worried if he stumbled, she would be unable to keep him from plunging over the edge of the path. They had angered the northern wind, and now Bane was making them pay for it.
When Jack struggled to stay upright, easing to his knees with a groan, Adaira was beside him. She refused to yield him to the storm, to leave him behind so she could hurry.
“I am with you,” she said, uncertain if Jack could hear her over the rattle of thunder and the howl of the wind. “I won’t let you go.” And he rose. She brought him back to his feet, and they continued onward until he slipped to his knees again, his strength ebbing.
There was a shot of silver in his brown hair now, gleaming at his left temple, as if he had aged years in a day. She didn’t know if it was from the magic or from Bane, but it worried her. She didn’t say that they would return to the ground in one piece, because she didn’t know. Every moment felt long and arduous, and Adaira couldn’t shake the chill that had overcome her in the cave. Her legs went weak when the path at last gave way to the grass and she stood on flat earth again.
She hurried with Jack to where they had left their horses, her heart like a hammer in her breast. She could scarcely draw breath, so heavy did the dread weigh upon her shoulders, and Bane didn’t make it simple for her. He continued to rage, impeding her at every turn. With a curse, Adaira realized the horses were gone, spooked by the storm.
“Leave me here, Adaira,” said Jack, sagging from exhaustion. “You will be much faster without me holding you back.”
“No,” she replied. “No, I’m not leaving you. Come, just a little farther.”
She hauled him toward the road. They had just crested a hill when she saw shapes moving through the haze of the rain. Knowing it was the guard, Adaira came to a gradual halt in the mud, waiting for one of them to see her and Jack.
It was Torin who reached them first. Adaira sensed his ire as he drew his horse to a sliding halt. He dismounted in a rush and took hold of her arm, his grip firm as he gave her a slight shake.
Though his wound was finally healing, he still couldn’t speak. But he didn’t need to. Rain sluiced down his face as he stared at her. His hair was lank on his broad shoulders, like tangled threads of gold. Mud splattered his raiment.
She saw the fear shining in his eyes. She had told him where Jack was going to play for the wind, but she hadn’t thought it would take hours, ending in a tremendous storm.
This day had gone completely awry. She felt like collapsing.
“Torin,” Adaira said, and she hardly recognized the sound of her own voice. “Torin, my da …” She couldn’t finish the words. She watched the shift of Torin’s expression, how his fear burned away into sadness. She knew it then. She had felt it in the cave; she had heard it in the storm. The passing of life into death—the vengeance of the north wind—and yet she waited for her cousin to confirm it.
Torin drew her into his embrace, holding her tight against him.
Adaira closed her eyes, feeling his plaid brush her cheek.
Her father was dead.
Laird Alastair was laid to rest beside his wife and three children in the castle graveyard, in unrelenting rain and thunder. The clan was devastated, and life seemed to come to a halt. But the storm hadn’t ceased, and the roads had become streams. A few low paddocks had begun to flood.