“For almost my entire life, I believed what the keeper told my parents about that day: he left my sister on the moss to be taken. But when he returned hours later, Cora was gone, and there was no bairn for him to carry back to my parents. For years my family and my clan believed what he told us: one of the folk of the wind took my sister into their kingdom and raised her there, knowing she would not survive the mortal realm. And we found painful peace in the thought, and we bowed to the wind, believing she was within it.
“But secrets refuse to stay buried on the isle. They have an uncanny way of rising, and they are vengeful.
“I had grown suspicious of the keeper over the years. His loyalty seemed to waver at times—he protested the raids and refused to let us ride through the Aithwood when we conducted them. I decided to watch him closely. It took a few years, but I finally caught him on the clan line, returning to the west. He had been walking the east without detection, and I wanted to know how he had accomplished such a feat.
“It took me months to wear him down. To break his stubbornness. In the end, he confessed and gave me his full allegiance in order to preserve his life. And the story he had once given about my sister’s disappearance? It had been a lie.
“This is what truly happened:
“On the day he left Cora on the moss, he walked away from her, as he had been ordered to do. But where she had been silent before, her cries now echoed through the forest, and they drew him back to her. He stood a safe distance away, so as not to interfere with the folk, and watched as the day began to fade into evening. It was bitterly cold, and the spirits refused to come and claim her. Soon, her cries drew a wolf, and the keeper fought off the beast and was wounded. His arm bled, and he chose to pick up my sister and deliver her elsewhere. He had lost a good deal of blood and become disoriented, but he knew the river would lead him home.
“He stepped into the currents and followed the river, unaware that he was walking in the opposite direction of his home. He claims that he didn’t realize the moment he crossed, owing to his distress, but soon the trees fell away, and he stood in an unfamiliar valley. He knew he was no longer in the west, but the East Guard had taken no note of his presence. A terrible inkling came to the keeper.
“Which Tamerlaine he first gave my sister up to, I don’t know, for he would never say their name. But I believe they live near the clan line, and that is how the east committed the worst of crimes: they took a daughter of the west as their own.
“I’ve always wondered what the Tamerlaines who accepted her were thinking. Perhaps they didn’t want my sister to grow up so close to the clan line, where the west and her true clan might call to her blood one day. Perhaps at first the Tamerlaines didn’t fully know who my sister was—a child of their greatest enemy. The offspring of the western laird. The keeper wouldn’t tell me, but when I asked him where Cora now lived in the east, he only smiled and said, ‘The Breccan druid once said she was destined for greatness in the west, but he must have misread the stars.’
“I doubted him at first. I believed the keeper’s claims were those of a man gone mad after a life of solitude in the woods. But I also was determined to find my sister. And what better way than to walk the east, listening to the gossip that rides your winds?
“I visited numerous times, entering through the secret of the river and empowered by the Orenna’s essence. I learned the lay of your lands, and I listened to the wind. I soon learned of the heiress. The only living child of the laird. And the Tamerlaines loved you. They called you Adaira, with hair the color of the moon and eyes the shade of the sea. And I knew it was you, Cora.”
“Enough!” Torin’s voice cut through the chamber. “Enough with this dribble. With your lies and your cunning, Breccan. Silence him, cousin.”
Adaira sat like stone, watching Moray’s blood continue to spill from his wound and pool on the floor at his feet. Her breaths felt shallow, and her heart was beating against her ribs. She raised her gaze back to his eyes and saw herself reflected in them.
“Why, then, did you steal the Tamerlaine daughters?” she asked.
“I wanted to tell you that day we met in the cave,” Moray said. “When you first wrote to me of a trade, it gave me hope. It was a sign that you were ready to come home. And I wanted to tell you the truth, so you would understand why I longed for vengeance. Why I chose to strike at the Tamerlaines’ hearts. But it was not my place to tell you.
“I took one of the Tamerlaine daughters, hoping to gain the attention of the eastern laird. For him to realize what was happening and tell you who you truly are. And when he did nothing, I took another. I determined to keep stealing lasses until someone in the east gave up the secret and spoke truth. I simply didn’t think it would take so long, that the Tamerlaines would be so tenacious and stubborn. I didn’t think the laird would pass away during my attempts, taking his secret to the grave as you rose in his place. I didn’t think that I would have to be the one to speak your story, to behold your face when you heard it for the first time, Adaira. Laird of the East who was born in the west. But here we are.”
Moray paused, his voice softening. “I’ve come to bring you home, Cora.”
Adaira had told herself that she wouldn’t feel anything, that she would take him prisoner after he reached the end of his tale. But she couldn’t ignore the mark, like a bruise, that the story left on her. The story was also like a sword—she couldn’t prevent it from cutting her heart in two. And the story was like a veil torn from her eyes—she couldn’t help but see her past from a different angle, even if it was ugly, terrible, and absurd.
In the moment of quiet that followed, when Moray Breccan’s story had ended and everyone in the chamber waited to see what she would do, Adaira remembered the spirits. It is her, they had said when they saw her on the shore and on the holy hill. It is her. They had known who she truly was. A girl of the west, raised by her enemies. Perhaps the folk had been watching her life, year after year, anticipating this moment.
“Will you come home with me, Cora?” Moray said again. “If you’ll come home, the Tamerlaine lasses I took will be returned to their families. Just as you were cared for in the east, we have cared for the lasses in the west. Come, sister. A better life awaits you with the people you belong to. Let this exchange be made without bloodshed.”
Torin approached the back of Moray’s chair. He didn’t wait for Adaira’s command; he gagged the Breccan with a hard jerk, and Moray winced.
But the silence was worse than the noise. For now Adaira could feel the full weight of everyone looking at her. Mirin and Frae. Sidra and Torin. Her guards. Moray. Jack.
She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know if she should acknowledge Moray’s claims or sneer at them. Adaira rose.
“Torin, escort our prisoner to the dungeons of Sloane,” she said.
She stood aside as Torin blindfolded Moray again and loosened the bindings that had kept him strapped in the chair. The guards surrounded and dragged him from Mirin’s cottage to the yard, where the horses were waiting.
Adaira followed, preparing to ride with them. She didn’t want to look at Torin, or Sidra, or Jack. She didn’t want to see the doubt and the suspicion in their eyes, didn’t want to know how this revelation of her blood would change their opinion of her.