Crossing directly behind David Breccan, Torin kept his eyes on the consort’s fawn brown hair. A marker in the storm.
The crossing was slow and perilous. No one had fastened a rope to Torin’s waist, and he had nothing but the strength in his hands and the determination in his spirit to get him safely across, one step at a time. The wind tore at his clothes and stung his eyes. But he didn’t stop or slow, nor did he slip. His bare feet clung to the wooden panels beneath him.
All the same, his heart flooded with relief when he reached the castle gate and slipped beneath the portcullis. Another moment of confusion followed. More guards heaved to close the gates, which instantly shut off the channel of wind that was ravaging the courtyard. Only then did Torin sigh before realizing that Innes Breccan was standing like a pillar amidst the chaos, reaching out to grasp her husband’s arm.
She looked David over. There was blood on his clothes and he was bowed down with exhaustion, but he seemed hale. Torin suddenly couldn’t move, watching the emotion crease Innes’s face. And then she felt his attention, for her eyes shifted and pierced him.
“Who is in your shadow?” Innes asked David in a sharp tone.
Torin felt her inquiry like a slap. His shoulders ached as he stood tall, meeting the Breccans’ suspicious eyes. He knew he should speak and offer an explanation. But he was so fatigued, his voice felt lost in his chest.
“I don’t know who he is,” David said after studying Torin.
But the longer Torin held Innes’s gaze, the more her eyes widened. She made a noise, half a snort, half a laugh. As if she couldn’t believe what the wind had just delivered to her courtyard.
“Spirits strike me. It’s the Laird of the East.”
Sidra was grinding herbs with her pestle and mortar when the Breccans’ hall fell unnaturally quiet. It was similar to the hush of a first snowfall, cold and crisp and strangely peaceful. She felt someone looking at her but didn’t glance up. Countless eyes had been watching her since she first stepped into the dimly lit hall. Breccans had been observing her, some with mistrust, some with curiosity, and she had told herself she could bear it, at least for a little while longer. Until either the storm tore this castle up from its roots or Jack’s song quelled it.
“Sidra.”
It wasn’t her name spoken into the silence that shocked her. It was the voice, beloved and deep and warm, like a summer valley. A voice she had thought she would never hear again.
She lifted her head. Her eyes cut through the twilight, through the many faces around her. Perhaps she had only imagined his voice, but her heart was pounding. People began to move, their boots scuffing the floor as they gave way to someone.
A path opened in the crowd and she finally saw him.
Torin stood mere paces away from her, tall and thin and streaked with dirt. His feet were bare, and his tunic was tattered. There was grass in his beard and blue flowers in his long flaxen hair. He looked otherworldly, and yet his eyes were fixed on her and her alone, as though no one else was in the hall. No one else in the realm apart from her.
Sidra dropped her pestle.
She ran to him, her ankle smarting in pain, but she scarcely felt it. Her movement broke whatever spell had caught Torin. He rushed to meet her, and they collided in the center of the Breccans’ hall surrounded by strangers. Everything faded into oblivion the moment she felt Torin’s hands touch her, the moment she breathed him in.
“Torin,” she gasped, clinging to him.
His arm came around her, solid and possessive, and his hand delved into her hair, drawing her mouth to his. He had never kissed her like this before, like he needed something that dwelled deep within her. His kiss was hungry and desperate and fierce, and Sidra felt it curl all the way down to her toes. She could taste the loam in him—a wild, green sweetness—and she wondered where he had been. She wondered about the things he had seen, and how he had found his way home to her.
His mouth broke from hers, his breath ragged. Their gazes met for a moment before he whispered her name, kissing her brow, the edge of her jaw, and Sidra tried to hold herself together, to remain upright, as his beard scratched her skin and her heart ached with fire.
“How . . .” she tried to say, her palms rushing over his chest, “how did you know to find me here?”
Torin raised his head, leveling his gaze with hers. He kept his arm around her, his hand in her hair. “I went home first,” he said. “Then I came to you.”
“Alone?”
He nodded.
“How did you make it through the storm?” she whispered.
“I had some assistance,” Torin said, and then he smiled. Sidra realized there were tears in his eyes, and she traced his face, struggling to swallow the knot that had risen in her throat.
“I wasn’t sure when you’d return,” she confessed.
“I know, and I’m sorry,” he said. “You have been so brave, Sidra. You have been so strong without me, holding the clan and the east together. Let me help you now, love. Let me carry it with you again.”
His words made her tremble. The weight of all the burdens she had been carrying began to lift from her shoulders, like a boulder on her back finally slipping away, and she could suddenly draw a deep breath and straighten her spine.
“Let me heal you, Sid,” Torin whispered, and her world went quiet in shock.
She didn’t speak when he led her to one of the chairs. But her heart had quickened, and her hands suddenly felt cold when Torin knelt before her. She remembered the Breccans then. They had gathered close to watch. She saw Innes and David among them.
But Torin remained wholly fixated on Sidra as he began to unlace her left boot.
Panic surged through her. “Torin, wait,” she said, reaching for his hands.
He paused and then whispered again, “Let me heal you.”
She didn’t understand how he knew she was sick, but she nodded, even as a splinter of worry stung her heart. She sat back and let Torin untether her boot. The leather strings and tanned hide fell away, and then he gently unknotted her makeshift brace and drew down her stocking, exposing her illness to the Breccans.
Murmurs sprouted in the crowd. Sidra couldn’t bear to look up until Torin reached for her paring knife on the table. Tension crackled through the air, but Innes lifted her hand, bidding her clan to stay silent.
Torin opened his leather satchel and brought out a wooden bowl, filled with a shining substance. Sidra held her breath when his eyes met hers again.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“This will hurt only for a moment.”
“I know. It’s all right.”