Adaira didn’t know how long she sat there, frozen and forlorn, when she felt a shadow drape over her. Someone was standing just beneath the burrow’s lintel. With her eyes still closed and her heart becoming wild and frantic, she reached for the dirk at her belt, preparing to open her eyes and strike, when she felt a hand grip her forearm. A hand with long, sharp-nailed fingers.
Adaira startled and glanced up. It was Kae. The spirit’s eyes were wide with concern, but her face expressed determination, and it suddenly occurred to Adaira that Kae could stand against the storm. Her remaining wings were like a shield, dividing the wind with a hiss.
She hauled Adaira to her feet. Together, they moved through the desolate valley, pressing east. They felt trapped in a dreamscape, Adaira taking shelter beneath Kae’s wings. Then Adaira saw something luminous and mesmerizing in the distance. At first, she had no idea what it was, but then she stopped upright, tucked close to Kae’s side.
“Kae,” Adaira breathed, stricken.
Kae shuddered in response.
The Aithwood was burning.
Jack knew Bane was using the fire against its will. He knew Ash was held captive and beholden somewhere within its wild burning.
Jack opened the front door.
He walked through the kail yard, past his father’s gate. He didn’t want this place to burn. And yet the fire was coming, creeping closer, destroying tree after tree and the spirits that dwelled within them.
Jack stared into the flames. He thought he saw Ash, etched in blue and gold, crawling along the forest floor, weeping.
He began to play his harp and sing for the fire, taking the notes Iagan had once sung and undoing them, but soon the heat from the blaze was too much for him. As Jack walked toward the river, he continued to sing and play, the wildfire following as if it were still under Bane’s control, but it spared Niall’s cottage and yard.
The river’s rapids ran cold and clear. Jack stood in them and began to sing to the spirits of the water—the lochs, the streams, the rivers, the sea. Again he unraveled Iagan’s ballad and sang instead for the good of the folk, remembering how it once had been in the days long ago. As his voice and notes rose and fell, a contrast to the malevolence of Iagan’s music, he looked down and saw the bloodthirsty river spirit lurking in the currents. She had blue-tinted skin, milky eyes, and a grimace made of needle-like teeth, and she was listening, entranced by his music. And yet the fire was still burning. It crossed the riverbed, and Jack could feel the temperature of the water gradually increasing.
“Keep going,” the river spirit hissed at him, just before he was forced by the boiling water to step onto the opposite bank.
Keep going, even though he was entirely uncertain if his music was accomplishing anything. Bane’s hierarchy seemed unchanged, remaining intact as a web, but Jack persisted, weaving through the trees, heading to the clan line, still singing and playing. He walked along the edge of the territory and beheld both east and west as he sang for the spirits of the earth, the trees and the hills, the heather and the rocks, the wildflowers and the weeds, the mountains and the vales.
Jack began to feel it then—the power gathering beneath his feet. The streams of gold, the rivulets of magic. His music was drawing it up and into his blood like a tree draws water from its roots. Suddenly he felt as if he could sing for a hundred days, a hundred years. His voice was deep and strong, cutting through the storm, and the notes fell like sparks from his nails as he plucked the strings faster and faster.
The wildfire still followed him, vibrant with heat, but Jack had no fear of it. It was like a cloak, trailing behind him, and he knew Iagan’s power was almost broken. Now was the time to play for the wind.
Jack dared to undo the binds on the southern wind. The eastern wind. The western wind. As he sang, lightning struck erratically around him. The bolts sliced trees down to the ground, splitting open their resin-stained hearts. Trees so old that they must have held all the secrets of the isle. Their spirits gasped and died into smoke.
Jack continued to sing, even as the ground shook and the wind roared. He knew the spirits were giving themselves up to protect him, and he simply needed to hold on and reach the end. He continued to breathe in the magic the west gave to him, until every bone and vein felt illuminated, as if he had swallowed a swath of stars from the night sky.
He suddenly couldn’t remember his name, or where he had come from. All he knew was the crackling wildfire, spread like a robe behind him . . . the trees with their ancient faces and stories, standing around him like courtiers, absorbing Bane’s wrath to protect him . . . the flowers, blooming at his feet as if to welcome him . . . the rain beginning to fall, tasting like the sea.
But somewhere between the notes he played and the words he sang was a woman with eyes blue as the summer sky, and hair the shade of the moon. A woman with a scar on her palm that matched his own, whose smile made his blood quicken.
Who is she? he thought, distracted by the fleeting glimpses of her when he closed his eyes. He wanted to chase her into the darkness, to reach out to touch her skin. His hands suddenly ached as he continued to pluck note after note. He slowed his playing, distracted. He wanted to let those scars on their palms align, as if they would unlock a secret between them. . . .
Lightning struck in front of him. The white heat stung his face, and he winced, eyes flying open. The harp flared unbearably hot against him. But Jack had only one more stanza to sing.
He pressed forward, walking along the clan line, over the scorched flowers and earth. Jack began to sing down the northern wind.
Wings beat through the boughs of the trees, flashing with color. The temperature plummeted, and the light dimmed until eventide seemed to have descended.
Jack knew Bane had materialized. But he waited until he saw the northern king’s lambent eyes in the darkness between the trees. He held a lance flickering with lightning in his hand.
Jack waited until the king had stepped forward to fully face him. He was just as Jack remembered. Forged from great height and white skin, his long hair the color of faded gold, like watered-down ale. His crimson wings caught the frail light, casting a red hue on his silver-linked armor. A chain of stars crowned him.
But despite his immortality, Jack could still see a trace of Iagan. The man he once had been, as if reigning for centuries and never dying still couldn’t wash away that mortal shadow.
“Lay down your harp,” Bane said, but his voice was weak. “Lay down your harp and I will spare you.”
Only then did Jack grant the king a sharp-edged smile. He resumed his song for all that Iagan had once stolen. Torn wings and brilliant blooms of gorse. Broken, iridescent shells and a scepter of fire.
The spirits came unbound. They shed the weight of Iagan’s cruel ballad, and the world felt brighter, starker, overwhelming for a blazing moment.
Jack watched as Bane jerked in pain. The wings on his back came loose, falling away. The lightning in his lance went dark, crumbling into ashes, gorse, and shells.