“What is it, Mum?”
“Long ago, I wanted my daughters to be like me. To be my mirror.” Innes paused, as if lost in her memories. “I am relieved, now, to know you are nothing like me. You are your own self, and I had no part in shaping or molding you. How ironic to know my enemies made you greater than I ever could.”
Adaira blinked back her tears, uncertain what to say. But she was deeply moved by Innes’s words.
“I must soon name my heiress to the clan,” Innes continued. “You are my first and only choice. I cannot see myself blessing anyone apart from you, Adaira. But should you forgo it, I will understand and find another.”
Adaira had been waiting for this moment. For Innes to acknowledge her choice with her voice and her words. For Innes to make it known that this was what she wanted. And yet Adaira was unsure about what she wanted. She wondered if her vision would align with Innes’s. If she was brave enough to step into such a role again.
“You don’t have to give me an answer now,” Innes said, reading the hesitation on Adaira’s face. “But will you consider it?”
Adaira glanced at the candles, burning on the desk before her. She watched the fire dance, thinking of Jack. She thought of how much her life had changed its course, how it had veered onto a path she had never predicted. In some ways these changes had been good, but in others? She felt broken, as if her life was in pieces.
“I’m honored you ask me, Mum,” Adaira finally said. “I’ll consider it.”
Innes nodded and left without another word. But Adaira sat and stared at the same page for a long while, her mind reeling.
For a week after that conversation, Adaira dreamt of becoming laird of the Breccans. Even in her sleep, she couldn’t escape it. She soon found herself in the cistern, stripping her clothes away. She stepped into the water and swam into the warm darkness.
She thought of Jack. She thought of how afraid he had been that night when she had brought him here—the last night they had shared.
He had not known that she was just as terrified of the deep.
Adaira swam into it now, her fear making her stomach clench and her mind race. She pushed herself farther into it, until she thought she would weep, and then she saw the light in the crevice. The torch that burned everlasting.
Exhausted, she swam into the cavern. She settled on the ledge where Jack had once sat, and she thought for a long time about her life and where it was going. What she wanted to do with her days now that he was no longer a part of them.
She glanced at the torch and watched it burn.
“Jack?” she whispered, and then instantly scolded herself. She would lose her mind if she started conversing with fire, thinking it was him. Somehow, she knew he was far away. She knew he wasn’t anywhere near her, and she slipped away from the cavern.
By the time Adaira had reached the stairs and re-dressed, she had made up her mind. The answer was smoldering in her, and she went directly to her parents in their chambers.
Innes and David were eating a small dinner together, and they both glanced up at her, startled by her damp hair and flushed skin.
“Adaira?” her father asked. “Do you want to join us?”
“I have my answer,” she said, breathless. She turned her eyes to Innes, who had risen as if meeting an opponent.
“And what is it?” Innes asked.
“Name me your heiress,” Adaira said. “I want to lead the west.”
Chapter 45
Jack stood in his throne room, a place spun from dreams. There were no walls and no ceiling. The pillars on either side of him melted up into night, where thousands of stars burned, some hanging so low they were close enough to touch. Iron braziers sat between the pillars, shining with fire, and behind each brazier was a doorway carved from clouds and light. Beneath his bare feet was a clear marble floor, and beyond the floor was a brilliant sunset.
He wore robes cut from the night sky, constellations scattered across the fabric. His crown of stars glittered in the twilight, and fire danced at his fingertips. Sometimes he caught his reflection when he walked deep into the fortress, a place made of polished bronze and smoke. He didn’t like to look at himself for long because his eyes had changed; they gleamed like embers. At certain angles, he looked translucent, as if anything could pass through him. His face was sharper, narrower, as if he had been cut from kindling.
But sometimes he saw traces of who he had been. He often touched the scar on his palm, the quicksilver streak in his hair.
As he waited in the throne room, he watched the spirits gather.
All of them had felt it—the shift when the clan line fully faded. Shadows had grown smaller, colors brighter. Unnamed constellations had started to burn, as though a new map had been unrolled across the sky.
It had been a soft feeling, like waking up to the gentle patter of rain. And Jack had known then what he needed to do.
He had not been king for long, and yet he had summoned them all—every wing of the wind, every fruit of the earth, every creature from the depths of the ocean, every ember from the fire. They gathered in groups, refusing to mingle as they murmured and waited, frowning. In that regard, they were not unlike humanity, and Jack’s memories flared.
He saw Adaira kneeling before him, blood on her palm. He heard her whisper his name, felt her breath against his skin. Sometimes he thought he saw her, walking amongst the spirits of his court, her hair catching the shades of the sunset.
His robes were a shield; they hid his trembling, the agony he felt. The spirits could neither see nor understand his pain—the wound from half of himself being torn away. The wound that never ceased to ache.
“We have all assembled,” Ash said. “Why have you summoned us, King?”
Jack’s memories faded, leaving him cold and hollow. “I have a request for you, spirits of the isle.”
“Speak it,” said Ream of the Sea, her eyes iridescent as an oyster shell. Her long, green hair dripped water onto the floor. She was impatient, ready to return to the tides.
“I have done you a favor by dethroning your king,” Jack said, “and now I ask a favor of you. Take my crown and give it to one of your own kind, one who is worthy amongst you. I ask that you permit me to return to my mortal life.”
Whispers shivered through the gathering. Jack watched from his dais, his heart quickening.
Lady Whin of the Wildflowers spoke next, her sister Orenna close at her side. “But you are immortal among us, King. If you return to the human realm, your days will be numbered again. You will turn into dust and rot in a grave.”