“Yes.”
“As I thought.” Rodina pointed to the back door. “Just beyond the kail yard. But please . . . be careful, Sidra.”
Sidra stood before the blighted orchard with nothing more than a mewling cat and the northern wind for company. She studied the trees, feeling as if they were watching her in return as she took in the burls in the applewood, the shuddering of branches in the breeze, the spattered fruit, the slow drip of tainted sap.
One of her first thoughts was that the blight might be connected to Adaira’s departure. As soon as the east had given her up, it had begun to suffer. Sidra wondered whether Adaira’s presence among the Tamerlaines had kept the isle in a tentative balance. Had it become skewed ever since she crossed the clan line? Or perhaps the Tamerlaines were finally being punished for stealing from the other side of the isle. They had taken Adaira and raised her as their own without guilt, almost as easily as the Breccans plundered the east in the winter.
But now as she beheld it, Sidra realized that she had seen this blight before, in another copse. There had been a suffering tree—Sidra had felt the spirit’s agony as it bled violet and gold—and she had reached out her hand to touch and comfort it, only to be ordered by the very ground not to do that.
This blight, then, was not a new development. It had been on the isle since midsummer—before Adaira’s departure—but something had just recently made it worse. There could be other places that were suffering, other trees in the east that could pass the sickness along to the clan.
Torin needed to make an official announcement.
Sidra took a step back, preparing to leave. The wind gusted, a shocking burst of cold as it dragged hair into her eyes and tugged on her shawl. The heel of her boot slid over something soft, but she regained her balance. Frowning at the long grass, she lifted her foot and drew up her hem to look at it.
One of the rotten apples glistened in the morning light. It was now smudged on her left boot heel, a streak of violet and gold and a writhing worm. She stared at her foot numbly, as though she had been charmed into stone. Sidra was hardly able to comprehend how the rotten apple came to be there; she had been very careful in her approach. There had been nothing but grass and the cat around her, who had scampered back to the kail yard.
She carefully wiped the heel of her boot and used the rake that Rodina had set aside to push rotten fruit back beneath the trees, careful to avoid stepping beneath the boughs.
Only a small trace of gold remained on her boot. She realized she needed to walk home barefoot and immediately burn her shoes in the outdoor firepit. That course of action felt a bit extreme at first, and she tried to steady her thoughts.
She hadn’t touched the fruit with her bare skin, as Rodina had. Only the heel of her shoe had come in contact with it, but she wondered if the same had happened to Hamish. If the blight had seeped through the leather hide of his boot.
“Don’t worry,” Sidra whispered as she removed her boots, careful not to touch the heel. She walked along the road, her bare feet warmed by the sun-baked dirt. The basket swung from her arm as she quickened her pace, boots dangling from her fingertips.
You’ll be fine.
Chapter 4
Adaira stood in a wind-battered cottage, staring at the dead body crumpled on the floor.
A chair had been overturned, along with a small bowl of parritch. The oats on the ground, now stained with blood, drew flies through cracks in the wattle-and-daub walls. Herbs hung from the low rafters overhead, trailing dusty wisps into Adaira’s braided hair, and for a long moment the fire was the only sound in the room, crackling as it burned through the peat in the hearth. The shutters were closed to ward off the breeze, and the house was full of shadows, even at midday. But the sun rarely burned through the clouds in the west.
A chill settled into her marrow, and Adaira shivered.
Despite the interior’s dimness, she could see that the deceased was a thin man with white-streaked hair and threadbare garments. His arms had been caught at crooked angles, and the enchanted blue plaid knotted at his shoulder had protected his heart but not his neck. The blood that had spilled from his sliced throat had long since dried into a circle beneath him, the shade of wine in midwinter light.
Adaira longed to look away. Look away, her heart whispered, and yet her gaze remained fixed on the man. She had seen dire wounds as well as death before, but she had never stood in a room where murder had been committed.
Innes Breccan was saying something at Adaira’s side, her voice deep and raspy, like a blade trying to saw through damp wood. The western laird was never one to let her emotions melt through her guard—she was a cold, calculating enigma—but after four weeks of living with her, Adaira could hear two things in her mother’s voice: Innes was exhausted, as if she hadn’t slept in a long time, and she wasn’t at all surprised to find a man slain on her lands.
“Was it an enchanted weapon, Rab?” Innes asked. “And if so, can you tell me what kind?”
That was not the first question Adaira expected her mother to voice. But Adaira had grown up in a place where enchanted weapons were scarce. Only a few Tamerlaine smiths were willing to take on the cost of forging them. In the west, nearly every Breccan of age carried one.
Rab Pierce crouched down to examine the body more closely. His leather armor creaked with his movement, the blue plaid wrinkling over his chest as he stretched out his hand. He had just turned five-and-twenty, and while he had a muscular frame, his face was still round with youth. His straw-colored hair was cropped short, and he always looked sunburnt. Adaira surmised that was from all the hours Rab spent riding against the wind and rain, since the clouds hung thick and low in the west.
She watched as Rab examined the man’s neck. Eventually he shook his head.
“It looks to have been done with an ordinary blade,” Rab said, glancing up at Innes. “A dirk most likely, Laird. I also noticed the cottage and the storehouse are both empty, as are the paddocks. This man was one of my mother’s most reliable shepherds.”
“Are you saying someone killed him to steal his food and livestock?” Adaira asked. She didn’t want to sound shocked, but neither could she ignore the cold trickle of suspicion at the nape of her neck.