He started to unfasten his boots and reached out for the bed, then felt Lorna’s harp, resting on the quilt. He inadvertently touched one of the strings. It hummed in response, eager to sing, and Jack felt something rouse in him, like cold embers flaring beneath breath.
He froze, his mind racing. The desire to play and sing had fallen dormant over the past few weeks. Adaira had called music his first love, and now it was stirring again inside him, like a flower blooming beneath frost. He had known it would return to him eventually, but he had predicted that he would have to reach the point where not making music had become unbearable before he surrendered. Then he would have no choice but to crack open his own stubborn bones to find the music there, gleaming in his marrow.
Jack hesitated only for a moment before giving in to the music. He wrapped his fingers around the harp’s wood frame and carried it out the back door.
He found the place where he had last sung and played. A gentle piece of ground with a view of the river and the Aithwood. He sat in the starlit grass with his face toward the west.
It was here that Jack had played his harp until his nails tore and bled. He had played until his voice was frayed and his heart felt molten as gold over fire. He had summoned the river and the woods and the Orenna flower to bring Moray back to him, Frae bound in his arms. And the spirits had answered and done as Jack bid. It was a heady power, and one that he had privately reveled in.
But it wasn’t power that he wanted that night.
He stared into the Aithwood’s shadows as he brought Lorna’s harp to his chest, slipping its leather strap over his shoulder. He felt like he was embracing a stranger, but he knew that the instrument would soon warm to him, as he would warm to it in return. They would find a rhythm and a balance as they learned each other’s quirks and secrets and tendencies.
He just needed to play it.
Jack placed his fingers on the strings, but he didn’t pluck notes from them. Not yet.
He had written to her again, as Torin had requested. He had sent his letter with a raven the day before, but Adaira had yet to reply. Jack was irritated, worried, annoyed, overwhelmed by her silence. He wanted to believe that he would know if something had harmed her, even with the distance between them. He was her other half, and he was bound to her as she was to him. But perhaps Jack had sung too many ballads of everlasting love and fated partners.
Perhaps love made one foolish and weak.
He let himself sink into that weakness as he remembered swimming with her in the sea. Singing for the spirits at her side. He remembered the drawl of her voice as she dubbed him her “old menace.” How moon thistles, braided into her hair, had complemented her sharp beauty. How she had bent a knee to him once, her proposal succinct and yet endearing. The way she had smiled at him during their handfasting.
He remembered the taste of her mouth, the softness of her skin, the rhythm of her breaths. The way their bodies had met and aligned as they came together in her bed. The words he had spoken to her, vulnerable and bare and limned with light.
He plucked a string; it rang out bright as the stars above him. He felt the note echo in his chest. He coaxed another forward and listened as it took to the open air. Sweet and warm now, sunlight spun during night.
“If I am weak for wanting you, then let me embrace that weakness and make it my strength,” he said, his gaze fixed on the west. “And if you must haunt me, then let me haunt you in return.”
Jack began to play. The eastern wind blew at his back, tangling his hair, and he closed his eyes. The music began to unfold in his hands, intrinsic and spontaneous. It was a song he discovered as he went, and he allowed himself the freedom to relinquish the fears, the worries, the uncertainties he had been carrying. To let go and simply breathe the notes. To melt into the fire of his music.
He didn’t sing for the isle or for himself. He sang for what had been and what could still be.
He sang for Adaira.
Chapter 6
Adaira stepped into the Breccans’ hall with jewels woven into her hair and what felt like ice gleaming at her fingertips. It was the poison in her blood, making her feel cold. She curled her hands into fists until she felt the nails bite crescent moons into her palms, reassuring herself that she wasn’t made of frost.
She had swallowed the poison because she wanted to attend this dinner and meet the nobility. She wanted to listen to their conversations and show that she had a place at their table. But Adaira also couldn’t ignore the twinge of apprehension she felt when she thought about Innes and a potential raid.
If the Breccans were already growing hungry in high summer, resorting to stealing and murdering each other, their desperation would only grow worse come autumn and winter. Eventually, Innes might bend and bless a raid. If she did that, Adaira’s place in the west would feel precarious. A raid would put Torin in a dangerous position as well, forcing him to choose whether to kill the Breccans who trespassed or not, whether to demand restitution or let it be. Adaira worried that a raid would plunge the isle into war.
But if she was at the table, staring Innes in the eye, Adaira thought the laird might not be so inclined to approve of raiding.
Her heartbeat was slow, far too slow. She could feel the pulse in her throat, like salt crackling in her veins, and she wondered if the vessel in her chest would cease pumping altogether the moment she sat at the table. If she would breathe her last at this treacherous dinner. The faltering rhythm of her pulse made her feel both heady and languid. Strangely, there was no fear lurking within her, even though she knew she should be feeling the sharp edge of it.
This was her first time in the hall, which she had expected to be a dingy, wood-smoked room with narrow windows and hay strewn over its muddy floors. She had expected an untamed place, whittled down by the elements and stained with old blood.
What met her, then, nearly stole the shallow breath in her lungs.
The pillars were hewn from wood and carved to resemble mighty rowan trees. Their branches formed an intricate arbor over the highest point of the ceiling, and chains of red gemstones and iron chandeliers dripped from them. Hundreds of candles burned from above, their wax melting into stalactites. The stone floor was polished so fine that Adaira could see her reflection in it. The windows, arched along the walls, were made of mullioned glass patterned to mimic the Orenna flower—four red petals dusted with gold. Adaira could only wonder how the sunlight would look burning brightly through such glass.
She slowed her pace, letting her attention drift to the center of the room, where the long table was set for the feast. The thanes and their heirs were already present and sat in their appointed chairs. The hall hummed like a hive with their conversations, punctured by clinks of silverware and goblets.
Adaira stopped between two of the rowan pillars.