She was late.
The feast had already begun, even though Adaira had arrived exactly when Innes had told her to. She knew her heart should be racing now. It should be pounding, but instead it was barely beating. The ice branched through her veins as the Aethyn continued to eat its way through her. Adaira stayed in the shadows, observing the Breccans.
No one had noticed her entrance, except for the guards stationed at the doors, but they had been as unmoving as statues and only silently watched her. Adaira took a moment to let her eyes rush over the nobles, some of whom she recognized and some of whom she had never seen. At last, she found her mother sitting at the head of the table.
Adaira almost didn’t recognize her.
Innes wore a black dress shot through with gold-threaded moons. The neckline was cut square, displaying the interlocking woad tattoos that danced across her chest. A net of blue jewels was draped over her white-blond hair, which hung loose and long, brushed into a waterfall down her back.
Adaira took two full breaths before Innes felt the draw of her stare.
The laird’s gaze flickered to the threshold, her eyes shining with firelight and boredom as if all her thanes were full of predictable stories. But they narrowed when she saw Adaira waiting in the shadows.
You deceived me, Adaira wanted to hiss at her. You have made me look a fool, arriving late to a dinner I poisoned myself for.
She was sick of the tests and the challenges and the meddling. She was sick of doing everything Innes and David asked of her. She had made it nearly five weeks in their holding unscathed, but she was exhausted.
Adaira took hold of the thick blue fabric of her dress, sewn with tiny silver stars, and was about to turn her back on Innes and leave when the laird rose. The high-backed chair scraped loudly on the floor with her abrupt motion, capturing the nobles’ attention. Conversations died in midsentence as the thanes gaped at Innes, wholly unaware of what had interrupted their dinner until the laird held out her hand.
“My daughter, Cora,” she said. Her voice was deep and smoky, as if she had spoken such a name a hundred times. And perhaps she had. Perhaps she had breathed it into the wind, year after year, hoping Adaira would hear and answer her.
The hall suddenly become a cacophony of sound as the thanes rushed to rise. One by one, they stood for Adaira, turning to watch her approach.
She walked across the hall, taking her time. She didn’t look at the men and women gathered at the table, wearing their finest raiment and glittering jewelry. She didn’t even look at David, who was standing to the left of the laird.
Adaira kept her eyes on Innes. Her mother with the jewels that burned in her hair and the moons on her dress and the hand she held out to her daughter. She could read Innes’s mind and the hint of feral expression on her face: This is my flesh and blood, cut from my cloth, and she is mine.
Adaira tried to remember if Lorna or Alastair had ever looked at her in such a protective way, as if they would carve out the heart of anyone who dared harm her. She tried to remember, but her memories of them were soft, woven with warmth and laughter and comfort.
Never had Adaira feared her parents in the east.
She could vividly remember sitting on Alastair’s lap when she was young, listening to him tell her clan stories in the evening. He had trained her to wield a sword when she had finally pestered him enough about it, and they spent countless sun-drenched hours on the training green, sparring until she had learned all the guards and could protect herself. She remembered how, as she had grown older, he would invite her into his council chamber and ask for her advice on matters, always ready to listen to her.
She could recall riding the hills with Lorna until their horses were lathered and the wind had carried their laughter south. They would often sit in the grass and look out at the sea, eating lunch from their saddle packs and talking about their dreams. She remembered lying on the floor of the music turret, reading and listening as Lorna practiced on her harp, plucking notes and singing ballads that filled Adaira with courage and nostalgia.
The love Innes was extending was nothing like Alastair’s and Lorna’s.
It was sharp and angular, like the blue jewels in her hair. It was fierce and possessive, built from bloodlines and traditions and a wound that still ached after twenty-three years. And yet Adaira was relieved to finally behold and understand it—to know that affection gleamed within Innes. It was as though the harshness of the wind had carved her down into a spear that could strike but also defend unto death. To be loved by Innes was to dwell behind her shield in a land where thanes poisoned daughters.
Adaira suddenly realized she held far more power here than she had dared to believe. The coldhearted Laird of the West might be desperate to earn her love in return, uncertain if it were even a possibility after so much time and distance.
She also realized that Innes had asked her to arrive late for no other reason than to give her an entrance that would unsettle the thanes, who now had food in their teeth and wine swimming in their blood. A sly but brilliant move.
Adaira reached the chair that awaited her at Innes’s right-hand side.
She sat, and then her father and the nobles followed suit. Innes was the last to resume her seat.
A servant stepped forward and filled Adaira’s goblet with wine. She glanced at the platters that ran along the tabletop like a spine, now holding broken loaves of dark bread, roasted mutton, potatoes and carrots sprinkled with herbs, truffles and speckled mushrooms, wheels of soft cheese, and jars of pickled fruit.
“Help yourself, Cora,” Innes murmured.
Adaira wasn’t hungry—another side effect of the Aethyn—but she filled her plate, feeling the weight of the nobles’ gazes on her. They were watching her every move, and it wasn’t until she had taken her first tentative bite that she understood why some of them were regarding her so shrewdly.
She was sitting in the chair that had been Moray’s.
“Always a pleasure to see you, Cora,” Rab Pierce said, lifting his goblet to her.
Adaira found him across the table, three seats down. She knew full well why he was making a point to speak to her. Most of the nobles gathered that evening had yet to see or meet her, and Rab wanted to show his advantage by calling her by name and addressing her with such familiarity.
His mother, Thane Griselda, sat beside him. She wore jewels in her auburn hair and on every knuckle of her fingers, which cradled a goblet to her chest. Her expression was pinched and her skin pale as cream, betraying how often she spent time indoors. She watched Adaira eat, her hooded eyes glittering like a cat observing a mouse.
Adaira flexed a hand beneath the table, feeling the ice crack beneath her skin.