He told her of the debacle, how Jack had defied his orders to halt the ballad. How the lightning struck a few paces away from the bard, and how everything seemed to shatter in that moment—earth, sky, rain, light. Shatter and then come back together in alarming clarity.
“I don’t know what to do, Sid,” he whispered, his fingers sliding into her hair. “I don’t know what to do, and all I can think is how unfit I am to be laird. This must be a punishment for something. The isle must find me lacking.”
“Enough.” Sidra’s voice was sharp. “You’re a good laird to our clan.”
His hand wandered, finding her face in the dark. His thumb traced her lips. “With you at my side.”
“Yes,” Sidra whispered but pulled his hand away, kissing his palm, his mouth. “Now sleep, Torin.”
He didn’t have the strength to disobey her. He drew the quilt up around them, and she settled against him.
He was almost asleep, the rain lulling him into the beginnings of a dream. But then he startled, and his thoughts were spinning. Descending.
“Are you still awake, Sid?”
“Yes.”
He couldn’t breathe for a moment, and she shifted, turning to face him in the darkness, as if she sensed his worry.
“If I should become cold . . . a stone-hearted man,” he whispered. “If I ever do something you don’t agree with, I want you to tell me.”
“Always,” she promised.
Her voice was calm, a smoky reassurance. He had never felt safer than he did in that moment, lying in her arms in the dark as the rain eased up beyond the windows.
And he dreamt of simpler days, when he was a boy running through the heather.
Sidra lay awake, her eyes open to the night. She had been awake for hours, with Torin’s steady breaths stirring her hair, his arm a pleasant weight upon her.
She was supposed to tell him that night. She had wanted to tell him, but when the moment had come, she had found the words nearly impossible to speak.
Even so, she had been prepared for that. For the words to fail her. She had planned to then show him. She would bring him into the room and sit on the edge of their mattress. Pull away her stocking and show him the place on her heel. The blight was spreading, faster than she had hoped. It was reaching for her toes, and she had yet to find a cure, despite the countless hours she had labored over it, the prayers she had uttered to the spirits.
What can heal this blight?
She feared the spirits wouldn’t be able to answer her. And she didn’t want to tell Torin she was infected until she had a plan, a cure.
She could let him live in ignorance another day.
Chapter 10
Jack didn’t go to the castle after the orchard failure. He knew Mirin and Frae were there, tucked away in one of the guest suites for the night, and he pictured them for a moment: Mirin would be restless without her loom, and Frae would be doing her school lessons, most likely reading aloud to keep their mother distracted. But they would be warm and safe, sitting beside a crackling fire in the hearth.
Jack was deeply thankful to Sidra for making the arrangements for his mother and sister to sleep in the castle until the flames returned to Mirin’s hearth. It was both a relief and a mystery that no other cottage had lost its fire. Only Mirin’s.
Jack mulled over those thoughts as he walked through the rain-soaked hills, all the way to his darkened home, carrying his hunger, his defeat, and Lorna’s harp.
The cottage felt hollow without firelight, without his mother and sister. Jack stood in the darkness, dripping rain onto the floor. He listened to the sounds of the house as if he might find inspiration within its deep shadows—the beginning of a song he had yet to hear on the isle—but there was only the tap on the shutters, and the creak of the latched door, and the storm gradually abating beyond the damp walls.
With a sigh, Jack removed his drenched garments and then fumbled in the darkness to find the oaken chest in his bedroom. After dressing in dry clothes, he felt his way back into the common room. He tripped over one of Frae’s scarves, stumbled into Mirin’s hassock. But at last Jack reached the hearth, full of cold ashes.
He had been waiting for this moment. A moment when he could be alone with the mischievous fire spirit.
Jack sat on the floor directly before the hearth with his harp, then reached into his satchel to find the remedies Sidra had made for him. He had already taken one in the orchard, and now he drank another to dull the pain beating behind his eyes. He opened a tin of salve, which he rubbed onto his hands. His knuckles ached and his fingernails felt jagged in the dark, but soon the magic of Sidra’s herbs began to trickle through him and his pain ebbed.
He stared into the darkness, his mind full of luminous worries.
The fire spirits were the only ones he had not encountered face-to-face yet. Last month he had called to the sea, to the earth, to the air. But not the spirits of fire. Jack had discovered by talking with the other spirits that fire was the lowest in their hierarchy. Fire resided beneath the great power of air, beneath the solid weight of earth, beneath the strength of the sea. The fire spirits were considered the least of the folk, and Jack didn’t know why something so vital had so lowly a standing.
He exhaled a deep breath and began to think about the notes he would play for the fire spirits and the words he would sing for them. A ballad began to take shape in his mind, and Jack decided to lean into it, improvising as he had done with Adaira’s song. He was learning that there was great power in such music, in letting himself go.
He brought the harp to his shoulder, closed his eyes, and began to find notes. A scale rose to meet him and Jack hummed, seeking words to accompany his music.
All he knew was the cold dark. All he wanted was fire and fire alone.
He sang to the spirits, to the dead ashes in his hearth. He played for fire and the memory of flames.
His eyes remained closed, but he felt the warmth on his knees, on his face. He could see the light growing, and he opened his eyes to watch the kindling crackle, bright and eager. The fire spread to the wood, igniting with a sigh, and suddenly it was blazing, wild and unhindered. The fire danced high and wide. Jack had no choice but to shift backwards, its unbearable heat almost scorching his skin.
What have I done? he wondered, but he continued to play and sing, encouraging the fire to rise higher, wider. Soon, it was escaping the hearth. I will burn the house down.