“Of course,” Graeme said. “Come sit at the table. Let me pour you a cup of tea.”
Sidra remained where she was, her heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her wrists, in her neck. Her stomach began to churn, and she fought the temptation to cover her nose. She couldn’t tell if it was her anxiety or the strange rank smell in the cottage, but she was struggling to hold down her breakfast.
“I can’t stay,” she managed to say, and her terse tone finally caught Graeme’s attention.
“Oh.” Her father-in-law set down the teapot, brows raised. “Can you sit for a moment at least? Give the storm a moment to die down?”
“Yvaine is waiting for me by the road,” Sidra said, but she began to shake. She couldn’t hide it, and Graeme quickly moved forward, taking a gentle hold of her arm.
“Come, sit a moment, lass,” he whispered. “You look pale as a wraith.”
“I . . .” Sidra sighed, and it felt like her chest had cracked beneath the pressure of her fear. She let Graeme guide her to the table.
“Tell me what’s on your mind, Sidra,” Graeme said as he poured her a cup of tea.
Sidra sat on the bench and accepted the cup, even as she felt time tug at her. She needed to rejoin Yvaine. She needed to be combing the hills for Torin. She was wasting precious moments, sitting here with a cup of warm tea in her hands.
But Graeme knew Torin nearly as well as Sidra did, and he might have insight that she didn’t as to where his son might have gone.
She ensured that Maisie was distracted—she was, having found the cat curled up by the fire—and she whispered, “Torin is missing.”
Graeme lowered himself to the chair across the table from her, listening as Sidra recounted the night before. Her voice was hoarse by the time she finished, asking, “Do you have an idea of where he might have gone? We can search there first.”
Graeme let out a puff of air, as if Sidra’s revelation had just socked him in the stomach. He scratched his gray beard—an action that made Sidra instantly think of Torin. She blinked away her tears, waiting.
“Your guess is as good as mine, Sidra,” he finally said in a sad voice. “But I heard him calling for you last night.”
“What?” she exclaimed, rising from the bench. “Did he say anything else? Was he in distress?”
“He didn’t sound distressed, no,” Graeme rushed to add, also standing. He tilted his head toward Maisie, who was now regarding them with wide, worried eyes. “He spoke your name fondly, but he seemed to be sighing in resignation. Like a farewell.”
Sidra didn’t know what to make of this news, which felt like a dagger in her belly when she imagined it being his dying breath. Torin had called for her and she hadn’t heard him.
“I need to go,” she said, stepping away from the table. She could scarcely feel the floor beneath her boots. Her stomach was clenching again. “If you can watch Maisie . . . I’ll return soon.”
“Sidra? Sidra, wait,” Graeme was saying, but she was already out the door.
Yvaine and six guards were waiting for her at the road, mounted on mud-splattered horses. It was still raining, but summer storms were fickle on the isle and it was always best to carry on as usual rather than wait for clear skies.
Sidra approached the spare horse the captain had ready for her and drew herself up into the saddle.
Her foot twinged in pain, and she gritted her teeth. She had forgotten all about her woes with the blight, and she hated how those worries now simmered at the back of her mind when she was hell-bent on finding Torin. She couldn’t hold everything at once, all these misgivings and fears and dreads.
Breathe, she told herself, drawing in air that tasted like clouds. You’re going to find Torin. And then you’ll handle the blight.
Yvaine waited to ensure that Sidra was settled, reins in hand, before she gave orders to her guards to split up into pairs. They would each take a section of the east to search and report back to the castle at sundown. But most importantly, they were to search discreetly. Neither Yvaine nor Sidra wanted the clan to know Torin was missing.
The guards cantered through the rain to their appointed destinations. Sidra watched them melt away before glancing sidelong at Yvaine.
“Where are we searching?” she asked.
“The vale, as you suggested,” the captain replied. “But there is only one thing I ask of you, Sidra.” The mare sidestepped beneath her, sensing the tension in the air. “Stay within my sight at all times. Can you agree to that?”
“Of course,” Sidra said, surprised. But she shivered at the way Yvaine was gazing at her, as though Sidra was in danger of vanishing next.
They rode through the last of the storm to the vale, which was bright and sunny and sweltering. The bracken sparkled with leftover rain and the small creeks were swollen, cutting serpentine paths through the valley floor.
There was no sign of Torin.
From there, Yvaine and Sidra pressed northward, checking caves, thickets, the coast.
“I don’t think he would have wandered this far,” Sidra said, fighting the nausea that was rolling through her again. She had taken a few sips from Yvaine’s flask and eaten a portion of food from her saddlebags when the two of them rested in very brief moments for the horses’ sake. But the truth was that they had been riding hard for four hours now, and the sun was beginning to sink toward the west.
“Where do you want to go next then?” Yvaine asked.
Sidra guided them back toward the nook of the marsh. She was worried that Torin might have wandered into it, though it was a far-fetched possibility because Torin knew the east like the lines on his palm. He never got lost, even when hills shifted. Even in the dark, the nook wouldn’t have taken him by surprise.
But Sidra still wanted to see it with her own eyes. When they arrived there, she beheld the marsh’s calm presence. Birds swooped overhead and damselflies dusted the surface of the shallow water. Clusters of bog myrtle and stalks of golden-starred asphodel danced in the breeze.
Sidra thought back on how Graeme had described Torin’s call as a sigh of resignation, which Sidra had a difficult time envisioning. Torin wasn’t a man who was quick to surrender, and for the first time since Yvaine had knocked on her door and broken the news, Sidra began to consider that maybe Torin had gone somewhere. Maybe he wasn’t wounded and lying in a gully. Maybe he was hale and alive and had simply . . . left.
The thought struck her like a splinter. Sidra tried to uproot it. Cast it aside. But her resistance only made the realization nestle even deeper.