Jack could have stared at her all night.
Her smile eased, but its warmth lingered in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to make you wait so long, but I was finding you some clothes, as well as taking care of a few important matters.” She extended the folded garments to Jack. “Your harp should be returned by tomorrow. As should anything else Rab took from you.”
Jack set down the bottle. He accepted the clothes, relieved to see his half coin resting on the pile.
“The chain is broken, but I’ll have a jeweler mend it,” she said.
“Thank you.” Jack hesitated, setting the clothes aside. He looked at Adaira fully, aching to touch her. There were endless words still unspoken between them, and he could feel them, brewing like a storm.
“Adaira,” he whispered. “Adaira, I—”
The sound of her name broke her composure. It didn’t hit Jack until a moment later that she hadn’t heard her name in weeks, that she had been answering to Cora.
It was like a rock breaking through ice on a loch.
She stepped forward, until the distance between them evanesced and he could see the freckles fanning across her nose. Jack drew in a sharp breath, because there was fire in her eyes, and he was captivated by it, as well as slightly fearful of such heat. Especially when she raised a fist at him.
“You foolish”—she shoved him once with her hands—“insufferable”—then nudged him again, just over his pounding heart—“infuriating bard!” She pushed him a third time, forcing Jack to take a step back.
Fury spun from fear, he realized as he saw tears well up in her eyes. And he would gladly let her pound her fists on his chest if she needed to. She could call him whatever she felt like, because he was with her and that was all that mattered to him. He was breathing the same air as her, standing in the same moment with her.
Jack waited for her to shove him again, welcoming her to do so with his eyes and his hands, held palms up at his sides.
Yes, let it all go, Adaira, he thought, waiting. Let yourself unravel with me.
“I almost watched you die!” she shouted at him, and this time her fist pounded her own chest. Once, twice. A third time. As if she needed to command her heart to keep beating. “And I . . .”
Her voice broke. She turned away from him abruptly, her fist finally opening. Blue jewels tumbled from her hand, gleaming in the light as they spilled across the floor. But Jack hardly paid mind to their strangeness. He watched Adaira bow over, as if she had been torn in two. A sob split her breath. She crouched down and wept into her hands.
Jack had never seen her cry. He had never heard such an unearthly sound wrenched from her chest, and gooseflesh rippled over him as he listened. It froze the marrow in his bones as he felt her pain, her grief. He knew in that moment she had been holding this in for days, for weeks. This emotion that she had quietly buried in a castle surrounded by strangers. In a land where she was still regarded with suspicion. A place that should have been her home but wasn’t.
Tears welled in his eyes as he walked to her. The blue jewels on the floor cut into his bare feet, but he scarcely felt them. He drew Adaira up in his arms and carried her to the chair. She sat in his lap and pressed her face into his hair, clinging to him. She continued to weep, and Jack’s hands caressed her shoulders, stroked down her spine, then up her ribs. He felt her tremble with her uneven breaths, and he pulled her closer, his heat seeping into her. Finally, he could no longer hold back his own tears, and he wept with her.
An hour could have passed. Time seemed to melt away, and Adaira eventually leaned back to look at Jack, to wipe away his tears with her thumbs.
“My old menace,” she said. “I’ve missed you.”
Jack smiled, and his laugh sent more tears slipping down his cheeks. He sniffed, his nose inconveniently running. “I see you got my letter,” he said in a stuffy voice.
“Yes. And nearly a moment too late, Jack.”
“Was it my words that drew you to the arena, Heiress?”
He felt her stiffen. Heiress was his old moniker for her, a title she had once worn amongst the Tamerlaines. Jack instantly regretted saying it, even though it had rolled naturally from his tongue.
“No,” she said, glancing away from him. “It was the strangest thing.”
He felt her drifting far from him. Jack tightened his hold on her waist, desperate to feel her gaze tracing him again. “And what was that?”
“The fire,” Adaira whispered, looking at the hearth. “The flames extinguished. The fire led me to you.”
Jack wanted to be surprised, but all he could think of was Ash, rising from Mirin’s hearth. Ash, encouraging Jack to venture west.
“There’s something I need to tell you, Adaira,” he said.
She fixed her attention on him so intently, he almost lost his train of thought. She listened as he told her about Mirin’s hearth going dark, and about playing for the fire spirits. About Ash telling him he would find the answers in the west.
“I see,” Adaira said, but Jack could feel her withdrawing. “You’re here because Ash has commanded it of you?”
“Yes,” Jack replied. “But to be honest, I was only waiting for a reason to cross the clan line. I was waiting for a reason to come to you, whether you invited me or something else directed me.”
She was quiet.
He hated how he suddenly couldn’t read her face, her inner thoughts. But the light in her seemed to dim, as if she was tamping down her emotions again. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want her to hide how she felt, and he was about to lift his hand and touch her face when his stomach let out a loud, plaintive growl.
“When was the last time you ate, Bard?” Adaira drawled.
Jack sighed. “Not too long ago.”
“Stop lying. You’re famished, aren’t you? Why don’t you eat while I change and wash this blood off me.” She stood from his lap, and Jack’s hands reluctantly slid from her waist.
“You don’t want to share this meal with me?” he asked, a bit petulant.
She only smiled as she unbuckled her belt and leaned her sword against the wall. “I already ate dinner. But you can pour me a cup of gra. I’ll share that with you.”
Jack glanced at the green bottle. He had assumed it was wine but now remembered that the Breccans brewed their own special drink, which they consumed only with those they trusted.
He poured them each a cup as Adaira approached her pitcher and ewer to wash the blood from her hands and face and a few strands of her hair.