She smiled as he hovered over her, close enough that he could feel the heat from her skin but not quite touching. He traced her lips, watching them part beneath his thumb, her eyes drifting closed.
He kissed her softly, his mouth trailing to her jaw, her neck. He kissed the wild thrum of her pulse, the hollow of her throat. He ached when she sighed, when her fingers raked across his back. He found the edge of her chemise, easing it up as he slid down her body.
“I’ve thought about this every night since you left me,” he whispered as he kissed her knees, the inner warmth of her thighs.
She gasped when he tasted her.
The sound went through him like lightning, and Jack savored the moment. It was simply him and her in the darkness. There was nothing else beyond the door and the walls; there was nothing else save for her and the fire she stirred in his blood and the ancient vows they had spoken beside a thistle patch beneath a stormy sky. The choice they had made to bind themselves together. There was nothing but the way she said his name, both a prayer and a plea, and he answered her without a single word.
“Jack.” She tugged on his tunic until his mouth found hers again, his body covering hers.
They came together. He looked at her as she looked at him, and he was completely consumed by her. In the way she moved and touched him. The rosy hint on her cheeks and the dark possession in her eyes.
He buried his face in her hair. He breathed her in as he surrendered to her embrace.
They lay like that for a while, entwined, Adaira caressing his shoulders. He was almost asleep when he heard her voice. Her whisper followed him into his dreams.
“Old menace.”
Chapter 24
Torin haunted Sidra.
When she stood on the training green, watching the guard conduct their sparring exercises, he stood beside her. When she walked the castle corridors, he followed her. When she visited her patients, he was with her, attentively noticing how she cleansed wounds and burns. Which herbs and plants she gathered and crushed with her pestle and mortar, and what she mixed to create healing tonics and salves. When she laid Maisie down to sleep at night and told her wondrous stories of the spirits, Torin listened.
He longed, more than anything, for her to see him. To speak with her. To be able to reach out his hand and touch her skin.
He was there when she was sick, vomiting into the chamber pot behind closed doors. When her hand touched her belly, where their child was a spark in the darkness. He noticed that she could hardly stomach her food, that she ate very little. And he saw that, despite her exhaustion and the endless worries she carried, she worked harder than ever to find a cure for the blight.
More of the clan had fallen ill. Torin knew he should be striving to solve the riddle from within, but he was at a loss. All he could think of was to learn from Sidra just by observing her, figuring she most likely held the answers in her hands. But time was passing. Even as it seemed to hold steady in the spirits’ realm of perpetual dusk, Torin sensed the days slipping away in the mortal world.
Ice and fire, brought together as one. Sisters divided, united once more. Washed with salt and laden with blood—all united will satisfy the debt you owe.
He didn’t know where to even begin when it came to cracking the riddle.
One night he stood attentively as Sidra tucked Maisie into the bed they shared.
“Tell me a story,” Maisie requested, burrowing deeper into the blankets.
Sidra perched on the edge of the mattress. “What story would you like to hear tonight?”
“The story about the sisters.”
“What sisters, Maisie?”
“Remember in the book? The one Grandda gave me? The sisters of the flowers.”
Torin’s interest was suddenly hooked. The riddle echoed through him as he stepped closer, into the firelight.
“You mean about Orenna and Whin?” said Sidra.
Maisie nodded.
“I don’t know that one as well,” Sidra said, “but I’ll do my best to remember it.” As she began telling the story, Torin soaked in her words. She spoke of Orenna, who had once dared to grow her blood-red flowers in unusual places, angering the other spirits with her eavesdropping. Lady Whin of the Wildflowers had no choice but to urge her sister to grow only where she was invited. Orenna, of course, had bristled at the correction and ignored it, continuing to grow her blossoms where she willed, collecting the secrets of fire, water, and wind. Eventually, the Earie Stone punished her by banishing her to heartsick soil, the only place she was allowed to grow. Orenna would have to prick her finger and let her golden blood fall to the ground to create her flowers, and should a mortal harvest and swallow those petals, they would be granted Orenna’s knowledge and secrets in turn.
Torin’s heart was pounding as the story ended. His mind whirled with thoughts, with ideas and questions. If he was in the spirits’ realm, could he cross the clan line unhindered? Could he find the graveyard where Orenna grew in the west? Were the two sisters in the riddle Orenna and Whin?
“Goodnight, my love,” Sidra whispered, leaning down to drop a kiss on Maisie’s forehead. Their daughter had fallen asleep, arms splayed wide. Sidra continued to sit beside her for a long moment, her own eyes closed, as if she could finally relinquish the mask she wore by day.
She looked drained. Her countenance was deathly pale, and there were smudges beneath her eyes. Torin took another step closer to her, desperate to caress her hair, to whisper against her skin.
“You should rest, Sidra,” he said.
Sidra sighed.
At last she stood and began to loosen the stays of her bodice. This was when Torin always departed. Every night, before she disrobed, he would melt through the door and walk the castle gardens, searching for answers. He was just turning to leave when a gasp slipped from her lips. He turned back, frowning, and watched as she limped to the hearth.
Sidra eased herself into a chair, biting her lip as if to swallow another sound of pain.
Torin followed as though a cord were bound between them. He stopped a few paces away, eaten up with worry as she rubbed her left ankle through the boot. He had shadowed her most of the day, and he didn’t recall her injuring herself.
Sidra released a tremulous exhale, glancing his way. Torin couldn’t breathe, feeling her eyes on him.
“Sidra?” he whispered, his voice softened with hope. “Sid?”
She made no response. He swiftly realized she was looking through him, as he should know by now, and her eyes were fixed on Maisie, who continued to slumber. Torin swallowed the lump in his throat, watching as Sidra carefully began to unlace her knee-high boots.
She was wearing a brace around her ankle. Torin scowled at the sight; he hadn’t realized she was hurt, although now that he thought of it, he only came to her in the mornings after she had readied herself for the day. Not once had he caught sight of the brace, hiding beneath boot and skirt.