“You have healed me, time and time again,” Innes murmured. “And yet I can do nothing to heal you now. It is a cruel fate, for you to die before me.”
David was quiet, but then he leaned back so he could meet her gaze. “There is something we can do.”
Innes closed her eyes. “You speak of Cora’s suggestion.”
“Our daughter, yes.” David began to tend to Innes’s wounded hand. Wiping away her blood, dabbing salve along the cut. Binding it in linen. “Innes? Innes, open your eyes. Look at me.”
Innes exhaled, but she opened her eyes. David traced the tattoos on her neck with his thumb, as if he knew their blue-inked story. As if those interlocking patterns were inspired by what the two of them had made together.
“Let her write to Sidra.”
Torin startled. This time, Sidra’s name was like a flame, melting through realms. He had seen enough in the west. It was time for him to go home and solve the riddle. Moray’s punishment would have to come through another, and Torin relinquished that old, bitter craving for vengeance.
He turned, leaving David and Innes behind.
But Sidra’s name continued to echo through him as he took to the western hills. It sang in his blood as he ran eastward.
Chapter 30
The shadows were long and cold in Adaira’s bedroom when the midnight bell chimed. Jack stood before the bureau, pouring water into a basin by candlelight. Thunder rumbled beyond the castle walls, and rain began to tap on the windows in a frantic rhythm that mirrored Jack’s pulse.
He felt rattled from the events of the evening.
His skin was clammy, his breaths shallow. He could still feel the sharp edge of Moray’s dirk at his throat. Jack tried to quell that memory as he cupped his hands into the water. He washed the perspiration from his face, but he couldn’t stop seeing Moray at the door. Moray overcoming him so easily.
“That’s the second time I’ve seen a blade at your throat, Jack.” Adaira’s voice was husky, sad. “I’m sorry.”
He reached for the plaid next to him and wiped the water from his eyes just as her arms came around his waist. She pressed her cheek against his shoulder.
“It was all for show,” Jack said. “He didn’t hurt me, Adaira. And it’s not your fault.”
She exhaled into his tunic. He could feel the heat of her breath on his skin, and he closed his eyes.
“Are you tired?” she whispered.
“No.”
“If I tell you a story, would that make you sleepy, old menace?”
He couldn’t help but smile. “Perhaps.”
“Come to bed then.”
Jack followed her to the bed, slipping beneath the covers. He lay on his back, eyes closed, and listened as Adaira settled close beside him. It was quiet for so long that Jack eventually cracked one eye open to look at her. She was sitting against the headboard, studying her nails.
“Where’s the story?” he asked.
“I’m trying to come up with one. It’s hard, you know. Finding a good enough story for a bard, one that isn’t going to bore him.”
Jack laughed. He turned to face her, his hand rushing over her bare legs. “Then perhaps I should tell one to you.”
Adaira’s breath caught, just as a knock on the door interrupted them.
She cursed and reluctantly crawled from the bed, Jack’s fingers drifting from her thighs. He sat forward, first annoyed, then worried, thinking a visitor at this hour couldn’t bring anything good.
It was Innes.
The laird stepped into their room. It almost seemed like the entire altercation with Moray had never happened until Jack met Innes’s gaze. He saw something dark and troubled within her.
He quickly rose from the bed.
“Your father would like to speak with you, Cora,” Innes said. “He’s waiting for you in my chambers.”
Adaira’s eyes widened. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Innes replied, glancing at Jack. “But I’d also like to speak to your husband alone.”
Adaira was quiet for a beat, but she reached for her robe, slipping it over her chemise. “Very well.”
Jack watched her leave the room, his heart tumbling through his chest. He felt Innes’s silent stare and met it with one of his own.
“How can I help you, Laird?” he asked.
“We need to talk about your father,” Innes replied.
The words made Jack’s breath seize. “Adaira told you?”
“No. I knew your connection to Niall when I rode to your mother’s cottage weeks ago. When I saw how close Mirin lived to the clan line. When I saw your little sister with her auburn hair.” She paused, glancing away from Jack. “I shouldn’t have been surprised after I learned the truth of what happened to Cora. How Niall gave her away. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I realized he’d come to love a Tamerlaine woman, and had children with her.”
Jack kept his expression guarded. He didn’t know where Innes was going with this conversation. He didn’t know if he needed to remain detached or if it would be best to show a flicker of emotion. Despite the uncertainty that laced his blood, he sensed that Niall’s life was hanging in the balance. A constellation that could burn bright or be fully extinguished.
“So you knew that Niall was a relation of Adaira’s by marriage,” Jack began in a careful tone. “And yet you continued to allow him to fight in the culling, time and time again? To what end? Until someone finally slayed him?”
“I don’t expect you to understand my decisions or my reasons,” Innes said. “And that’s not why I’ve come to speak with you. This, however, is what I need: Moray is a prisoner of the east, and yet he is here, beneath my watch. He has asked to fight in the culling, and I want to give him that opportunity.”
“You want to give him a chance to be absolved?” Jack snarled, unable to swallow his anger. “To walk free after serving only a month in the dungeons?”
“No,” Innes replied. “I want him to die with honor. If I return him to the Tamerlaines, they will execute him. His bones will rot from the shame of what he’s done.”
Jack was so surprised that he merely stared at her. But his mind was racing.
“I need him to face an opponent who is stronger than him,” Innes continued. “Niall is undefeated.”
“And what if he kills my father?” Jack queried. “Does Moray walk free?”
“No. He’ll remain in the dungeons and fight again until someone can defeat him.”
Jack considered this for a moment. “All right. What do you need from me?”
“I need you to be a representative of the Tamerlaine clan,” Innes said. “To watch the culling at my side. To stand witness to Moray’s death, so your laird knows he was fairly dealt with here in the west for his misdeeds. Are you able to do that?”
She was asking him to watch his father fight—and maybe die, if Moray’s luck ran true. Overcome with all the emotions that gripped him whenever he thought of Niall, Jack wanted to wince, to fold in on himself. But he held Innes’s steady gaze, realizing that this was the moment he had been waiting for. It had simply come in a way he least expected.
“I’ll do this for you, Laird,” he said. “But I have conditions.”