“Speak your terms.”
“The first? I would like to have dinner with my father a few hours before the culling. A good, hearty meal in one of the castle’s private chambers.”
“Very well. I can see to it that this is done,” Innes said. “What else?”
Jack hesitated, but when he spoke, his voice was clear. Unwavering. “If my father defeats your son, Niall goes free. You give him back his name and his title and his land and his honor. He is a prisoner no longer.”
Innes was silent. But then she held out her hand. “I agree to your terms, Jack.”
He accepted her hand, her grip firm enough to crush his fingers. They sealed the spoken agreement.
Jack wanted to bask in hope and confidence, but he could still feel the sharp edge of Moray’s dirk at his throat. He could still feel the bitter coldness of the dungeons seeping into his bones. He could still hear the way Niall had spoken his name in the arena, like a piece of him had broken.
Jack began to prepare himself for the worst.
Adaira found David in the laird’s quarters. He was waiting for her at his desk, where a piece of parchment, a freshly cut quill, and an inkwell were laid out. A line of candles burned and cast rings of light, their wax guttering down to pool on the wood.
“Innes said you want to see me?” Adaira asked.
“Yes,” David said, drawing the chair back from the desk. “I’d like for you to write a letter to Sidra.”
Adaira was so shocked that she stood frozen, blinking at him.
“You did say she was a healer and might could collaborate with me on the blight’s remedy?” David asked.
“Yes.” Adaira stepped forward. She sat in the chair and took the quill in her hand. “What would you like me to say to her?”
“Extend an invitation. Innes and I would like for her to visit. Tell her she can bring up to four people in her retinue. Guards or handmaidens or her husband even, if he’d like to accompany her. Also ask her to bring whatever records she’s kept, or tonics or herbs that she has found helpful, so I may see the work she’s already done and compare it with my own.”
Adaira eagerly began to write. As the nib scratched across the parchment, she thought her father would read over her shoulder but was surprised that David shifted away to reorganize the books on his shelf. Adaira realized he was granting her privacy, and her heart warmed, thankful.
She wrote the letter and signed her name but hesitated.
“Do you want to read this before I seal it?” she asked.
“No,” David answered. “I trust you. Go ahead and seal it, Cora.”
Adaira heated the wax over a candle flame. She sealed the letter with the Breccans’ sigil and then held up the parchment to David, waiting for him to accept it.
“Come with me,” he said, turning away.
She walked with him to the aviary, where the ravens roosted in iron cages. Her letter was tucked in a leather pouch and fastened to one of the birds. Adaira stood beside her father and watched as the raven took flight into the storm, heading eastward to Sidra. The rain and wind spun up a mist that coated her face and beaded in her hair. She closed her eyes and breathed it in.
“I know you think of your parents often,” David said gently. “I know that you miss them. I imagine you might compare me and Innes to them, and I can’t fault you for it. But I do hope that you know how much we want to be in your life, not just as a laird and her consort.”
Adaira opened her eyes. Her heart had quickened with David’s words, churning up painful memories. Memories of Alastair and Lorna and the east.
She turned her head to regard him. He reached out to gently touch her cheek with his gloved fingers, touching the mist that veiled her skin. Adaira honestly didn’t know what to say. There was a knot in her throat, and her eyes welled with tears.
Yes, I understand, she wanted to say, but her jaw remained clenched.
David only gave her a sad smile as his hand fell away.
He left her in the aviary, staring into the storm.
Sidra was in the castle kail yard when Yvaine found her at dawn, two rain-speckled letters in hand. The sun was rising behind a swath of wind-streaked clouds, and it promised to be a sweltering day. The valley fog had already melted, and bees and damselflies flew in languid patterns. Only a smattering of dew remained on the plants as Sidra cut and laid them into her harvest basket.
“One for you, and one for Torin,” the captain said. “Both from the west.”
Sidra wiped the dirt from her fingers and tucked her pruning shears into her apron pocket, accepting the parchment. The letter addressed to her was in Adaira’s familiar handwriting. The letter addressed to Torin looked to be Jack’s elegant penmanship.
She stared at them, knowing that whatever rested within these letters was going to change everything. She could sense it, like she could taste the thunderstorm in the air, still hours away. Like a shock of electricity, as if she had raked her hands through freshly spun wool and then touched the hilt of a sword.
She knew the answer about Moray rested within these letters. Their search for him had been fruitless, and Graeme’s prediction that he had made it to the west was most likely correct, because there was no sign of him in the east. Sidra was now in a waiting game. She was holding her breath, waiting for the Breccans to make either an honest move or a deceitful one. To either shelter Moray or give him up again.
“Have you eaten yet?” Sidra asked Yvaine as they walked the garden path, returning to the cool air of the castle.
“Yes, but I’d take a cup of tea,” Yvaine said.
The women retreated to the library and sat at a small round table. Edna brought in a tea tray with a plate of buttery scones, crushed berries, and a bowl of cream, and Sidra let herself find comfort in the soothing motions of preparing her tea.
“Which one should I open first?” she asked.
“Torin’s letter,” Yvaine replied.
Sidra broke the seal and unfolded the parchment. She read Jack’s words, which were both expected and completely bewildering.
“What is it?” Yvaine asked urgently, reading the lines on Sidra’s face.
“Moray’s in the west, as we thought.” Sidra extended the letter to the captain. “But they’re offering up a strange solution for him.”
She drained her tea while Yvaine read, but she soon thrummed her fingers on the tabletop anxiously, waiting to see what the captain thought.
Yvaine set the letter down and leaned back in her chair, lacing her hands behind her neck. “Well. That wasn’t what I thought it’d be.”