Kae remained still. She worried that if she moved Iagan would sing something that would be as costly to her as the song Hinder had been forced to obey. So she watched, transfixed, as Iagan summoned the earth next, drawing up spirits from the trees and grass and rocks. They appeared on both sides of the clan line, Whin on the eastern side. She arrived pale and furious, wildflowers drifting from her fingertips. When Iagan sang for a piece of her crown, she had no choice but to kneel and give him a portion of it. She set the gorse beside Hinder’s wings.
Then Iagan sang for the water spirits, from the lochs to the rivers to the ocean’s foam. Ream and her court had a long way to travel from the shore. The Lady of the Sea was wan and sickly when she arrived. Kae had always known her to be fierce and strong, and it was painful to watch her crawl, tearing away pieces of shell from her skin to lay them down beside Hinder’s wings and Whin’s gorse.
Kae felt like Iagan’s ballad would never end. She could see that he was drawing all the magic of the west, which came in veins through the ground and air, from forges and looms, from all the places the humans could wield it. The magic fueled him, settling on him like a starry cloak. Finally, he sang for Ash and the fire spirits.
Ash arrived in a flurry of sparks, but he never had a chance to resist: Iagan’s music was so powerful that it brought him low within an instant. The ballad for Ash spun a curse, one that Ash couldn’t counter. He gave up his scepter, laying it beside the wings, the gorse, and the shells. The music almost completely transformed him to embers, and he faded by degrees until he was translucent, nearly invisible. He lay prostrate before Iagan, unable to move. Then all the pieces the spirits had surrendered began to rise.
Iagan was resplendent as his mortality crackled and fell away from him like ice. The wings knit themselves to his back, and the gorse and the shells vanished into smoke as they settled into the scepter. His blood turned gold, and his music was transformed into stars that wove into his hair. Only then did Iagan cease singing and playing. The notes suddenly turned sour on his harp, as if his fingers no longer knew them.
The instrument fell to the ground. Iagan reached down and took the scepter instead, and it changed, reshaping itself to mirror his power. Lightning flickered from it, brighter than midday.
Kae knelt. She couldn’t resist the command, the way Iagan’s power drew her, even though he was no longer a bard. It felt like the air was ripped from her lungs, and her eyes rolled back as she felt thunder and mist claim the isle.
Her mind was reeling, sinking into darkness.
Jack released her hand.
They were both shaking from the memory, and Jack had to close his eyes until the world stopped spinning. When he looked at Kae again, the truth was shining between them.
Iagan had never died.
He had sung his way to power and immortality, stealing fragments from the folk to do it.
He had become Bane.
Chapter 37
“How do I heal them?” Torin asked. He was panting as he stood before the blighted orchard, where every tree had been struck with the sickness. Hap was at his side, and for once, the hill spirit was at a loss for words. Above them, the sky continued to churn. Rain fell and thunder rumbled in the distance. Torin could feel the storm in the earth beneath his bare feet. The tremble in the ground, the shock wave of fear.
He breathed, slow and deep, and focused on the trees again.
Ever since he had first learned of the blight, standing in this very spot with Rodina, Torin had known not to touch it. He had kept his distance, his fingers curled into a fist, safe at his side. Even in the spirits’ domain he had been careful.
But to heal them now he would have to stretch out his hand.
He approached the closest tree. A young maiden sat amidst its roots, apple blossoms wilted in her long green hair. She had been struck in the chest, and the violet sap, threaded with gold, oozed from her heart.
Torin knelt. He dipped his fingers into the remedy and laid them against her wound. He felt the power travel from him to her, the cold snap of the salve sinking into the fever of her blood. He watched as the light branched through her, chasing away Bane’s curse. She bled and bled, until her blood was no longer rotten but pure again, shining like gold as her wound knit itself together.
Torin moved to the next spirit. He stretched out his hand and set it upon another wound, and then another, and the remedy’s radiance burned through the blight, spirit by spirit. Hap walked through the orchard. The wind was strengthening, and the boughs were creaking in the gale, threatening to split and crack. Apple blossoms rained down like snow.
“Stand firm!” Hap shouted, and his voice had shifted, rising from the earth, from the grass and the loam. Torin felt the words reverberate through him as he continued to heal the orchard. “Do not bend to him. Do not yield. Stand against him. This is the end.”
Torin healed the last spirit of the orchard. His head was throbbing, his mind reeling. But when he met Hap’s gaze, he rose and waited.
“There are more who need you here,” Hap said.
Torin hesitated, divided between his desire to return home and his obligation to the spirits. He thought of Sidra and Maisie. He thought of Adaira and Jack. Eventually, making his choice, he stepped closer to Hap.
“Take me to them.”
It was almost dark when Jack finally reached the bridge that led to the castle.
When he emerged from Loch Ivorra, it had been raining. The temperature had dropped, as though winter had come early, and hail littered the bracken. Jack found his horse beneath the shuddering trees, stomping his hooves with ears pressed flat. Whatever rolled in from the northern horizon promised to be deadly, and Jack was shaky and breathless as he pulled himself up into the damp saddle.
All he could think about was Kae’s memory. It flashed through his mind again and again.
As he had ridden along the wilds, the clouds had started to bruise, veined with lightning. The wind had howled and the light had faded quickly. Jack hunched low to his horse’s neck, urging the gelding to go faster.
He finally understood why Bane forbade him to play, particularly in the west. Why Bane so vehemently opposed Jack’s music and was threatened by it.
If Iagan had turned himself into a king of the spirits through music, then surely music could dethrone him.
By a stroke of luck, Jack had found the road, which even in the gloam would not shift or deceive him. He and the horse flew along it, kicking up mud. They had reached the city gates just before they were closed as a safety measure against the storm.
Jack trotted along the deserted streets, wending his way closer to the castle on the hill. He noted that every door was locked, every shutter bolted. There was no sign of life anywhere as the Breccans laid low in their homes, even as the wind tore at the lichen and the thatch of their roofs. He suddenly wondered what he would do if the portcullis had been lowered, preventing him from entering the castle courtyard. Where would he go?