He had always wondered if he had ever unknowingly seen his father in the city market, on the road, in the castle hall. Jack had always wondered, and those thoughts had fallen on fallow ground over the years, left to rot. But no longer.
He had always wondered why his father had never claimed him. He now knew why.
His father was a Breccan.
CHAPTER 21
Torin rode back to the croft, eager to see Sidra. The meeting at the clan line had gone better than expected, and this was the most hopeful he had felt in a long time. If Innes Breccan continued to be agreeable and provided them with Orenna flowers, then they would be one step closer to finding Maisie and the other lasses. He could be days away from holding his daughter. Days away from carrying her home.
He just needed to be patient. Torin inhaled, slow and deep, to calm his heart.
He dismounted and left his horse by the gate. It had rained here while he had been away; the front yard glistened in the sunlight. He then noticed that Yirr wasn’t guarding the front door, and Torin felt his first pang of unease. He stepped inside, opening his mouth to call for Sidra.
His voice was still dust in his throat. His wound still ached.
Torin swallowed and searched the rooms. Her basket of herbs and ointments was sitting on the shelf, so Torin knew she wasn’t visiting her patients. Perhaps she had returned to the garden. He walked the rows, but Sidra was absent. He stood for a moment in the midst of the towering stalks, lush flowers, and vegetables ripe on the vine. She wasn’t here, but Torin could feel a trace of her among the green living things of the earth, amongst the wildflowers.
He next rushed up the hill to his father’s, but she wasn’t with Graeme.
Torin returned to his yard, frowning. He realized that he had no inkling where she had gone, and that brought him to his knees beside the herbs. He thought again of the last time he had spoken to her. The things that had come from his mouth—sharp, angry, and prideful.
She had said that she loved him, even at his worst. And he hadn’t responded. He had never told her how he felt, and now the chance had been stolen from him.
But in this forced silence, he had noticed the weeds overcoming the garden. He had noticed the sorrow in Sidra’s eyes and the exhaustion in her posture. She was hurting, and he wanted to help her carry that pain, as she had carried his.
He looked at his hands, lined with dirt and grime, scarred from blades.
Which will you choose for your hands, Torin? she had once said to him, words that had offended him. But they had been living words—a phrase that wouldn’t die no matter how he tried to snuff it. Words like seeds that had slowly been germinating in him, unfurling new growth.
He dwelt on his dreams. The ghosts of the men he had killed. He wanted to change.
He rose and fetched his horse. He didn’t even know where he was going, and he rode aimlessly, listening to the wind and studying the ground beneath him. He remembered the first day he had met Sidra. How he had fallen from his horse.
Torin turned the stallion south and rode to the most peaceful place on the isle, where Sidra had been born. The Vale of Stonehaven.
Sidra first visited her grandmother’s grave in the vale. She knelt and spoke to the grass, the soil, and the stone that held a trace of the woman who had raised her. She also stopped at her mother’s grave, although Sidra held no remembrances of her. After she lingered in the valley’s cemetery, she walked to the cottage where she had grown up.
This ground was marked by memories. She passed through them one by one. First the stream that led to a loch where Sidra had spent time with her taciturn father, catching fish from the rapids. Next came the orchard, where she had experienced her first kiss. The paddocks where she had guarded the sheep with her brother. And lastly, the kail yard, where she first discovered her faith in the earth spirits. Where she had spent hours beside her grandmother, with soil cupped in her hands. Where she had learned the secret of herbs and the might of a small seed. This ground had seen her grow from child to girl to woman, and she hoped it would feel like reuniting with an intimate friend.
The cottage looked the same as she remembered; her father and brother had diligently kept up with the work. The kail yard, though, was a disaster, unorganized and beset with weeds. The trees were heavy laden with fruit in the orchard, and the sheep still roamed the hills like tufts of clouds. But Sidra acknowledged, with an ache in her soul, that this place no longer felt like home.
Yirr whined beside her.
She glanced down at the dog and touched his head, but his eyes were on the sheep. She released him to run and herd. Alone, she passed through the gate and stood in the kail yard, surveying the mess. Slowly, she knelt.