“Not long after that, the southern wind blew a ship off course, and it found the isle. They were the Tamerlaine clan, and they too established a home on Cadence. The island was balanced between them, with the Breccans in the west and the Tamerlaines in the east. And the spirits blessed the work of their hands.
“In the beginning, it was peaceful. But soon, the two clans began to have more and more altercations and scuffles with each other, until whispers of war began to haunt the air. Joan Tamerlaine, the Laird of the East, hoped she could stave off conflict by uniting the isle as one. She would agree to marriage with the Breccan laird as long as peace was upheld and empathy was encouraged between the clans, in spite of their differences. When Fingal Breccan beheld her beauty, he decided that he, too, wanted harmony. ‘Come and be my wife,’ he said, ‘and let our two clans join as one.’
“Joan married him and lived with Fingal in the west, but as the days passed Fingal continued to delay on formally reaching a peace agreement. Joan soon learned that the ways of the Breccans were rigid and cruel, and she couldn’t adapt to them. Disheartened by the bloodshed, she strove to share the customs of the east, in hopes that they might also find a place in the west, granting goodness to the clan. But Fingal became angry with her desires, thinking she would only weaken the west, and he refused to see Tamerlaine ways celebrated.
“It wasn’t long until the peace was hanging on by a fragile thread and Joan realized Fingal had no intention of uniting the isle. He said one thing but enacted another behind her back, and the Breccans began to raid the east, stealing from the Tamerlaines. Joan, longing for home and to be rid of Fingal, soon departed, but she made it only as far as the center of the isle before Fingal caught up with her.
“They quarreled, they fought. Joan drew her dirk and cut herself loose from him—name, vow, spirit, and body, but not her heart, because it was never his. She bestowed a tiny nick upon his throat, the very place where she had once kissed him in the night, when she dreamt of the east. The small wound swiftly drained him, and Fingal felt his life ebb away. When he fell, he took her with him, forcing his own dagger into her chest, to pierce the heart he could never earn.
“They cursed each other and their clans, and they died entwined, stained in each other’s blood, in the place where the east meets the west. The spirits felt the rift as the clan line was drawn, and the earth drank the mortals’ blood, strife, and violent end. Peace became a distant dream, and that is why the Breccans continue to raid and steal, hungry to have what is not theirs, and why the Tamerlaines continue to defend themselves, cutting throats and piercing hearts with blades.”
The fisherman, leaning toward the tale, had ceased rowing. When Jack fell silent, the man shook himself and frowned, returning to his oars. The sickle moon continued its arc across the sky, the stars dimmed their fires, and the wind began to howl now that the story was over.
The ocean resumed its billowing tide as Jack set his eyes on the distant isle, his first glimpse of it in ten long years.
Cadence was darker than night, a shadow against the ocean and the starry sky. Long and rugged, it stretched before them like a sprawled dragon sleeping on the waves. Jack’s heart stirred at the sight, traitor that it was. Soon, he would be walking the ground he had grown up on, and he didn’t know if he would be welcomed or not.
He hadn’t written to his mother in three years.
“You’re a deranged lot, that’s what I think,” the fisherman muttered. “All this nonsense and talk of spirits.”
“You don’t revere the folk?” Jack asked, but he knew the answer. There were no faerie spirits on the mainland. Only the patina of gods and saints, carved into the sanctuaries of kirks.
The fisherman snorted. “Have you ever seen a spirit, lad?”
“I’ve seen evidence of them,” Jack replied carefully. “They don’t often reveal themselves to mortal eyes.” He inevitably recalled the countless hours he had spent roaming the hills as a boy, eager to snare a spirit amid the heather. Of course, he never had.
“Sounds like a bucket of chum to me.”
Jack made no reply as the vessel glided closer.
He could see the golden lichens on the eastern rocks, luminescent. They marked the Tamerlaine coastline, and Jack’s memories surged. He remembered how things that grew on the isle were peculiar, bent to enchantment. He had explored the coast countless times, to Mirin’s great frustration and worry. But every girl and boy of the isle had been drawn to the whirlpools and eddies and secret caves of the coast. In the day and in the night, when the lichen glowed, golden as leftover sunlight on the rocks.