He was surprised to discover they were now the same great height. But that was where their similarity ended.
Torin was built for the isle: broad shouldered and thick waisted, with sturdy, slightly bowed legs and arms corded with muscle. His hands were huge, his right one still casually holding the dirk’s hilt, and his face was cut square and anchored with a trim beard. His blue eyes were set wide, and one too many spars had left his nose crooked. His hair was long and bound back by two plaits, blond as a wheat field, even at midnight. He wore the same garments Jack remembered him by: a dark woolen tunic that reached his knees, a leather jerkin studded with silver, a hunting plaid of brown and red draped across his chest, held fast by a brooch set with the Tamerlaine crest. No trousers, but not many men of the isle bothered with them. Torin sported the customary knee-high boots made from untanned hide, shaped to his legs and held in place by leather thongs.
Jack wondered what Torin thought of him in return. Perhaps that he was too skinny, or looked weak and scrawny. That he was too pale from sitting indoors. That his clothes were drab and terrible, and his eyes jaded.
But Torin nodded his approval. “You’ve grown, lad. How old are you now?”
“I’ll be twenty-two this autumn,” said Jack.
“Good, good.” Torin glanced at Roban, who stood nearby, scrutinizing Jack. “It’s all right, Roban. He’s one of us. Mirin’s boy, in fact.”
That seemed to shock Roban. He couldn’t have been older than fifteen, and his voice cracked when he cried, “You’re Mirin’s son? She speaks of you often. You’re a bard!”
Jack nodded, wary.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a bard,” Roban continued.
“Yes, well,” Jack said, with a twinge of annoyance, “I hope you didn’t break my harp at the clan line.”
Roban’s lopsided smile dimmed. He stood frozen until Torin ordered him to recover the instrument. While Roban was gone, humbly searching, Jack followed Torin to a small campfire in the maw of a sea cave.
“Sit, Jack,” Torin said. He unbuckled his plaid and tossed it across the fire to Jack. “Dry yourself.”
Jack caught it awkwardly. He knew the moment he touched the plaid that this was one of Mirin’s enchanted weavings. What secret of Torin’s had she woven into it, Jack wondered with irritation, but he was too cold and wet to resist it. He draped the checkered wool around himself and stretched his hands out to the fire.
“Are you hungry?” Torin asked.
“No, I’m fine.” Jack’s stomach was still roiling from the voyage across the water, from the horror of being on Breccan soil, from nearly having every tooth knocked loose by Roban. He realized his hands were shaking. Torin noticed as well and extended a flask to Jack before he settled across the fire from him.
“I noticed you arrived from the west,” Torin said with a hint of suspicion.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Jack replied. “The mainlander rowing me to the isle turned coward. I had no choice but to swim, and the current brought me to the west.”
He took a bracing sip from the flask. The heather ale was refreshing, stirring his blood. He took a second swallow and felt steadier, stronger—owing, he knew, to consuming something that had been brewed on the isle. Food and drink here boasted flavor tenfold over mainland fare.
He glanced at Torin. Now that they were in the light, he could see the captain’s crest on his brooch. A leaping stag with a ruby in its eye. He also noticed the scar on Torin’s left palm.
“You’ve been promoted to captain,” said Jack. Although that was no surprise. Torin had been the most favored of guards from a very young age.
“Three years ago,” Torin replied. His face softened, as if his old recollections were as close as yesterday. “The last time I saw you, Jack, you were yea high, and you had—”
“Thirteen thistle needles in my face,” Jack finished drolly. “Does the East Guard still hold that challenge?”
“Every third spring equinox. I have yet to see another injury like yours, however.”
Jack stared at the fire. “You know, I always wanted to be one of the guard. I thought I could prove myself worthy of the east that night.”
“By falling on an armful of thistles?”
“I didn’t fall on them. They were shoved into my face.”
Torin scoffed. “By whom?”
By your lovely cousin, Jack wanted to reply, but he remembered that Torin was fiercely devoted to Adaira and most likely thought she was incapable of being so fiendish.