In the distance, thunder rumbled as a storm billowed closer, and Jack resisted the urge to pace. Torin was waiting beside him, as were Mirin and Laird Alastair, who was so weak that a chair had been brought for him to sit in while the vows took place.
As the minutes continued to drag by Jack wondered if Adaira was planning to stand him up. He gave in to the temptation and walked around the thistles, the blooms white as fallen snow. This place hadn’t changed; it was the same as it had been that night eleven years ago when he had clashed with her.
“Jack,” Mirin said, reaching out to straighten his plaid. He had yanked it crooked, the golden brooch threatening to slip off his shoulder.
He let her fuss over him, knowing she was also nervous and had spent hours on his wedding garments. She had dressed him in the finest of wool—a cream-colored tunic that was soft as a cloud against his skin, and a red plaid that had never been worn before. Torin had additionally gifted him with a leather jerkin, studded with silver and etched with vines, and Alastair had bestowed the golden brooch, set with rubies. A Tamerlaine heirloom, and one that was most likely worth a fortune.
Jack tried to shake away his feelings of unworthiness, but they lingered, long enough to make him doubt himself and what he was doing. Until he remembered what Adaira had spoken to him nights ago, on her knees.
None of them are the one that I want.
She would never know what those words had done to him.
His eyes searched the hills. The land rolled like a song, dappled with purple heather and gorse. The light was beginning to cool with dusk, and Adaira had yet to appear.
He should have insisted they marry in the hall. A safe, predictable place where the spirits couldn’t trick them. He envisioned the bracken, the rocks, and the grass manifested in physical forms, coming between her and him. What if they led Adaira astray and Jack was left here, standing in a thistle patch until midnight?
“Take a breath, Jack,” Torin said. “She’ll be along.”
Jack swallowed a retort. He turned his face into the wind and closed his eyes, the air sweet with the fragrance of rain. A gust blew over him, lifting the hair from his brow as if fingers had brushed it away.
Faintly, he heard Frae calling his name.
Jack opened his eyes.
He saw Adaira walking through the grass to meet him, Sidra and Frae on either side, holding her hands. He watched her approach in a red dress, her hair loose and crowned with flowers, and he was struck almost senseless by the sight of her. Jack couldn’t breathe, nor could he fathom the truth that she was coming to him. Or perhaps he could. Because the truth was … she wasn’t looking at him.
Her eyes were cast down to the heather as she ascended the hill, stoic as if she were walking to her death.
Jack didn’t take his eyes from her, waiting. Look at me, Adaira.
She was five steps away, her face pale until their gazes locked. Gradually, the color returned to her cheeks, like roses blooming in starlight. She stood, beautiful and proud in the gray-washed light; she seemed not of this earth, and Jack was like a shadow next to her. Serenity spread through him the longer he regarded her. Peace, like a gentle poison, quelled the anxious blood within him. He extended his hand to her, a quiet offering. He didn’t quite believe this was happening, not until Sidra and Frae relinquished her, and Adaira claimed his waiting hand with her own.
Her fingers were shockingly cold. A brush of winter, defying the sultry air and the heat of his skin.
She glanced up at the churning clouds above them, and Jack felt how she trembled. It eased his own shaking, and he tightened his hold on her, hoping it would steady them both. If we must drown, let us do so entwined.
Adaira’s gaze returned to him, as if she had heard his musings, and there her eyes remained, for she saw him at last. Her old menace. A slender smile danced on her lips, and he was relieved, recognizing that mirth within her. Despite the weight of the past few days, he could still coax it from her without a single word.
He acknowledged it then. She had just accomplished the sweetest revenge. Here he was, about to bind himself to her. To give his vow with a willing heart. And he marveled at her.
Torin was saying something. Jack didn’t hear a word as Adaira brushed her thumb over his knuckles.
“Shall I go first?” she whispered, and Jack nodded, doubting his voice.
Mirin brought forward a long strip of plaid, surrendering it to Torin. Jack felt his and Adaira’s family gather close around them in a loose circle as if they were embracing the two of them.
Torin began to wrap their hands with the strip of plaid, knotting it once as Adaira spoke her vow.