Torin turned to face her. “You can see me, even though you are in the mortal realm?”
She gave him a curt nod.
He decided to trust her because Adaira did. Torin approached the table and took a seat. He half expected the chair to refuse to hold him, for his body to pass through it. But the wood was firm, giving him a place to rest.
“Thank you,” he murmured to it. Face flushed—had he truly just thanked a chair?—he laced his fingers together and looked at Kae. “I’m seeking to solve a riddle, and I think you might be able to help me.”
Kae tilted her head to the side, waiting.
Torin shared it with her, word for word. A riddle that had been etched in the heart of a tree by Bane’s ire. The convoluted answer to the blight.
Kae’s countenance fell as she listened. She knew, then, whose hand had written the words Torin spoke. She shook her head, her palms skyward. Torin had no trouble deciphering what she meant.
I’m sorry, but I don’t have the answer.
He wanted to feel crushed. He shouldn’t have let such a heady hope unspool within him. But then Torin decided that Kae’s knowledge was much deeper and wider than his, and there was still a chance that she could assist him.
“I think the sisters in the riddle are Whin and Orenna,” he began, watching Kae’s expression closely. She blinked, surprised, but beckoned for him to continue. “I imagine that when you were with your brethren, blowing from east to west and north to south, that you saw countless things on the isle. You must have seen that day when Orenna was banished to dry, heartsick ground, and then how the clan line’s creation kept Whin away from her sister.”
Kae seemed hesitant. But she extended her hand to him. A gracious invitation for him to take a glimpse into her mind and past.
Torin reached out to take her hand. The contact shocked him—she didn’t melt through his fingers—and he noticed that he felt far colder than her. He closed his eyes, waiting for images to fill his mind as they had done for Jack and Adaira. But when his thoughts remained his own, blank with expectation, he looked at Kae again.
She was shaking her head.
It wasn’t going to work for him. Even though she could see him and hold his hand, he was in one realm and she was in another.
Torin’s hand slipped from hers. He wanted to feel defeated, to pound his fist on the table. But he refused to let his anger and impatience get the best of him.
“Do you happen to know where Orenna resides now?” he asked. “If you could guide me to the graveyard where she blooms, I would be very grateful to you.”
Kae nodded, rising from the table.
She led Torin from the cottage, moving slowly. He thought that maybe her healing wounds were ailing her and he shouldn’t have asked her to guide him. But then he noticed she was being cautious, paying attention to which wind was blowing, and where, and which path she took across the hills. Sometimes she crouched behind a rock, motioning for Torin to do so. He obliged, full of questions he held between his teeth. He didn’t understand until he took note of the golden pathways above, betraying the routes the wind was taking.
Kae wanted to avoid drawing the north’s attention.
When it was safe, they would press onward. Torin paid close attention to where Kae led, following her up a hill and then down into a wide strath. The valley was cold with mist and felt resoundingly empty. Gradually, the grass and moss and bracken ceased to grow beneath his boots, and even the rocks were diminished. When they came to a plot of ground covered only with dirt and pebbles, Torin knew they were close.
They climbed up a steep incline. He could hear the waves crashing against rock. He could smell the salt in the air. They were almost to the northern coast.
Torin finally saw the headstones. At first, he didn’t know what he was looking at, because Orenna’s flowers grew over the markers and across the graves, hardly leaving a place to step that wasn’t covered with thick, crimson petals. The sight brought Torin up short. He gazed down at the flowers, brighter than blood on the dry, cracked ground.
Slowly, he knelt. He didn’t know where the spirit was, but he felt her presence, as if she hid beneath the blooms.
“May I take some of your flowers, Orenna?” Torin asked.
It was quiet for a long moment. The loneliness was tangible on the cliff overlooking a foam-churned sea. He didn’t know how long he could tolerate being in this place, and he felt as if he could be swept off his feet by the harsh wind at any moment.
“You are the first who has ever asked,” Orenna answered. Torin couldn’t see her, but she sounded close, her voice pitched deep. “Take what you can carry.”