Yvaine worked her jaw. She still wanted to protest. “You know I want to go with you.”
“No, Captain,” Sidra said.
“But, Sidra, I—”
“No. I need you here.”
Yvaine heaved a sigh, raking her fingers through her black hair. “All right. When do you plan to leave?”
Sidra rose from the table. Her foot ached constantly these days, but she had grown accustomed to the pain. She had learned to move around it, and she marveled that it was hard to even remember what her foot had felt like before it became infected.
Now, for the first time in weeks, she was experiencing a taste of hope that a cure could be found. An invitation to the west gave her a chance to see the land, to take its herbs and flowers and vines in her hands.
She suddenly felt like she could climb a mountain.
“As soon as possible, I think,” Sidra said. “I’ll write to Jack and give him my blessing for the culling. And I’ll write to Adaira and tell her I’m coming. I think I could go the day after tomorrow, to give them time to prepare for my visit.”
“As you want, Laird,” Yvaine said, draining her tea to the dregs before standing. “I’ll speak with Blair and arrange your retinue.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
Yvaine left without another word, and Sidra followed a trail of sunshine to one of the windows. She stood in its silent warmth, letting the light seep into her, and thought about where she had been, only weeks ago. Then her thoughts returned to where she was now.
Sidra shivered in the sun.
Chapter 31
Hap was waiting for Torin in the shadows of the Aithwood.
“I see you survived the west unscathed,” the hill spirit said cheerfully as soon as Torin had crossed over the clan line.
Torin snorted, but he wasn’t in the mood for jest. His mind was crowded with all the things he had seen and heard, and his worry over Sidra had grown tenfold. “Where’s Whin? Can you take me to her?”
Hap’s brow furrowed, though he seemed accustomed to Torin’s terseness. He led the way through the trees and into the misty hills, coming to a stop in one of the valleys.
“Why do you need Whin?” Hap asked.
“I believe she’s one of the sisters in the riddle,” Torin replied, kneeling in the grass. He began to prepare a workstation, drawing inspiration from all the times he had observed Sidra prepare salves and tonics. He asked two nearby rocks for their assistance, one to serve as a mortar, the other as a pestle, and then he laid out his bounty. The Orenna flowers, bright as blood on the grass, and the flowers he had harvested from the cliffside, white as snow.
Two sisters, united. Ice and fire. Salt and blood.
“You spoke with her?”
Torin turned on his knees to behold Whin standing behind him, her eyes riveted to her sister’s flowers.
“For a moment, yes,” Torin said. He hesitated, seeing the anguish in Whin’s face. “If I may have a few flowers from your crown . . . I believe it is one of the last things I need to solve the riddle.”
Whin reached up to pluck a few gorse blooms from her crown and gave them to Torin. Then she melted away, as if she couldn’t bear to watch him work.
Only Hap remained nearby, and a few curious ferlies who had gathered in the grass.
“How much, how much?” Torin whispered to himself as he set the blossoms on the stone. The riddle had provided no instructions about measurements. Torin decided to lay down one of each flower, then wiped his hands over his chest.
He believed the white blossom was ice, remembering how cold it was on the vine. But he still needed salt and fire.
He ran to the nearest croft, which happened to be Mirin’s. Torin eased through the southern wall and found Mirin at her loom.
“I apologize for this,” he said, even though her ears were closed to his voice. Torin took a wooden bucket from the kitchen and one of the candlesticks from the hearth mantel. He also took Mirin’s flint before rushing back to the valley, where Hap and the ferlies waited with wide-eyed expectation and hope.
He set down the candle and flint on the rock—he was trembling violently now, as he had done after he killed a man for the first time. But now the shaking was due only to the adrenaline coursing through him, making his breaths skip and sharpening his sight even more than before. Taking the bucket, he ran to the coast, seeing every shadow, every secret of the earth along the way.
Torin knelt on the sand, watching the tide ebb and flow.
“May I take a portion of you?” he asked the sea.
The ocean answered with a crashing wave, and Torin was knocked off balance. The water rushed through him, spinning a chill through his blood. He couldn’t tell if Ream was granting permission or denying it, but he was desperate. Torin scooped up a bucketful of salt water, then peered at it to ensure that no water spirit lurked within. The water was clear, free of golden threads and fins and eyes, and he carried it back to the valley.