Now a few rocks, with their hearty scowls, had also gathered close by, as had a trio of alder maidens, who twisted their long, root-tendril fingers in anticipation.
Torin heard their murmurs as he knelt again. Sweat dripped from his beard as he stared at what he had gathered, as he inwardly spoke the riddle again: Ice and fire, brought together as one. Sisters divided, united once more. Washed with salt and laden with blood—all united will satisfy the debt you owe.
Surely, this was everything.
He took up his makeshift pestle and began to crush the flowers on the stone. As more spirits arrived to watch, the flowers soon turned into a fragrant medley. Torin could feel the spirits’ eyes boring into him, and he wanted to order them away. He didn’t want an audience, and yet it also didn’t seem fair to deny them this moment.
He paused in his work, staring at the smudge of crushed petals. What came next? The salt, or the fire? Or perhaps he needed to cut his hand and bleed into it first?
Torin decided to go with fire first, then water, and lastly blood. He reached for the flint to strike up a flame, and as he was lighting the candle he heard the spirits around him gasp. He glanced up to see them recoil, grimaces on their faces.
“What is it?” he asked brusquely.
Only Hap remained close, although even the hill spirit seemed disquieted by the flame. “Are you certain, Torin?”
“Ice and fire,” Torin said. “Yes, I’m certain. Why do you doubt me?”
“I . . .” Whatever it was Hap wanted to say faded as he curled his tongue. The hill spirit only shook his head, flowers cascading from his hair, and took a step back.
Torin was too frustrated, anxious, and weary to consider that he might have misinterpreted the riddle. He set fire to the flowers and then watched as the flames caught. He was cupping the salt water in his hands when there was a resounding boom, and a shock wave sent him flying.
Dazed, Torin sat forward. His tunic was soaked from the spilled water, and from his own sweat, and he watched as smoke rose from the rock.
“No,” he whispered, frantically crawling to it. “No!”
One by one, the earth spirits retreated with bowed heads and sad countenances. All of them melted away save for Hap, who stood witness as Torin reached the rock.
Nothing remained but a scorch mark. Torin traced the stone, realizing that all he had brought together—the flowers and his hope and his confidence—was gone.
Jack was tying the boot tethers up to his knees when the fire went dark in Adaira’s hearth. He glanced at the ashes and saw the smoke rising in a cloying dance. Even the candles had been snuffed, their wicks glowing red in the gray morning light.
Adaira sighed, knotting the end of her braid with a strip of blue plaid. “What is he trying to tell us?”
Jack set his foot on the floor. He wasn’t sure what Ash was striving to convey, but his own mind was heavily distracted with mortal matters. Within hours, he would have dinner with his father. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted to say to Niall, or how to prepare himself for what was certain to be an uncomfortable encounter. Then, a few hours after that, the culling between Niall and Moray would commence, and Jack would witness either his father’s redemption or his death.
There didn’t seem to be any more room in Jack’s mind to think about why he had been sent west in the first place. But since the fire spirit had resorted to extinguishing flames again, Jack wondered if he was running out of time. Ash needed his attention, and now Jack remembered the memory Kae had shared of an altercation between the Laird of Fire and Iagan.
Jack’s gaze drifted to Adaira’s desk. Iagan’s composition still waited there in a heap.
“I think I need to stay behind today,” Jack said. He stood and looked at Adaira, who was pinning her plaid to her shoulder. “I need some time to study the music I took from Loch Ivorra.”
Adaira was quiet, her mouth quirking to the side. “As you wish. I’ll make sure that lunch is sent up to the room, so you don’t have to leave. But keep my sword with you.” She reached for the sheathed blade and handed it to him.
Jack accepted it, but only to wrap the sword’s belt around her waist. He cinched it firmly at her navel.
“It looks better on you,” he said, admiring how it complemented her. She had always been tall and svelte and pale as the moon, even as a young girl. A girl he had once loved to hate. The sword glistening at her side matched her well. “And I’ll only worry about you, riding the wilds without me and your sword.”
Adaira stared at him with hooded eyes. “I need to arm you, old menace.”