“‘Dear Mum and Frae,’” she began to read, clearing her throat. “‘I’ve reached the west safely, although I did have a minor detour. Don’t worry, however. I’m with Adaira once more, and I . . .’” Mirin paused to cough. The sound was deep and wet, and she coughed again, covering her mouth with her hand.
Frae stiffened. She had noticed her mother coughing more lately. She had also noticed that Mirin was weaving at a slower pace; as a result, she needed to work longer to complete a plaid. Not many people were commissioning her these days, although the ones who did came at night, as if they didn’t want to be seen knocking on her door.
“Perhaps you can read it to me, Frae?” Mirin whispered.
Frae nodded and took the letter. But she saw her mother discreetly wiping blood from her fingers. Her face had gone pale, as if something had broken within her.
Frae pretended not to notice, because Mirin didn’t want her to know. But anxiety chilled Frae and made her stumble over the words of Jack’s letter.
Come home, Jack, Frae wanted to beg him when she reached the end. Please come home.
Chapter 33
Jack was the first to return to the bedroom. Adaira was still with Moray, and the chamber was quiet, tinged with blue evening light. Jack stood numbly before the hearth, watching the light gradually fade as the sun set.
He relived his conversation with Niall, over and over, until he felt bruised.
It was almost dark when he moved to throw another stack of peat on the fire and light the candles scattered throughout the room. He stared at the dancing flames until his sight grew speckled and he closed his eyes, knowing only a few more hours remained until the culling.
He needed a distraction.
Sitting at Adaira’s desk, Jack glanced over Iagan’s composition again. Poring over the music made Jack want to write his own, to turn those sinister notes from cold ash into fire. He opened a drawer, seeking fresh parchment. What he found was a letter addressed to him.
Frowning, Jack drew it from the shadows. He recognized Adaira’s handwriting and his heart leapt in response, as it always seemed to do where she was concerned. Studying the parchment, he realized that she had written him a letter that she never sent.
He opened the seal and unfolded it. His swift-beating heart went completely still as he read her words.
My Old Menace,
Tonight I write my mind and my heart into this letter because I will never send it. There is heady power in such a thing, I’m learning. To write without constraints. To write what you truly feel. To turn a memory immortal. Into ink and paper and the unique slant of your hand.
Tonight I heard you sing for me. I heard you play for me.
And you will never know how much I needed your music. How desperate I was to hear your voice, over kilometers of mist and rocks and bracken and barrenness. You will never know because I cannot bear to tell you, so I will tell it to the paper here instead.
I drank poison tonight, and it turned me into frost and ice. I drank poison, and at first I felt like I was made of iron and confidence and all the sharp edges of the realm, until I wasn’t. And I writhed on the floor of my room with blood-spun jewels in my hair. I writhed and I wept and I have never felt such pain—the pain of loneliness, of emptiness, of grief. The pain of a poison I shouldn’t have drunk.
It was so heavy within me I could hardly crawl. But then your music found me on the floor. Your words found me at my weakest, at my darkest hour. You reminded me to breathe—to inhale, to exhale. You reminded me of all the gleaming moments we shared, even if it had just been for a season. You reminded me of what could still be if I was brave enough to reach out and claim it.
And I would tell you to sing up a hundred storms, if only to hear such beauty and truth again. To feel it settle in my bones and warm my blood. To know it is mine and mine alone to claim.
I love you, more than these humble words and this everlasting ink can say. I love you, Jack.
—A.
The words began to swim on the page. Jack blinked away his tears, but a sound escaped him. A sound of overwhelming relief and astonishment. To see her words, to feel them unfold within his chest like wings.
He stood, her letter still clutched in his fingers.
Through the haze of his tears, he looked at the floor, imagining her writhing and in pain. Why had she taken poison?
The mere image brought him to his knees.
He crawled closer to the hearth and lay down. He sprawled on his back, overwhelmed by all that was good and all that was uncertain. All that the night still promised to bring.
Jack stared up at the ceiling.