Sidra slid from her horse. She hit the hard-packed ground with a jar to her ankles, but the pain in her leg was a mere memory as she strode for Adaira. There was a moment when Sidra wasn’t sure if she would chuckle with joy or weep in relief as her heart overflowed with emotions.
She crossed the clan line and entered the west without fear, as if she had done so a hundred times before. She stepped into Adaira’s fierce embrace.
They greeted each other breathlessly, as though time had never come between them, and they laughed into each other’s hair.
Torin didn’t know what woke him until his name cut through the darkness.
“Torin.”
He opened his eyes and was greeted by the loam. Dirt was in his mouth, and grass was in his beard. He groaned and slowly pushed himself up to his aching knees.
“Torin.”
He blinked away the blurriness, recognizing the voice that had roused him. Hap sat nearby, cross-legged and bright-eyed.
“Hap,” said Torin, surprised by how rough-hewn his voice was. “I think I missed you.”
Hap only smiled.
That was when Torin realized that Graeme’s kail yard was teeming with earth spirits. They crowded the small garden, brimming with wonder and joy. Torin could nearly taste it when he breathed—the scent of the earth after a summer rain, the nectar of the flowers, the dew on the grass.
“Why have you come to me?” he asked, overwhelmed by their presence.
“Look behind you,” Hap said.
Torin turned to see the stone with the hollow heart. At first, he didn’t understand what he was beholding. Where once there had been blood and flowers and his anguish, there was now something else. Something smooth and bright and cold.
The blight’s remedy shone on the rock with all the radiance of the moon.
Part Four
A Song for Wildfire
Chapter 36
Sidra stood beside David Breccan at his worktable, studying his leather-bound herbarium. She was impressed with his records, including the plant cuttings he had pressed and fastened to the pages. Some she recognized and knew well. Others were a mystery to her.
“May I?” she asked, and when he nodded, she carefully began to leaf through the pages. She stopped when she saw a small white flower, gleaming faintly of gold, attached to the parchment. An enchanted blossom, Sidra knew. Beneath it, David had written its name: Aethyn.
Sidra paused, her memory drawing deep. She was familiar with this western flower. The first and only time she had heard its name she had been sitting in the dungeons of Castle Sloane, speaking with Moray.
There’s no countermeasure, no antidote for Aethyn. But it turns spilled blood into jewels.
This was the poisonous blossom that had killed Skye. The youngest daughter of the laird.
“You’re familiar with Aethyn?” David asked, noticing her pause.
“It doesn’t grow in the east,” Sidra replied. “But yes, I’ve heard of it.” She didn’t offer up how she had that knowledge. Adaira had told her Moray Breccan was now dead, slain the night before at the culling. Sidra wanted to be careful in what she said as well as in what she didn’t say while she was in the western holding.
Speaking Moray’s name now, or even Skye’s, might open a wound that Sidra wouldn’t be able to close.
As if sensing her thread of thought, Blair shifted closer to her. He had become her shadow and had yet to utter a single word since crossing over into the west. But Sidra could tell how tense he was, as were her other three guards. They were the finest warriors the east had to offer, personally chosen by Yvaine, and yet they had never been in this situation—walking the west openly and brushing shoulders with Breccans.
It was odd, even to Sidra. Instinct told her to prepare for a trap, given the history between the Tamerlaines and the Breccans. Despite her hopefulness, she hadn’t been able to snuff out such sinister thoughts on the ride in.
Was that flock of sheep they passed on the road stolen from the east? Had the guards they saw at the city gates crossed the clan line in raids before? Was the portcullis—the only way in and out of the castle—going to drop and hold, keeping Sidra and her guards locked inside?
Sidra inwardly shook herself. She couldn’t allow herself to dwell on such thoughts, not if she wanted to make the most of her time here and collaborate with David.
Adaira reached for a bottle of dried herbs on the table. She also had remained close to Sidra’s side, and it was her presence alone that enabled Sidra to extend her trust.
“Do you think the blight’s remedy might be made by combining two plants?” Adaira asked. “Something that grows in the west with something that blooms in the east?”