“We think it best to hold it once a month,” Innes began. “The Breccans will never forget what you have done for us in our time of need, and most in my clan will be open-minded and eager to exchange their goods with yours. We simply have yet to think of a proper location for it, and I know this has been the crux of the matter, with the clan line dividing us.”
Adaira had walked the clan line only a few hours earlier. She had scarcely noticed anything different about it, but neither had she been paying much attention to the magic that teemed in the ground. Jack had evanesced on the line. He had also ended Bane there. Now Adaira wondered if the curse that had held the isle divided for so long had been lifted. She thought of how the clouds had broken the moment Jack had taken his crown. How the sun had filled the west again.
She had sometimes imagined it—the curse unraveling and the isle becoming united once more.
“Have you felt anything, Torin?” she asked her cousin.
He knew she spoke of the enchanted scar on his palm. The one he received when he had been promoted to Captain of the East Guard.
Torin flexed his hand as he gazed down at the gleam of his scar. “I honestly have felt nothing since I stepped through the portal.”
But the isle had also been in the throes of peril when he returned, Adaira thought. Perhaps the magic of the clan line still held, but everyone had been too preoccupied by the storm to notice.
“Sidra and I need to return to our clan tomorrow,” Torin continued, meeting Innes’s stare. “On my way home, I’ll take a look at the clan line and see if its power still holds. And we’ll continue to deliberate on the trade from our end. I think we can find a good place for it to happen.”
He paused to hold up his goblet of wine, glancing at Adaira. “Most of all, let’s keep in contact with each other.”
Adaira gave him a wry smile. But she clinked her glass to his, agreeing. She hadn’t realized how desperate she was to see the four leaders of the isle united, toasting each other and the trade, until it unfolded before her.
Sidra rode with Torin and Adaira toward the east, with Blair and the rest of her guards following. She was more than ready to return home, to sleep in her own bed and hold Maisie, and yet she was distracted by thoughts of what the future held for the isle, of how the trade would proceed and the next steps they needed to take.
Her mind went quiet, though, as soon as she saw the charred remains of the Aithwood.
Smoke was still rising in languid curls. A great swath of the forest had burned, although there were still sections—the northern crown and the southern portion—that remained unscathed. Drawing closer, Sidra thought that the landscape looked as if the heart of the woods had been harvested, leaving behind ash and the charred ribs of tree trunks.
She eased her mare to a walk, then dismounted when their small party reached the woods. The guards remained with the horses as Torin, Sidra, and Adaira walked through the scorched remnant. Sidra imagined Jack standing in this place, singing and burning and vanishing without a trace. She still struggled to fathom the truth that he was truly gone—that, unlike Torin, he would have no way to return to his mortal life.
“Here it is.” Torin’s voice broke the quiet.
Sidra slowed her pace as she approached the clan line. She was streaked by charcoal, from brushing too close to the burned trees, as were Torin and Adaira. As if it were impossible to walk through this part of the forest and not be touched by what had happened here.
The three of them stood before the line, gazing down at it. And then Torin reached for Sidra’s hand.
“Will you step over it, Sid? I want to see if I can feel it in my scar.”
Nodding, she stepped over the line, then turned to gaze back at Torin. He was frowning at his hand, flexing his fingers.
“Did you feel anything?” Adaira asked.
“No,” he replied. “I felt nothing. The curse of the clan line has been broken here.”
“Should we test it farther down in the woods?” Sidra suggested. “In a place where the trees didn’t burn?”
“Aye. Come, Sid.” He reached for her hand again and pulled her back over the line.
They walked north first, eventually arriving at the place where the fire had ceased burning. It was like stepping from one world into another, from ash-streaked barrenness into lush abundance. Sidra shivered as she crossed the line again, this time watching Torin’s frown deepen.
“I felt your passage that time,” he said. “The curse still holds here.”
“Then it most likely also holds in the southern end of the forest,” Adaira said, but her voice sounded thin and strange, as if she was struggling to breathe. “We should walk there now.” She turned and began to stride through the burned portion again.