Sidra refrained from touching Rodina’s hand, just to be careful, but she studied it closely and wrote down all the symptoms Rodina could provide her. Her hand ached often; her fingers felt stiff. Mobility was hindered, but Rodina’s swollen joints might be responsible for that. She had more headaches lately, and a few days of an upset stomach.
“Do you think you can heal me, Sidra?” the crofter asked. Her voice was gruff, but her tone didn’t fool Sidra. She was wary of false hope.
Sidra set down her quill. “To be honest? I’m not sure, Rodina. But I’m going to do everything I can to help you, to stop its spread and to ease your discomfort.” She reached into her basket, withdrawing a few vials of her home-brewed tonics and salves. They were earmarked for another patient, but Sidra wanted Rodina to begin taking something immediately.
She wrote down instructions and tore the page loose from her book.
Rodina sighed, hiding her infected hand beneath the plaid again. “Thank you.”
“I’ll come to visit you tomorrow morning,” Sidra said. “But if you need me before then, call for me on the wind.”
The crofter nodded and then arched her brow. “I suppose you want to see the orchard for yourself?”
“Yes.”
“As I thought.” Rodina pointed to the back door. “Just beyond the kail yard. But please . . . be careful, Sidra.”
Sidra stood before the blighted orchard with nothing more than a mewling cat and the northern wind for company. She studied the trees, feeling as if they were watching her in return as she took in the burls in the applewood, the shuddering of branches in the breeze, the spattered fruit, the slow drip of tainted sap.
One of her first thoughts was that the blight might be connected to Adaira’s departure. As soon as the east had given her up, it had begun to suffer. Sidra wondered whether Adaira’s presence among the Tamerlaines had kept the isle in a tentative balance. Had it become skewed ever since she crossed the clan line? Or perhaps the Tamerlaines were finally being punished for stealing from the other side of the isle. They had taken Adaira and raised her as their own without guilt, almost as easily as the Breccans plundered the east in the winter.
But now as she beheld it, Sidra realized that she had seen this blight before, in another copse. There had been a suffering tree—Sidra had felt the spirit’s agony as it bled violet and gold—and she had reached out her hand to touch and comfort it, only to be ordered by the very ground not to do that.
This blight, then, was not a new development. It had been on the isle since midsummer—before Adaira’s departure—but something had just recently made it worse. There could be other places that were suffering, other trees in the east that could pass the sickness along to the clan.
Torin needed to make an official announcement.
Sidra took a step back, preparing to leave. The wind gusted, a shocking burst of cold as it dragged hair into her eyes and tugged on her shawl. The heel of her boot slid over something soft, but she regained her balance. Frowning at the long grass, she lifted her foot and drew up her hem to look at it.
One of the rotten apples glistened in the morning light. It was now smudged on her left boot heel, a streak of violet and gold and a writhing worm. She stared at her foot numbly, as though she had been charmed into stone. Sidra was hardly able to comprehend how the rotten apple came to be there; she had been very careful in her approach. There had been nothing but grass and the cat around her, who had scampered back to the kail yard.
She carefully wiped the heel of her boot and used the rake that Rodina had set aside to push rotten fruit back beneath the trees, careful to avoid stepping beneath the boughs.
Only a small trace of gold remained on her boot. She realized she needed to walk home barefoot and immediately burn her shoes in the outdoor firepit. That course of action felt a bit extreme at first, and she tried to steady her thoughts.
She hadn’t touched the fruit with her bare skin, as Rodina had. Only the heel of her shoe had come in contact with it, but she wondered if the same had happened to Hamish. If the blight had seeped through the leather hide of his boot.
“Don’t worry,” Sidra whispered as she removed her boots, careful not to touch the heel. She walked along the road, her bare feet warmed by the sun-baked dirt. The basket swung from her arm as she quickened her pace, boots dangling from her fingertips.
You’ll be fine.
Chapter 4
Adaira stood in a wind-battered cottage, staring at the dead body crumpled on the floor.
A chair had been overturned, along with a small bowl of parritch. The oats on the ground, now stained with blood, drew flies through cracks in the wattle-and-daub walls. Herbs hung from the low rafters overhead, trailing dusty wisps into Adaira’s braided hair, and for a long moment the fire was the only sound in the room, crackling as it burned through the peat in the hearth. The shutters were closed to ward off the breeze, and the house was full of shadows, even at midday. But the sun rarely burned through the clouds in the west.