“Shall we fetch your horse, Heiress?” one of the Breccans said.
Adaira seemed to hesitate. Jack could only wonder if she sensed his presence. He prayed she did, uncertain what he would do if she left with what looked to be her guards.
“No,” she replied. “There are a few more things I’d like to do here. Go on without me and tell my mother I’ll be home by eventide.”
The Breccans left, one by one, their boots leaving a trail in the snow.
Jack watched as Adaira poured snow over a firepit, the flames hissing in response. She was finally alone. He began to weave through the trees, his heart pounding.
She must have heard him. Her head snapped up and her eyes narrowed as they scanned the Aithwood.
Jack came to a halt at the edge of the forest, waiting for her to catch sight of him. He stood in ankle-deep snow and breathed, slow and deep. He felt pierced by her gaze when her eyes found him among the blue, winter shadows.
Adaira’s lips parted. Her breath turned into clouds as she cried, “Jack?”
“Adaira,” he said, his voice breaking. It felt like he hadn’t spoken in years.
She ran across the riverbed, unknotting the cloak at her collars. She threw it around his shoulders, and he groaned at the warmth of it and the heat of her arms as she embraced him.
“Jack, am I dreaming?” she whispered into his hair.
His hands were numb, but he touched her in return. She felt like an awakening. His blood sang to be near her, to see her, to be in her arms. He laughed, tightening his hold on her.
“No,” he said. “I’ve returned to you.”
Adaira leaned back to study his face, then downward, past his ribs, all the way to his reddened feet. “Naked,” she said with a hint of incredulity. “Spirits, come inside before you freeze!”
He let her guide him over the riverbed, through the yard, and into the house. He was surprised to see how much it had changed. While Adaira rushed to find a spare set of clothes for him from a trader’s stash, he took in the arrangement of tables, some of them covered in goods.
“It looks different here,” he said.
“Yes, a bit. Your father doesn’t live here anymore, in case you were wondering,” Adaira said as she brought him a tunic and boots.
Jack let the cloak fall away as he began to dress himself, his legs stiff. “And where is he?”
Adaira shook the snow from her cloak. “He lives with your mum and Frae. So does your nan.”
Jack glanced to the hearth. A fire was burning, low yet golden. He was lost in his thoughts for a moment, remembering his time with the spirits, until Adaira touched his arm.
“Are you all right, Jack?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Can you tell me how long I’ve been gone?”
“I can, but sit first,” Adaira said, drawing him to one of the tables. “Let me brew us a pot of tea.”
He sat on a bench, watching as Adaira reached for a tin of dried leaves on the shelf.
“You’ve been gone for one hundred and eleven days.”
He swore, raking his fingers through his hair. When Adaira glanced at him over her shoulder, he drawled, “I’m pleased to know someone’s been counting.”
She only smiled and turned her back to set the kettle over the fire. “I take it your time with the spirits was not so terrible?”
“No,” he replied. “But I was not happy amongst them.”
She was quiet, and he watched as she served the tea, then settled across the table from him.
“Tell me what has happened while I was gone,” he said. “Tell me how this came to be a place of trade, and how that silver circlet came to sit across your brow, Heiress.”
Adaira covered her mouth for a moment, as if she didn’t know where to start, but then began to tell him everything. Listening to her, Jack loved the light in her eyes as she told him how the river became a road, and how his father’s house became a meeting ground between the clans. How well that had turned out and how the most unlikely of friendships had been made. How Adaira had decided to take up her mother’s mantle as Laird of the West.
Jack smiled. His tea had gone cold by the time she was done speaking, and yet he had never felt such warmth within him before. Not even when he was King of Fire.
“And so you turned your fear into something else,” he said. “You reached the place you thought you would never find, and you claimed it as your own. Well done, my love.”
Adaira was silent, remembering their conversation in the cavern. But then she smiled, her face flushing, and Jack suddenly couldn’t bear the distance between them, even if it was merely the length of the table.