A Fire Endless (Elements of Cadence, #2)

by Rebecca Ross

“I want you to carry a message to Whin of the Wildflowers,” Bane said, catching Kae by surprise. “What message, my king?” “That she is to curse the weaver’s kail yard.” Kae exhaled, but a chill traced her spine. “Mirin Tamerlaine’s garden?” “Yes. The one that feeds this bard. Whin is to ensure that all crops, all fruit, all sustenance withers at once and remains dormant until I say they can grow again. And that goes for any other garden that tries to feed him. If it is every eastern kail yard, then so be it. Let famine come. It would not hurt the mortals to suffer at the expense of the bard.”

WTF

He wanted Adaira to ask him to join her in the west. To invite him to be with her again. Because he could not bear to beg her to take him, and he feared being in a place where he was unwanted. He refused to put himself in such a position, and so he had no choice but to appear utterly resilient as he waited for her to decide what was to become of them.

He was angry at the Tamerlaine clan for turning on her so quickly when she had done nothing but sacrifice for them. He was angry that he had no idea what was happening to her on the other side of the isle.

“You say you have yet to wholly trust me because you do not know me,” Innes said. “But you are my daughter, and you have nothing to fear from me.”

And yet you threw her away…

“If I am weak for wanting you, then let me embrace that weakness and make it my strength,” he said, his gaze fixed on the west. “And if you must haunt me, then let me haunt you in return.”

THE YEARNING <3

He didn’t sing for the isle or for himself. He sang for what had been and what could still be. He sang for Adaira.

You deceived me, Adaira wanted to hiss at her. You have made me look a fool, arriving late to a dinner I poisoned myself for. She was sick of the tests and the challenges and the meddling. She was sick of doing everything Innes and David asked of her. She had made it nearly five weeks in their holding unscathed, but she was exhausted.

“You’re striking me in anger,” David finally said. “Why?”

TF YOU MEAN WHY?!?!

“If I wrote a letter to Moray,” he began, “would the eastern laird read it? And likewise, if Moray wrote to me—which he hasn’t—would the eastern laird read it too before sending it?” Adaira felt the heat rising in her skin. “I don’t think that’s a fair comparison, given what I haven’t done versus what Moray has.” “That much is true, Cora. But even in the face of such truths, you cannot deny that the Breccans and the Tamerlaines have a long, bloody history, and unfortunately you are caught between the two clans.” “By no choice of my own,” she said. David was silent, but Adaira knew he felt the sting of her words.

“At last, Bard,” said the fire spirit. His voice, like one long hiss, the words twisting in his mouth, sent a shiver through Jack. “At last you summon me.” Jack’s face felt blistered, but he didn’t dare move away. “Or perhaps you have summoned me?” The spirit cackled, amused. “You speak of the cold ashes. Yes, it was the only way I could think to gain your attention.”

“All evidence led to this boy’s croft. His mother claimed that he came home with blood on his boots, and that she saw him hide the stolen sheep with their own flock.” “And so you decided to hold no trial for him?” Adaira murmured, unable to hide her disgust. “Because of information Rab gathered?”

Adaira didn’t know if Innes had turned the lairdship into this figure, or if the lairdship had molded Innes into what she was. But this was the woman Adaira had come from. Bone and breath and blood. A woman who blessed raids and called for cullings to clear out the criminals in her dungeons. A woman who hid scars and never appeared weak before those she didn’t trust. A woman who had given up her heir and only son in order to bring Adaira home.

But he would never forget how quickly the clan had turned on Adaira. He would never forget their doubt, their scathing judgment, their sharp comments when they realized she was Breccan by blood. How deep their betrayal had cut her, even as she strove to hide her pain. No, Jack would never forget. He remembered names and faces, and who had said what. It would be a long while before he’d want to sing and play for such people. At least, not until they apologized to Adaira.

But such anger would only rot her from within, reducing her to smoldering ashes, because the truth was that Lorna and Alastair were both gone, buried beneath eastern loam. Being furious at their deceit did nothing to them but everything to her, and anger would wear her down into dust. Adaira wanted to avoid that fate. She didn’t want to let something that had been good in her life turn sour.

“Have you heard from Cora?” Moray rasped. Sidra continued to stare at him. She would never forget that he had kicked her in the chest and beaten her into the heather. That he had taken her daughter, provoking the worst anguish Sidra had ever known.

“Days can feel like years, can’t they?” she said. “I remember that very feeling when my daughter was stolen from me. How every day felt like a decade as I wondered where she was and worried about her. Missing those hours with her that I will never regain. And for my daughter, knowing the fear of that moment will be imprinted in her memory.” The confidence in Moray’s expression faded. His posture drooped, and his breaths hissed through his teeth. He was silver-tongued, Sidra knew. She had heard him tell a story before and knew that he could string words together like spells.

“The riddle goes as follows: Ice and fire, brought together as one. Sisters divided, united once more. Washed with salt and laden with blood—all united will satisfy the debt you owe.”

“Anything else, Mad Thief?” Jack returned the scathing smile. “Yes. When I lie beside my wife tonight, when she learns of all you did to bring us back together, I’m sure she will personally want to thank you.”

The culling. She gasped when she realized where the fire was leading her. Adaira broke into a run.

“No one hurts those who I love. No one.” She didn’t know whether or not her mother heard the implication of what she had said. If Innes had been aware of Jack’s presence in the arena. But Adaira’s suspicions were beginning to grow claws, tearing through the fragile bonds she had been forging with her mother.

“You foolish”—she shoved him once with her hands—“insufferable”—then nudged him again, just over his pounding heart—“infuriating bard!” She pushed him a third time, forcing Jack to take a step back. Fury spun from fear, he realized as he saw tears well up in her eyes. And he would gladly let her pound her fists on his chest if she needed to. She could call him whatever she felt like, because he was with her and that was all that mattered to him.

“You’re assuming Ash sent me here for the mission and the mission alone. But perhaps he knew that I need you, more than I need air and warmth and light. That if I were to go on living as I had been in the east without you, I would soon be worn down to nothing but dust.”

There truly was no way Sidra could have prepared for the news she brought. Yvaine’s eyes shone with shock when she finally spoke. “Moray Breccan has escaped from the dungeons.”

“What do I do if I never recover him?” she asked. “What do I do if he’s found? How do I punish him for killing five of my guards? Do I shackle him again and extend his sentence? One that inadvertently affects Adaira in the west and will keep her away from us for an even longer period? Do I have him executed? Do I write and ask Innes Breccan what she’d prefer for her heir? Everyone is looking to me for wisdom and a plan of action, and I’m at a complete and utter loss.”

“What’s this?” Jack’s voice was sharp. “What? You want to take all the tea again?” she countered, not sure what he was talking about until she saw that he was gazing at her exposed arm and the line of stitches that held her wound together. “Oh. That. It’s nothing.” But Jack was tracing it with his fingertip, his eyes dark and gleaming as he studied the stitches. “It doesn’t look like nothing,” he said. “Who did this to you?” “It was an accident.” “By whose hand?”

“You’ve been protecting me—my music—all this time?” he said. Kae nodded. Jack wanted to know why. Why had she taken scars for him? What did his music fully mean to her? But he withheld those questions. There would come a time for him to learn their answers. Now he simply whispered, “Thank you.”

“May I take some of your flowers, Orenna?” Torin asked. It was quiet for a long moment. The loneliness was tangible on the cliff overlooking a foam-churned sea. He didn’t know how long he could tolerate being in this place, and he felt as if he could be swept off his feet by the harsh wind at any moment. “You are the first who has ever asked,” Orenna answered. Torin couldn’t see her, but she sounded close, her voice pitched deep. “Take what you can carry.”

“Does that not concern you?” Adaira said. “That members of your clan are being killed for crimes you aren’t familiar with? That innocent people could be dying beneath gags and locked helms?”

“I need you to be a representative of the Tamerlaine clan,” Innes said. “To watch the culling at my side. To stand witness to Moray’s death, so your laird knows he was fairly dealt with here in the west for his misdeeds. Are you able to do that?” She was asking him to watch his father fight—and maybe die, if Moray’s luck ran true. Overcome with all the emotions that gripped him whenever he thought of Niall, Jack wanted to wince, to fold in on himself. But he held Innes’s steady gaze, realizing that this was the moment he had been waiting for. It had simply come in a way he least expected.

“I’m sorry. If I could take the sickness for you, I would.” Sidra blinked back a surge of tears, but they sat in the corners of her eyes, gleaming like stars. “I would never allow it.” “Of course not,” Yvaine said wryly, but her eyes also shone with emotion. “And that is why I will kill anyone who hurts you in the west.”

She didn’t look back as she strode down the corridor, but she had never been one to slow her momentum by glancing behind.

“Sidra’s faith in us is profound. She gives us strength, as we give her ours.” “And don’t forget to add your blight. You gave her that as well.” Hap came to a halt. Torin took a few more steps before he felt shame, scalding the back of his throat. He paused, glancing at the hill spirit, who suddenly looked like he might crumble. “The wind,” Hap said, the grass withering in his hair. “It was the wind. He blew the fruit to her. He put it in her path, and I . . . I couldn’t do anything about it.”

“Ever since I was a boy,” he began gently, “I’ve longed to know you. I’ve longed to see you, to speak your name. And now I finally have the chance and you ask me why?” Niall winced and shut his eyes. “I’m sorry, Jack. But as you’ll soon learn, I am not a good man.” “You don’t have to be a ‘good’ man,” Jack said. “You simply need to be an honest one.”

And I would love nothing more than to bore you with mainland stories day after day and sing for you until your guilt sheds like old skin and you choose the life you want, not the one you think you deserve.”

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.

“You and I have faced many things alone,” Jack murmured. “Between the mainland and the isle, the east and the west, we’ve carried our troubles in solitude. As if it were weakness to share one’s burdens with another. But I am with you now. I am yours, and I want you to lay your burdens down on me, Adaira.”

“I don’t need autumn, or winter, or spring,” Adaira said, letting the words bloom. “I want you eternally. Will you take the blood vow with me, Jack?”

She had not known her place then. But she would carve it into stone now. She would find it in the stars when the clouds broke. She would trace it in the lines on Jack’s palms. In the cold echo of his scar. In the taste of his mouth.

For once, she wasn’t afraid to surrender those pieces of herself, to let them twine with Jack. She let them all go because he was her home, her shelter. Her endless fire, burning through the dark.

Niall looked to the balcony, where Innes had risen, moving to stand at Adaira’s side. He was waiting for her permission to kill her son. Jack had to lean on the balustrade, suddenly worried the laird would recant. Innes stared down at them. The marks in the sand. The sword that reflected the stars. Moray’s flushed cheeks and wide, desperate eyes. Innes sighed, a sound woven with years of bitter sadness. The very heart of defeat. But at last, she nodded.

Bowed over the stone, Torin stopped crushing the remedy. The sobs tore through him, emerging from that deep, lonely cavern in his chest. The broken place he had hidden for years, fearful of acknowledging the damage that dwelled in him. But it was there, and he felt its jagged fragments.

Graeme saw these doubts in her eyes. Tenderly, he framed her face in his hands. “May you be strong and courageous,” he said. “May your enemies kneel before you. May you find the answers you seek. May you be victorious and spirits-blessed, and may peace follow as your shadow.”

“Hap,” said Torin, surprised by how rough-hewn his voice was. “I think I missed you.” Hap only smiled.

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?

He watched as the rain began to fall on Graeme’s cottage, and he found himself praying to the stone walls and the thatched roof and the wood door. . . . Hold fast against the storm. Keep them safe for me. The house he had grown up in shimmered faintly, as if his prayer had strengthened it.

Iagan had never died. He had sung his way to power and immortality, stealing fragments from the folk to do it. He had become Bane.

“Do not bend to him. Do not yield. Stand against him. This is the end.”

Sidra watched the blood gather on the stone floor. Her breath turned ragged when Blair’s blood hardened into the telltale blue jewels. So did Keiren’s. Mairead’s blood flowed clean and red. Someone had poisoned Sidra’s cup, as well as Jack’s. And now two of her guards were going to die if Sidra had misinterpreted her previous studies.

She had thought of the spurge only after hearing Adaira’s explanation of Aethyn’s side effects, how it had turned her cold, as though ice had gathered in her veins, weakening her heart. What better way to counter poison of ice, she had realized, than with poison of fire? She had also deduced, after not seeing the spurge in David’s herbarium, that it was an entirely eastern plant. It made sense now that the Breccans had failed to find an antidote to the poison that often plagued them.

“I was ordered to do it, Laird,” she confessed. “I didn’t want to, but I had no choice.” “And who gave you this order?” The woman looked to the table. She pointed and said, “Rab Pierce did.”