A River Enchanted (Elements of Cadence, #1)

by Rebecca Ross

He thought about the night of the raid, and he could hear Frae’s voice saying to him in the dark, There’s a Breccan in our backyard. Perhaps the man had come to steal his little sister away, but perhaps he had stood as a sentry over their home, to deflect a raid from descending upon them. Jack saw his mother in his mind’s eye, remaining on the lands she had earned despite the danger of the clan line that was so close to her croft. He recalled all the times he had asked for his father’s name, and every time Mirin had been unwilling to share even the smallest of morsels about him.

Jack's dad is 1000000% a Breccan

His father was a Breccan.

YEP DING DING DING

Give it to the soil, child. It was a phrase Senga had said countless times in the past. Sidra rose, unsteady for a moment. The shed was still in the corner of the yard, its door draped in cobwebs. She stepped inside and found it exactly as it had been years ago before she left. Seeds were still hiding in a small sack; she took a handful and carried them back to the garden. Sidra dug into the soil, angry. It was strong enough to bear her ire, and she raked her fingers through the loam. Digging trenches with her nails, she gave to the ground the words You should have fought harder. “I fought as hard as I could, and I’m still strong,” she said. She dropped the seeds into the furrows and added more words: You failed Torin and Maisie. These words were harder to relinquish. She was still waiting on a promise that she didn’t know would be fulfilled or not. She was waiting for Maisie to come home, and it might not happen. She was waiting to discover if Torin loved her in the way she loved him. Her grief welling, Sidra stared at the seeds she had dropped, waiting for earth and rain and time to transform them. “There is no failure in love,” she said and covered the furrows. The soil was rich; it swallowed a portion of her grief. “And I have loved without measure.” In this, I am complete.

Together, they sank into the blankets. He kissed the curve of her throat, the valleys of her collarbones. His body was warm, comforting against hers. And for once, Torin took his time. She knew he had countless important things to do, but he chose her that night. The light was fading. Sidra drank the scent of his skin—the traces of leather and wool, the loam of the isle, the sweat from endless work, and a slight touch of the wind—and it was familiar and beloved to her, as if she had found home in the most unexpected of places. She drew him closer, deeper. The room was dark now, but she could faintly discern his face. The wonder in his eyes. Soon, they couldn’t see at all, but they felt and they breathed and they moved as one. The eyes of their hearts were open, and they beheld each other vividly, even in the darkness.

And if she thought that she could measure the depth of her love for him before, she was mistaken. It ran far deeper than she knew.

For Adaira had come to love the deep timber of his voice when he sang, the deftness of his hands when he played the strings.

If his life had not been interrupted by the sting of an enchanted blade, he would have spoken. He probably would have become frustrated, wondering what Adaira and Jack had done to bring the storm. He would have peppered her with questions he felt entitled to have answers to. He would have said anything to fill the roar of such silence, but now he understood it better. The weight of each word he uttered, and how his words unfolded in the air. He was far more mindful of them now, understanding that most of them were worthless.

He couldn’t describe what he felt for her, but it possessed the power to sunder his bones. To lay him open and vulnerable. There were still corners of himself that Torin was ashamed of. He was afraid to fully let her in, to let her see him at his worst, to let her touch the bloodstained palms in his dreams. But then he opened his eyes and beheld her, joined to him. To his present. To his pain and his past. Weaving her fate with his, willingly.

The enchantment was gone, and the plaid tore apart in her hands.

I think the secret that was woven into this plaid was her real parents. Probably

“Your reaction to this revelation . . . you should revile me. You should call me your enemy. You shouldn’t want to hold my hand.” He only laced his fingers with hers, tugging her closer to him. “Do you think it matters to me where you were born, Adaira?” “It should.”

“You belonged to them, in love and in vows. They didn’t care if your ancestry was of the west. You healed this clan and gave them joy. You brought laughter and life into the once dismal corridors of the castle. You brought hope to the east.

“From your life came mine. I would not exist if you had been born in the east. I am but a verse inspired by your chorus, and I will follow you until the end, when the isle takes my bones and my name is nothing more than a remembrance on a headstone, next to yours.”

“It feels strange,” she whispered. “To not know which side I belong to.” “You belong to both,” he replied. “You are the east as you are the west. You are mine as I am yours.”

But then Jack drew slightly away so he could fully behold her on the bed beneath him, his hand fanning over her ribs. His half of the coin caught the light, hanging from a long chain about his neck.

Awwww and here was Adaira wondering!!!

Adaira and Jack, wholly consumed and gleaming, fell asleep entwined in her sheets.

“You don’t have to do that,” she protested, even as her heart softened in relief. He walked across the floor to reach her, eventually coming to a stop when only a breath was between them. “But I want to, Adaira.”

“I’ll miss them while we’re away, but I’m not bound to them. I belong to you.”

RAHHH man of the CENTURY