“Cap—Laird,” Mirin said, nodding to him.
Torin had grown used to this greeting. His old title being cut in half for his new one. He wondered if “Laird” would ever truly fit him, or if the clan would always think of him as “Captain.”
“Mirin, Fraedah,” he greeted them, noticing that Mirin was carrying a pie in her hands. “It looks like the two of you are heading for a celebration?”
“Not a celebration, no,” the weaver said, her voice heavy. “I take it you didn’t hear the news on the wind?”
Torin’s stomach clenched. Usually, he always listened to the wind, in case Sidra or his father called him. But he had been distracted that day. “What happened?”
Mirin glanced at Frae. The lass’s eyes were large and sad as her gaze dropped to the ground. As if she didn’t want to see the news hit him.
“What happened, Mirin?” Torin demanded. His stallion sensed his nerves, sidestepping off the road and crushing a cluster of daises beneath its large hooves.
“A boy drowned in the sea.”
“Which boy?”
“Trista’s youngest son,” Mirin said. “Hamish.”
It took a moment for the truth to sink into Torin. But when it did, it felt like a blade caught between his ribs. He could hardly speak, and he urged his horse onward, galloping the remainder of the way to the Brindles’ croft.
His blond hair was snarled and his knee-high boots and plaid speckled with mud by the time he reached the Brindle farm. A crowd had already gathered. Wagons and horses and walking canes littered the path to the kail yard. The front door was wide open, leaking sounds of grief.
Torin dismounted and left his horse hobbled by an elm tree. But he hesitated beneath the boughs, riddled with uncertainty. He glanced down at his hands, at his calloused palms, marked by scars. The Tamerlaine signet ring was on his forefinger, the sigil of his clan intricately engraved in the gold. A twelve-point stag leaping through a ring of juniper. Sometimes he needed to look at it, to feel the ring cut into his flesh when he flexed his fingers, to remind himself that this wasn’t a nightmare.
Within the span of five weeks, three different lairds had worn this ring.
Alastair. Adaira. And now Torin.
Alastair, who rested in his grave. Adaira, who now lived with the Breccans. And Torin, who had never wanted the burden of lairdship and its fearsome power. Nevertheless, it had found its way onto his finger like an oath.
Torin closed his hand into a fist, watching the ring flash in the storm light.
No, he wouldn’t wake from this.
A few drops of rain began to fall; he closed his eyes, steadying his heart. He tried to sort through the tangle of his thoughts: the mystery of the blighted orchard, the lad who had worked that orchard now drowned, and parents whose hearts were broken. What could Torin possibly say to the family when he stepped into that cottage? What could he do to mend their anguish?
If people thought being captain would prepare him for the lairdship, they were mistaken. For Torin was coming to realize that giving orders and following structure and finding solutions had not prepared him to represent a vast people as a whole, a role that included carrying their dreams, hopes, fears, worries, and grief.
Adi, he thought, feeling a twinge in his chest.
He didn’t allow himself to dwell on her often these days because his mind always went to the worst. He imagined Adaira bound in chains in the western holding. Imagined her sick and mistreated. Or dead and buried in western loam. Or perhaps she was happy with her blood parents and clan and had forgotten all about her other kin, her friends in the east.
Really, Torin?
He could envision her standing beside him, with her hair in braids, mud on her dress, arms crossed, and a wry lilt in her voice, ready to prod his pessimism. She was his cousin but had been more like the younger sister he had always wanted but never had. He could nearly feel her presence, for she had always been there with him through the good times as well as the bad. Ever since they were two wild-hearted children racing each other through the heather, swimming in the sea, exploring caves. And then when they were older, through heartbreaks and handfasts and births and deaths.
Adaira had always been at his side. But now Torin scoffed, chiding himself. He should have known better. All the women in his life faded away into memory, as if he were cursed to lose them. His mother. His first wife, Donella. Maisie, for a span of days around midsummer before they had recovered her from the west. And now Adaira.
I think you would know if I were dead, she said.
“Would I?” Torin countered bitterly, the words breaking his vision of her. “Then why don’t you write to me?”
The wind gusted, lifting the hair from his brow. He was alone, with nothing but the rain whispering through the branches above him. Torin opened his eyes, remembering where he was. What he needed to do.
He walked through the garden and passed over the cottage threshold.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the interior light, but he soon saw people gathered in the common room. He saw the food that had been brought to the family: baskets of bannocks, crocks of cheese and butter, dishes of roasted meats and potatoes, herbs and honey and berries, and a pot of steaming tea. Just beyond an open door, he saw the boy Hamish laid out on a bed, as if he were merely sleeping.
“Laird.”
James Brindle greeted him, emerging from the mourning crowd. Torin held out his hand but then thought better of it and embraced James.
“Thank you for coming,” James said after a moment, stepping back so he could meet Torin’s gaze. The crofter’s eyes were red from weeping, his skin sallow. His shoulders were stooped as if a great weight had been thrust on him.
“I’m sorry,” Torin whispered. “Whatever you and Trista need in the coming days . . . please let me know.”
He could hardly believe the clan had lost a child again. It seemed like Torin had just solved one terrible mystery of girls vanishing without a trace: Moray Breccan, the heir of Western Cadence, had admitted to the kidnapping crimes and was currently serving his time in the Tamerlaine dungeons. The girls had all been safely returned to their families, but there was no way Torin could bring Hamish back.
James nodded, gripping Torin’s arm with surprising strength. “There’s something you need to see, Laird. Here, come with me. Sidra . . . Sidra is here too.”
The tension in Torin’s body eased at the sound of her name, and he followed James into the small bedroom.