“You said to me that you felt like you had failed me and Maisie.” He paused, his throat suddenly narrow. “You have never failed me, or our daughter. I know life feels different now, but you are free to choose what you want. If you desire to go your own way, then I will see our vows broken and I will let you go. But if there is a place for me within your heart . . . will you stay?”

Sidra framed his face. Her eyes were like dew, and her voice as warm as a summer night, when she whispered, “Yes.”

Torin took her hands and kissed the blisters on her palms. To see the agony she had taken for him made him ache, deep in his soul.

They came together just as dawn began to illuminate the windows. Torin held Sidra in the lavender light, his hands spread across the curve of her back. His fingers traced the eaves of her shoulders.

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.

“Torin,” she breathed. Her black hair spilled across her shoulders as she moved.

“Sidra,” he whispered.

No sound had ever been sweeter to him.

Jack was worried that if he didn’t speak to Mirin that day, Adaira would. He woke up with a headache, but the worst of his pain had subsided. He washed the grime from his eyes and dressed. His plaid was wrinkled from the disaster on the summit. A hole had emerged in the wool, as if the secret tucked within the pattern was quickly rising to the surface, and the sight of it stirred Jack’s apprehension. He draped the plaid across himself, choosing to display its disrepair. His mother would see it and know why he needed to speak with her.

He packed up his warped harp and carried it on his back. He didn’t know what to do with the instrument, but he didn’t want it lying around his chambers as a visible reminder of Bane’s power. He found comfort in feeling the harp’s familiar weight; the instrument, though damaged, still felt like a shield, and he was now ready for whatever the day might bring.