Page 148 of Halfling
“Orek is gone. Did you see him leave?”
Her brother shook his head. “No, I didn’t hear anything. He’s probably out tracking again. Keeley got him worked up.”
“He said he found something—he came back wet like he’d jumped in the lake and he had cuts on his chest and he said he’d dealt with it but wouldn’t say whatitwas and and—”
Aoife clutched Sorcha’s hands. “Sorcha, breathe, sweetheart. It’s all right. Breathe.”
Chest crushing under the weight of her worry, Sorcha let herself be led to the kitchen table, where her mother plied her with warm tea and biscuits slathered in butter and honey. She ate numbly, the food ashes in her mouth.
The kitchen soon buzzed with activity, Connor hurrying to wake their father and Niall. Neither had seen anything but were as unconcerned about Orek’s absence as they’d been over Keeley’s story of seeing something in the woods.
“He saw something yesterday,” Connor said.
Ciaran frowned. “Did he say what?”
“No,” Sorcha replied miserably. “He…he was exhausted and so we just…went to sleep.” She hid her reddening face behind her trembling hands. Fates, why had she let herself get distracted?
I should’ve gotten answers from him!
Ciaran hummed in consideration. “Well, we’ll have a look around the property today. See what we can see. But I’m sure he’ll be back soon enough.” He squeezed Sorcha’s shoulders before heading out to wake the trainees in the barracks.
Sorcha made a helpless noise, hating that tears gathered along her lashes. Her family looked on with distress, unsure what to do with a weepy, frightened Sorcha.
She didn’t know how to make them understand something waswrong.
Planting her hands on the kitchen table, Sorcha said, “I’m going to look for him.”
“I’ll do it,” Connor said, jumping up from his seat across from her. “You stay here in case he comes back. C’mon, Niall.”
Her other brother grunted in protest around a mouthful of biscuit, but Connor’s scowl got him moving. With more pats and squeezes to her shoulders, the boys headed out.
For her part, Aoife kept Sorcha busy that day in the kitchen, helping her bake bread and can jams. She must have been worried, for when Sorcha went upstairs to get Darrah and drape him across her shoulders as Orek always did for comfort, Aoife didn’t protest. The kit had gotten good at rooting out the best treats in the kitchen and so had been banished. But today, he rode on Sorcha’s shoulders, accepting treats and offering his furry body as some small comfort.
When Maeve left for tutoring in Granach, Aoife instructed her to send Sofie along when she got there. Soon, both her mother and aunt were endeavoring to distract Sorcha from her growing fears.
Why isn’t he here? Why can’t he be found?she wondered again and again, even as her hands worked methodically through kneading bread and stirring berries as they bubbled and congealed into jam.
And, more insidious,Why didn’t he tell me?
The day wore on interminably yet somehow went by in a blink. Connor and Niall came back midday without having found anything, and Calum confirmed that none of the grooms had seen Orek.
Without any news, and her mate still unreturned, Sorcha couldn’t sit down to eat supper. Instead, she sat in the parlor with Darrah, gazing out the front window, desperate to see his big form through the trees, on his way back to her.
Her family hovered close by, a sibling coming to sit with her for a while, trying to draw her into conversation or soothe her worries.
But Sorcha didn’t want their comfort.
When her father came to stand beside her, awkward in his silence, she said, “He saw something, papa. There was somethingout there.What if something’s happened?”
“We’ll look for him again, my girl. We’ll take the dogs this time. Do you have something that smells of him?”
Throat closing on a sob, heavy tears escaped her lashes to drip down her cheeks. She was able to nod once before burying her face in her hands and weeping.
A choked, helpless sound rumbled from Ciaran, and he sat down to draw her into his arms.
“Where is he?” she murmured into his chest. “Why isn’t he here?”
“I don’t know, my girl,” Ciaran said as he rocked them back and forth. “But we’ll find him. We will. Just you see. I’ll find him, Sorcha.”
