A River Enchanted

“The women—one dead and one living—were connected by love and blood and soil. Three cords that were so interwoven that Sidra was not surprised that Donella appeared to her and her alone.”

The connection between Sidra and Donella is important to Sidra’s character development. Donella helps Sidra realize that she needs to heal herself and her lost faith before she can heal Torin and that Torin does love her. The friendship between the two women, though one is a ghost, empowers Sidra as a mother, wife, and healer.

“And her faith in the folk of the earth ran deep. It was because of that devotion that Sidra could heal the worst of wounds and illnesses in the east. It was why her herbs, flowers, and vegetables flourished, empowering her to nourish and heal the community and her family.”

Sidra’s faith is integral to her character arc. Through the spirits she can heal, but when her faith is lost, she struggles to heal Torin. In order to heal him, she must regain her faith in the earth spirits and reconnect to the land that means so much to her.

“She held her composure, intently staring at him. It almost felt as if she could see through him, beyond flesh and bones and veins, down to his very essence. As if she was measuring his worth.”

Even as Jack initially holds bitterness toward Adaira, there is a hint of affection in the way he describes her look. He claims that she can see through him, to the core of him. Though he worries she is considering whether summoning him back was worth it, this passage hints early on at the romance that will develop between the two.

“She was adored, and he was reviled. She was the clan’s joy, while he was the nuisance.”

These lines demonstrate the early foiling of Jack and Adaira, with Jack as the “bastard” and Adaira as the heiress. They are mirrors of each other, and the similarity of their secret backgrounds will further cement this connection.

“Something about it felt dangerous. He couldn’t fully describe it, but his blood recognized the threat swiftly, felt the bite of its unsung power. Chills swept over his skin.”

Before Jack wields magic, he can feel it in the sheet music of Lorna’s ballad for the sea spirits. This demonstrates his affinity for enchanted song and his strong potential to become the next Bard of the East.

“He sagged in crushing relief at her warm response, but his harp remained between them, as if it were a shield.”

The image of the harp as a shield between Jack and Mirin illustrates his insecurity about his place at home. Even after a decade apart from his mother, he uses the thing he was sent away to pursue, music, to keep some semblance of distance between them and to protect himself from any possible rejection.

“He was told to take great care with his hands, to let his fingernails grow long, as if he were becoming a new creature.”

Jack’s transformation into a bard is not just emotional, but also physical. To fully embody the role of the bard, he becomes a new being, one devoted to music and capable of wielding the powerful magic that being the Bard of the East requires.

“Her gift of weaving enchanted plaids was none other than the magic of the earth and water spirits: it began in the grass and the lochs, which gave the sheep sustenance, which trickled into the softness of their wool, which was sheared and spun and dyed into yarn, which Mirin took in her hands and wove upon her loom, turning a secret into steel. She was a vessel, a conduit for the magic, and it passed through her because she was devout. The spirits found her worthy of such power.”

These lines explain the world’s magic system by illustrating how magic items are created in Cadence. There needs to be magic from the spirits, a secret, and a wielder who is powerful, devout, and capable enough to harness the spirits’ essence into enchanted items.

“He stared at Adaira and thought, I’ve dreamt of drowning at the spirits’ hands, and what if your fate is now twined with mine?”

These lines illustrate two key images in Jack and Adaira’s relationship: drowning and being entwined. The novel uses “entwined” often to describe both Jack and Adaira and Joan and Fingal, creating a connection between the two couples that foreshadows the eventual reveal of Adaira’s Breccan heritage.

“But my mother saw that mark on your hands, heard the songs you were destined to play before you had encountered your first note. And you can say that you were unclaimed here, but nothing could be further from the truth, John Tamerlaine. When you left for the university, my mother was content. As if she knew you would return a bard when the time was right.”

Adaira works to assuage Jack’s feeling of isolation and unwantedness in the clan, explaining why he was sent away as a child. This passage also suggests that Jack’s destiny is to take Lorna’s place and bring music back to the Tamerlaines.

“My faith is gone, she thought, sensing that was the reason why the yard was so changed, why she saw the glamour. She watched the sunrise gild the weeds. She began to viciously uproot it all.”

This moment is Sidra’s loss of faith. After Maisie is taken, Sidra rips up her garden, seeing a glamor of death and weeds because of her lost faith in the earth spirits. To cope, she rips out her garden, a garden she will later replant when she finds her faith again.

“Every time he saw her, he felt it a little more. Felt the tension like a harp string within him, strung from rib to rib.”

The connection between Jack’s feelings for Adaira and the image of a harp string demonstrates his continuing affection and passion for her. Jack loves music and finds meaning in his harp, just as he begins to love and find meaning in Adaira.

“Jack hesitated only a moment before he lifted their bound hands and kissed Adaira’s knuckles through the plaid.”

Jack kissing Adaira’s hand through the plaid instead of kissing her on the lips at their wedding illustrates that they are still on their guard against each other. Plaid represents protection, and Jack uses the plaid as a barrier between them to still protect his heart, as he thinks Adaira does not feel as deeply for him as he does for her.

“‘The days may be dark,’ Sidra said. ‘But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t feel joy.’”

Sidra, though mourning the loss of Maisie, still wants to celebrate the wedding of Jack and Adaira, connecting to the theme of The Dynamics of Homecoming and Belonging in Community. Even though Jack feels unwanted by the community, they rally around him and Adaira to celebrate their union at a time of turbulence and tragedy.

“‘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.”

The soil swallowing Sidra’s grief allows her to regain her faith in the spirits. It also shows the depth of Sidra’s love and compassion for her family and for herself in a time of pain and tragedy. In finding “completeness” in herself, she is able to heal Torin.

“The hour was gray, bewitching. And there sat his harp at his feet, warped in the fading light.”

After Bane’s attack, Jack wakes from a dream about the west to find his destroyed harp. The harp has served as a symbol for his connection to east Cadence, and the loss of the harp hurts him, but it also pushes him to more fully explore his Breccan side.

“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’s realization of his love for Sidra comes as he recognizes his guilt and his grief for the men that he killed. When he gets his voice back after his injury, he confesses his love for Sidra and his regret at the things he’s done. This is a turning point in their marriage and for Torin’s character, when a new future becomes possible.

“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.”

The callback to the harp as a shield hints at Jack’s continuing feeling of unsteadiness. It also foreshadows his use of the harp as a weapon to subdue Moray, both as a magical instrument and as a blunt-force object.

“Torin watched her intently for a moment, as if she had changed. He tried to find traces of his enemy in the features of her face, in the color of her hair, in the sprawl of her handwriting. But she was his cousin. She was the same Adaira he had grown up protecting and adoring. He didn’t care what blood she hailed from; he loved her and he would fight for her.”

After Adaira is revealed as Cora Breccan, Torin still loves her and sees her as the same person. This shows the dedication of Torin’s character to those he loves and the importance of unity, as Torin is still willing to make peace and allow Adaira to be laird.

“Frae was dreaming of the river. She was standing in it, uncertain if she should follow the water downstream or go against the current to reach home.”

In Frae’s dream, the river represents the divide between the east and the west. As a child of complicated heritage (even though she may not be fully aware of it), either down the river or up could lead to home, depending on how she defines it.

“Innes studied Adaira, the emotion rising like a wave coming to shore. Adaira swallowed it down, holding it deep in her chest as she began to see all the features she had stolen from her mother.”

The image of water appears again, following up on Jack’s fear of drowning. It was not drowning that would tear Jack and Adaira apart, but the reveal of a secret that brings Adaira westward.

“If you ask me to remain in the east while you are in the west…it will feel as if half of me has been torn away.”

The depth of Jack’s affection for Adaira is illustrated by the image of him being torn in half by her absence. It also harkens back to his split identity as half Tamerlaine and half Breccan.

“He came to a gradual stop in the valley. The river lapped at his ankles when he stepped into its currents. He stared toward the west, where the sun illumined the Aithwood, catching the rapids of the river. He knelt in the cold water.”

Jack ends his character narrative in the river. It is appropriate that he ends the book in the barrier between the east and west, because his heritage places him in the middle of the conflict between the Breccans and Tamerlaines.