Page 101 of Soulgazer

The word drops heavily between us, but even standing on the same island I learned to walk on, I can find nothing in me to defend my father. He’s doubled the number of caverns on our isle and the size of our coffers with it, aye, but there are so many rumors. Collapses and brutal injuries. Villagers who imbibe the mushrooms, drink tinctures developed by his apothecary, or inhale spores directly and forget half their lives in one day.

And then there’s the version of Da no one else has witnessed.

I should have cast you into the sea the moment you opened those eyes.

“How…how are you able to see it?” I swallow past the shame, the lingering fear. The way his words fit like an old skin I’m long past ready to shed. “No one else does.”

“My sister.” I don’t think Brona meant to say it. Her fingers dig into her arms as she glares at the ground for several long seconds, twin slashes of red appearing on her cheeks. Just when I think she’s about to run, she releases a sigh that could break the world. “She was a navigator too.”

Was.

Dread creeps down my back as I search Brona’s eyes. “What happened?”

“Dermot destroyed her.” Brona balls her fists against her sides. “Ma taught us both the ways of the stars, how to track storms and currents—taught a whole school since she lost her leg and couldn’t find work on ships any longer. But when your da showed up one day, it wasn’t any of the others from the Dromlach Cliffs he went for. It was my older sister. Orla.”

Her name is wrapped in pain, still tender at the edges.

But it’s Brona’s stubborn jerk of the chin that keeps me still.

“She was seventeen when she took the job—all bright smiles and dimples. She used to laugh, you know, and knew the story ofeveryconstellation no matter how wee. Even made up her own sometimes.”

Brona no longer meets my eyes. “They brought her body and stone back two years after she left. Said she died in a storm—but there were scars. Deliberate ones. And…and her belly was swollen.”

My own stomach plummets. “How long ago?”

“Three years next season.” Brona swallows. Wipes away a tear that I pretend not to notice. “I hoped it was a mistake. Or water bloat, or a thousand other things besides. But I was wrong. She walks my dreams at night, since we brought the soulstone home, even after we buried the body. And she shows me—”

Her voice falters. I recognize the horror in her eyes.

“She shows me her memories of the ship. How Dermot started with gifts—combs carved of shell so fine, it was a wonder they didn’t break, necklaces of violet-blue pearls, and sweets the likes of which we’d never seen. At first it felt like a blessing. Until the night he came to her room.”

Brona glares at the ceiling, tears spilling over her eyes.

“She didn’t feel she could refuse him. He madesureshe couldn’t refuse him. The level of power he held over that ship, overher. The rest of the crew was well paid not to care, and the money was too good for her to pass up. She had to take care of me—of Mam. So she allowed it until…”

She swipes at her eyes. Inhales a knife-sharp breath. “My sister wanted to get rid of it, but the surgeon’s herbs didn’t work once she’d missed her second month’s courses. She wanted to be free, bedone, and she was so close to leaving that ship until the day Dermot saw her stomach. He blamed her for being careless, a-and when she said she’d tried to end it and couldn’t, he—” Astrangled sound catches in her throat. “He threw her from the hatch down into the hull in his fury.”

“Brona—”

She crumples, but this time I don’t hesitate.

I wrap her tight in my arms, like I always wished someone would do for me. Brona flinches, but doesn’t stiffen or push me off. Instead, she turns her face into my shoulder and breathes deep, already fighting to contain her own storm.

But I understand it now. It’s not disgust or contempt for feelings that drives her walls up so high.

It’s an effort to protect her own.

“I’m sorry.”

Brona sniffs. Rubs at her eyes with the back of one hand. “Don’t. I’ve been cruel to you.”

“My father is cruel. You’ve only been unkind.”

She laughs, the sound muffled and wet, until she steps back to meet my eyes again. “Aye. It’s just…when Faolan first talked about that feckin’ island, I got so—so angry. Because it’s supposed to be a myth.”

“I thought the same.”I’m scared I still might.

Brona searches my eyes like they’re the lines on her map. “But if it’s not—I mean, if you can really find it, then that means freedom for Orla. Rest for me. I can’t bring Dermot to justice, nobody would give a shite, but at least we could havepeace. And that’s just my story—one soulstone. Imagine what finding the isle would mean for the Crescent.”

---