Page 106 of Soulgazer

Conal’s mirth swirls between my temples. Escapes as a trickle down my cheek.

“They tugged me back into the waves between them, even though I was screaming at them to stop. I tried to get back to shore—I thought if I didn’t stay, it wouldn’t count. But a cavern had just collapsed, and there was no way to tell until the current caught Aidan under the water. Conal got him free, but…he didn’t make it out himself.”

The fire cracks beneath a gentle breeze, wrapping us in smoke. Faolan eases a strand of my hair back. Catches the trail of tears with his thumb.

“I’m sorry for that. Sorry you had to live through it. But, lass, how the hell could you think that it’s your fault?”

“Because I knew what would happen.” I sit up, wiping at my face. “I knew, and I did nothing. I was still onshore when the two of them started to drown.”

“Could you have managed to help them?”

I blink. “No. But—”

“You were a child. Could you have tossed one of them over your back and swam them both to shore? Or—let’s say all three of youwerein the water. If the current caught you instead, would they have just let you drown without a fight?”

Every joint in my body locks into place, chest caving in around each breath. “N-no. But I could have run once I knew what would happen, so they could never get me into the water in the first place.”

Faolan huffs—almost a laugh, but even he’s not that flippant. “I doubt they’d have been swayed, if they were young lads playing a game. Besides, what if on the other side of some rocks, another person was swimming, too, to make it three? Or what if you hadn’t had the vision—don’t you think it would’ve still come true? It’s not like seeing it is what made that cavern collapse.”

I’m speechless. Searching for words, even as the ones the goddess spoke ripple through my soul.

We cannot unwrite what fate has written. I am not her master, nor would I ever wish to be. I can only see. Only know.

I think of the other gods’ reactions to her prophecy. Of my father’s to what he could never understand—the lies he’s told to gain whatever serves his purpose best. Making me dangerous. A monster. A curse.

Until I feared myself enough to want to lock her away.

Faolan watches me as I curl over, spreading my fingers against the moss-laden ground. It’s excruciating to unwind this knot inside me—the knot thatwasme for years of my life. Almost unbearable.

Because I am not a monster. Or a murderer.

I am not cursed.

“Saoirse?” Faolan cups my cheek, and I lean desperately into that touch—gasping at its gentleness, its warmth. “It’s time to nameyourself, instead of listening to all your father’s shite. You’re not a killer, and you’re certainly notnothing.So tell me what you are.”

The answer flies to my lips, taken from my grandmother’s vision, the siren’s story at the Scath-Díol. Yet even as it emerges, I know in my bones that it is true.

“A Soulgazer.”

Faolan’s thumb skates along my lashes, resting at the corner of my eye as he grins. “There you are. I see you.”

ButIcan’t see our path ahead if I’m willing to wear a blindfold.

My fingers are stiff, damp with soil and specks of green. Still, I manage to undo the laces of my shirt enough to spread the collar open, shrugging it down my shoulders. Cool air rushes across the sensitive skin along my back when I pull my hair to one side, and the hitch of his breath confirms he’s seen it.

The tattoo.

He touches the silvery-white marks with the tip of a finger, tracing one, two, then the start of the third. “They didn’t finish?”

I wince. “No. My body seized after the second was complete, and Da told his apothecary to finish the third the night I left for your ship.”

Faolan grunts. “No wonder you were desperate enough to swim for it.”

Once, I might have glared at him for the irreverence, but I understand him better now. How humor cuts through the darkness like a well-timed swipe of a dagger in a fight. “I couldn’t go through with it. They said they’d tried it before, and some of the people they tested it on lost use of their limbs. Their ability to think. I didn’t…I didn’t want to be nothing after all.”

“You couldn’t if you tried.” Faolan sweeps a touch over one of the swirls before he reaches across my lap to the bottle. “You nicked the ink?”

My laugh is shaky. “I’d just agreed to marry a pirate. I figured I’d better start learning to thieve somewhere.”

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