Page 113 of Soulgazer

Da releases me after. Lets me sink back to the ground, where I gather the jagged, useless fragments into my hand. Before I can store them in a pocket, however, he steals those pieces as well.

“Brigid, put the cuffs on her when you get to the room. And you’ll want to bandage her knee first so she might spend her nights praying Rí Maccus is a more forgiving master than I.”

“My king.” Soft hands replace my father’s, and I lose any will to fight as the old nursemaid leads me from the chamber.

“Please don’t do this,” I whisper, my steps faltering as we reach the door. “Please. Faolan will die if—”

“Now do you understand why we sent her away?” My father turns his back to me as a tall man peels himself out of the shadows. Dark, curly hair, soft blue eyes, and a tunic stitched with the caipín baís in silver thread. “She’s gone feral. A danger to herself as well as those around her.”

“She seemed afraid.”

Aidan.

He doesn’t look at me as he approaches our father, and shame binds me in place.

“Pity is a weakness, son. You’ll do well to remember that.” Da tips the ring’s fragments from one palm to the other with a look of disgust. “I’ll dispose of these. Send word to Maccus. He needs to claim his bride.”

Brigid nudges me from the room, and I fall to my bloody knees in the hall. A sob wrenches out of my throat as two guards haul me to my feet and up a flight of stairs. I stop fighting. Stop caring. Before week’s end, I’ll exchange the sea for a bed of stone. And it won’t matter whether I have a handfasting or a husband’s life to save, or even gods-blessed sight.

The ring is broken now.

And so am I.

Forty-Two

Brigid strips me bare as though I am the same child to whom this room once belonged.

Perhaps I’ve become her again. Because I don’t fight as she scours the sweat, salt, and sea from my flesh, replacing it with the cloyingly sweet lilac oils favored by my mother. I don’t struggle when Brigid slides metal cuffs that are harsher, unsightly versions of the amulet I wore most of my life into place. For once I welcome the fog they bring—until Brigid lifts the shears.

“Don’t.”

I glare as a dozen wrinkles form around her lips, the shears dangling limply from her hand. “It’s an order, miss. To hide your…well, your eyes. Rí Dermot—”

“Can cut them himself if he wishes to hide my eyes again.” I’m less surprised by the harshness in my voice than by the way she flinches from it. She ducks her head in a low curtsy, stepping back, and my face screws up even as I pull the towel close around my shoulders. “I’m sorry. Don’t tell him, just—leave it, aye? I’ll answer for it.”

I always do.

Brigid falters, her cheeks paling as she glances once to the doorand then back to me before shaking her head. “You…You’ll need something to wear. I’ll check your mother’s wardrobe.”

“Wait—” She’s already gone, a bolt sliding shut behind her.

Right. It never did lock from the inside.

My heart beats slower with every second the cuffs bind my wrists. I want to sink into the floor until I become nothing but stone. Let the fog overtake my mind, drown my wits in tears, and forget…everything.

Faolan’s lips carving a path along my throat. Wind whipping past my face as I fell off the Teeth, Brona just beside me. Nessa’s laughter, or Lorcan’s tight embrace, and the way Faolan’s eyes burn through the dark when we’re lying alongside each other trying not to touch.

You’re becoming a wolf, you know.

I don’t want to forget.

My throat works as I push onto my feet and snatch up the damp shirt and clammy trousers that smell of the tide. I turn my face into the fabric and breathe, slow and deep, until my head feels right. It’s only then I lock eyes on the wardrobe. Carved of oak into a forest scene, the inside is fixed with a false wood backing, leading to a small passage on the other side.

I fling open the door and freeze as rows of dark gowns in simple cuts stop me where I stand. They seem impossibly small, meant for a fifteen-year-old girl who always knew for certain that her father’s love was meant for his sons. He could never make room for a daughter.

My touch lands on a fine gray dress with a torn hem, and I shudder.

There isn’t time.

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