Page 139 of Soulgazer

“Show yourself.”

I slide it on, and the world melts with color and light.

This vision does not swallow me like the others have, but instead paintsthisworld anew. The island is made of life like I’ve never witnessed it, every inch covered in rich carpets of moss and nutty-brown earth—a living tapestry speckled with amethyst-colored flowers and fat, golden butterflies. I crane my neck to see the mountain above, silvery white at the very top and streaked blue-purple all the way down to its base, where a pool of pale water lies, threaded in silver as well.

“Stars o’ fire,” I breathe, not sure whether I’m seeing a vision of the past or what could be again. Whatever it is, it’s achingly lovely.

“Saoirse?”

I turn on my heel to see Faolan—not as he is now, but as vibrant as the stories he spins. His skin and hair glow with light, lips twisted up into a mischievous smile, hands unstained by abalone scars.

Pleaselet it be real.

I reach for him and gasp when our fingers connect. Just as at our first encounter, visions unspool behind my eyes at his touch—not ruin or death, buteverythingwe could be. Bickering in the most beautiful waters, a cove of our own at my back. My belly swollen, eyes alive, laughter.

So much laughter.

The ring has restored the world to possibility. Perfect, untouched possibility.

He tugs at my hand. “What do you see, love?”

“The Isle of Lost Souls. I can see what it should be.”

WhatIcould make it again? The thought is dangerous and far-reaching.

Seductive.

As I take in the sights, greedy for more, I see something I hadn’t noticed before. A path bent around two fat trees with amber bark, one of them carved with the same swirling triskele that marks a soulstone.

“There.I need to go there.”

“Wait—”

I want to laugh that it’s Faolan who’s saying the word to me for once instead of the other way around. It’s the easiest thing in the world to pull free of his hold and step onto the path, watching as tiny white flowers bloom around my feet.

“She’s lost it,” Kiara mutters.

“No, Saoirse is just— The magic’s strange, all right?”

“She’s acting mad. Or drunk.”

“What’s the other option than to follow her? It’s a bit late to cut our losses.”

The whispers hardly matter, because the song is drifting through the leaves above and I’m humming alongside it.

“Daughter of the knowing sea

Gaze sworn long ago to me

Captive soul, your blood shall free

The Isle of the Lost.”

I climb for minutes or hours; it hardly matters now.

“Flee to the waters and the wild

A home time unlost.”

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