Page 143 of Soulgazer

I stare at my red fingers, the places where they tore against the earth or collected drops from my throat like jewels. When I tilt my hand so one hits the ground, it glimmers faintly silver and then sinks into the blackened earth. But no ruptures form, the moon still minutes away from Muireal’s control. Still, I shudder as I recall the way those soulstone marks glowed and then sank beneath my skin. How when my magic activates the world around me, opening gates to the past or an entrance to the divine realm…it always starts with a cut.

Like the magic springing forth from our islands after the gods bled upon the land.

“No.”

My whole body curls in on itself as an impossible thought creeps into my mind, past the relentless tug of the island or the collective pain and panic wracking our crew. I can accept that I am gods-blessed—or even that I was made to be asacrificefor the good of the Crescent and all its lost souls.

But I cannot be…

“Daughter of the knowing sea, gaze sworn long ago to me. Ca-captive soul, your blood shall free—”

I cannot breathe. My heart convulses and I reach for my pocket, where the goddess’s ring is stored. I draw it out over my chest to try to contain the agony there, but when my finger slips through the circle and bone meets my bare flesh, the truth sears across my mind.

Hundreds of supplicants litter the isle, hundreds of soulstones brought forth by sacred ferriers, until mortals learned to use the power of a broken soul. Until the precious stones became currency like all other things, and mistress fate demanded her toll for all those lost souls.

There was a prophecy. A warning.

A goddess with ocean eyes.

Muireal, they called her—me.

I was immortal, but I died—yet unlike the others, no blood was shed when they killed me. No.

My blood was threaded first with that of a mortal fisherman, and the daughter we loved—the daughter I refused to claim, because I could see what was coming for the gods and their named children. I left a single child nameless and hidden, bearing a ring carved from my own finger to gift her with choice and legacy, then walked to my own death with open eyes.

Five generations of mourning passed. Five generations of sight, each weaker than the last as one after another rejected my gifts and embraced madness until freedom was born to a king with a drop of gods’ blood in her veins.

Saoirse.

The name rolls through me like a wave, until the vision breaks and I remember it ismine.

I drop the ring and then press my hands into the ashen earth—feeling the magic I once feared and loathed that was always meant to lead me here to the Isle of Lost Souls.

My birthright, if I choose to claim it.

And that is the answer.

Choice.

The sharp slap of metal drags me back, and by the time my vision fully clears, they are already at blows: my Wolf of the Wild and the Stone King.

“Stop!” I fumble for the silver-threaded sling at my side, knowing it must be as good as useless in my hand after seven years without practice, and then twist to search for Kiara. The queenwho gained amnesty the moment Maccus arrived. She denied helping us, handed over the handfasting cords herself for him to burn, and whispered to Faolan as they were dragging us here that their bargain was done. He’d found her the island as promised. He was free.

It only cost him his whole world.

She stands at the line of the petrified trees half-hidden by shadow, eyes glinting catlike in a way that churns my stomach.

Hands seize me by the arms and I whirl around with a cry as a soldier catches my wrists and jerks them behind me until I’m forced to my knees—forced to watch as the others put up a fight but not nearly good enough for the number of Maccus’s crew. Nessa with a line cut down her cheek. Tavin holding off two women at once, more worn down with each second. Brona handling herself against one fighter without ever seeing another walking behind her, his sword raised, until Lorcan smashes his head in with a rock.

The fighting shifts, and there is Faolan.

Faolan, bleeding from five different wounds.

Faolan, howling as Maccus slips past his guard and swipes a blade down the same ribs he broke.

Faolan, seconds from death.

“Kiara!” I wrench so hard against the man’s hold, my shoulder threatens to slide out of place. But there she is, watching me instead of the bloodshed, her expression unfathomable.

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