Page 15 of Soulgazer

I can’t feel a part of myself—can’t even remember what to call it. It is the hollow ache of a missing limb.

The apothecary starts on another, and I feel myself breaking away. My insides spasm, and sweat breaks out across my skin.

“I can’t…”

“Be still!”

It’s between one stroke of lightning-hot pain and the next that I vomit.

They all jerk back, leaving me to collapse into my own sick—heaving until those retches give way to sobs that tear through my entire body. Air nips at the raw skin on my bare back, trickles across my chest. I wrap one unsteady arm around my front, dragging the ruined dress back into place as shame burns alongside the acid on my tongue. “I can’t—I can’t do it. Please don’t make me do it.”

Mam is senseless. Da is too busy wiping vomit off his boots to look my way. And the apothecary…

He frowns at his needle. The mess I’ve made of the floor. Like I’m a roast pig he was eager to carve, only to find it snatched away by hounds before he could truly start. “Her shaking will disrupt the pattern too much if we continue now.”

I’d laugh at his disappointment if my horror wasn’t choking everything else out.

“It would paralyze her, like the others.”

“Make my daughter worthless, you mean.” My father’s eyes harden to slate. “I’ve had enough of that from her.”

The apothecary grunts as I stare at my twitching fingers, too terrified for relief to settle in. “It is strange, though. I recall Gráinne reacting just like—”

Da grabs the apothecary’s arm and shoves him toward the bed. “You shut yourfeckingmouth about that wretch and get out. We’ll finish this tomorrow.”

Sionn scowls but lowers his head in a wary bow. “As you wish, my king.”

Da doesn’t speak until the apothecary is gone, taking the caipín baís ink and his instruments with him. I fix my gaze on the floor of this stinking, stagnant cell, clutching at my stomach as if that might keep the insides from being slashed to ribbons. But Da takes my hand away, only to curl it around something cold and heavy.

For once, I feel not a flicker of emotion from his touch.

“You will clean yourself up and accept Rí Maccus’s offer tomorrow. And for once in your life, Saoirse, you will prove you were worth keeping.”

I stare at the betrothal torc hooked over my palm, crafted of iron set with gray agate from the Isle of Unbound Earth. It slides down my arm as Da slams the door shut behind him.

Are you a fanciful girl?

I look at the torn linen feathers, the hem soaked in my own sick, and release another weak sob.

No, I’m not fanciful. I’m just a fool.

Tears choke me until a touch to my shoulder jolts me half out of my skin. When I look up, it’s into the stricken face of my mother, her lip bleeding where she bit it through.

“Mam?” I am on my feet before I can register the weakness in my own body, catching her arm with both hands. She falls heavily on the trunk at the end of the bed, and I am quick to remove my touch. I don’t know what is welcome here. Her regret lingers in the space between my ribs. But before I can step back, Mam seizes my skirt.

“H-he doesn’t mean it.”

A pucker forms between my brows. “I don’t understand.”

Mam shakes her head, rocking slowly from one side to the other. “When you were born, Dermot was the first to hold you in his arms. He wept that day, Saoirse—wept. Just as he did with both your brothers.”

I close my eyes. Try to swallow. “Mam, please don’t—”

“And the night you turned three? When he found you holding the soulstone?”

I catch her hand, only because she’s clawing at her own throat, leaving angry scarlet lines behind. “Aye, I remember. He said…he said I slipped away from my nanny. Someone must have drowned at sea, and the soulstone washed up—”

“It’s not true.” Mam turns her hand over until her nails drive into my wrist, her eyes suddenly fixed on my own. “The soulstone was put there on purpose, Saoirse. The curse is your grandmother’s fault.”

---