Page 151 of Soulgazer

Nessa chuckles as Kiara goes on, spinning the story she snatched from my own blood-streaked hands. I don’t laugh. Don’t look away from Saoirse, who’s gone so damn rigid I’d think she’d turned statue were it not for the restless churning of her eyes. They haven’t stopped shifting since she emerged from the waters imbued with far more than a couple of drops of divine blood.

“We thought we’d lost our salvation with the age of the gods, a pathway to the next realm, yet here we stand on sacred ground.”

Saoirse bites down on her bottom lip, a habit I chided with my tongue last night between promises to stay. To remain landlocked and fight until we’re both free of Kiara’s web. She didn’t believe them—doesn’t. My word’s still not much in her eyes, and I can’t blame her.

But for the first time in my life, I meant it.

Kiara strikes a fist into her palm, eyes gleaming as she takes us all in. “Our search is over. The isle has awakened.”

A map of bruises and welts shrieks across my body as I slip forward until I’m standing to the left of Maccus, just out of his line of sight. The dagger presses steadily into my palm, hilt tucked against calluses once wrapped by a leather glove. I’d rather stand naked than openly bear the bargainer’s mark, but Kiara’s orders were clear: no more hiding.

One of many offenses my cousin has to answer for.

“Let us embark on a new age.” Kiara touches Saoirse’s shoulder and steps back with sharp eyes. Smiles when Saoirse turns awayfrom the collection of kings and queens to lower her feet into the pool. “A new tithe.”

I force my blood to quell its raging as the water burns bright, glowing as though her skin is the source of its light. For all I know, it is. Some gasp; others curse—Maccus stiffens and my dagger slides half-free of its sheath, ready to be buried between his ribs should he so much as twitch in the direction of my wife. But he already knows what she is.

Rí Tadhg of Frozen Hearth walks forward in his fur-lined gray cloak to place a basket of warped, cracked soulstones on the rock where she’s perched. He cuts a shallow bow, eyes hard, but the doubt in them shifts to awe the moment Saoirse takes one into her bare hand. Because as rigid as she’d gone at the sight of a king bending the knee, Saoirse’s movements run fluid once she holds the stones.

Of course Kiara’s words about a first tithe were all bullshite. She’s had Saoirse practicing for two weeks straight.

“Daughter of the knowing sea

Gaze sworn long ago to me…”

Saoirse pricks her finger on the needle-point end of her brooch until a bead of blood threatens to stain her gown. She smears it over the soulstones instead, tracing it into the swirling grooves across their tops.

“Captive soul, your blood shall free…”

She lowers the entire basket into the water and stills as the stones light up.

“The Isle of the Lost.”

There’s no grimace on her face, no stiffness to her body. These must not be broken, only forgotten. We’ve learned the patterns over the past few days—the toll they demand.

It keeps on, and as the seconds trickle past, my grip on the knife eases. The lines of Maccus’s shoulders don’t drop—but then the Stone King’s not exactly known for breaking form. One by one, the souls unfurl from the soulstones to join the ether at the top of the mountain looming above us. The next basket is brought forth, and the next, until Saoirse’s voice runs raw, humming instead of singing the tune that’s begun to haunt my dreams.

And the water rises. Froths by the third basket, light flickering in strange patterns as though following the music’s rhythm.

Maccus is king of the second island, but it’s not until the fourth bout of souls have been released that he finally walks forward. I spot a woven bowl in his hand with only one stone, small compared to the ornate hammer resting at his hip. His face remains blank as Saoirse takes them, fighting the tremors lacing up her legs. When she draws blood upon the pieces, a weathered old man even larger than the other souls ascends, gaze lingering on his son.

I don’t relax until Maccus rejoins the others, flick my fingers to warn Tavin, tucked near a cluster of ivy, to stand down with his bow, the disloyal bastard. I catch Saoirse’s eye—smile reassuringly, knowing I can do feck all else right now. Her gaze softens when it meets mine, some of the tension leaving her shoulders.

But when Aidan approaches, Saoirse falters at last. He doesn’t meet her eyes as he shoves a small chest toward her, crafted of leather and wood burned with the sigil of their house. I expect to see the same weathered soulstone they forced her to give up—the one holding her eldest brother’s soul. But there are two within: one cracked and blackened, the other glimmering like starlight.

Fresh. New.

Feck.

“I-I don’t understand,” Saoirse says, voice cracking down the middle.

Aidan lifts his head, and even from behind I know there’s steel in his eyes. “You will.”

I try to move to Saoirse’s side, but Nessa clamps a hand down on my good shoulder as Kiara’s gaze burns a hole in my side.

Stick to the ceremony. Follow my exact orders. Leave Saoirse to her task. Then, and only then, will I leave you both for a time to adjust. But I expect your presence at the first council of autumn.

Freedom wrapped in choking vines covered in poison thorns.

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