Page 2 of Soulgazer

“Ten years it took to hunt the last of the gods down. Another five for their descendants, three for the bastards and blessed. With each fresh slaughter, our islands drank deep until the divine blood called forth magic the likes of which we’d never seen—power they never permitted us to touch.”

Ríona Etain raises one gnarled hand into the air, as though breaking the barrier between this realm and the next. It beckons us forward until the waves are only a whisper at our feet.

“What once we had to beg for, we could nowtake.”

A final drum echoes across the water just as I reach its edge, and Ríona Etain smiles—a slash of red that distorts half her face.

I grip my amulet tighter, swallowing hard.

“And so, descendants of the Daonnaí. I ask you again. Who comes to claim their birthright?”

“I!”

Through a haze of salt spray and smoke, the queen lifts a bronze carnyx to the sky. Said to be sculpted by Odhrán, god of her isle, the stag-shaped trumpet produces a sound like I’ve never heard—half keening, half cry. It weaves between our bodies like a clever spider’s web, coaxing us closer until waves become ripples, then nothing but foam and dry pebbles underfoot.

A final note splits the air, like a breakage of time itself.

And then the Damhsa Babhdóir begins.

Silver coins sewn like scales glitter on the back of one lad as hehooks the waist of a crane, sending her crown of sweet-gale blooms flying. It’s caught by a girl masked in raven feathers, inky black silk cut across her bare shoulder blades where true wings would be. She twists into the arms of a fawn with white-speckled shoulders, anointing her with the flowers as I jerk clear of their path.

I donotbelong to this menagerie. I never had the chance to.

Heat lashes my skin as I stumble farther onto shore, away from the writhing bodies and wild laughter. They’ve all done this before, somehow—I’m certain of it. Dancing round the solstice fires, gathering at harvest with the rest of their clans. Three girls wind around one another like a braid, while beyond them, men clatter together like boulders with the strength of their embrace.

My throat runs dry to see how easily they all touch, loose limbs outlined in a hazy golden glow.

“Och, would you look where you’re going, lass?”

A weathered hand snatches my skirts just as I stumble back from a fire’s edge, one of a dozen scattered across the beach.

“I’m so sorry! I—”

But the woman’s already lost interest. She stands among a patchwork of elegant figures with lined faces and silver crowns woven of their own braids. Each of them, from the tallest man to the shortest woman, bears the hands of Clodagh tattooed across their collarbone: the markings of the seanchaí.

I nearly cry with relief.

Seanchaí are storytellers, trained from childhood to guard our histories and keep our laws. Above family ties, friendship, payment, or blood, it is their sworn duty to witness our world and reflect what we’ve become.

They might also be my only chance of surviving tonight.

I shuffle closer and try not to think about how my brothers would tease me if they saw this feeble attempt to get by—but Aidanand Conal never had to undertake a Damhsa alone. Da prepared them to face suitors drunk on power and possibility, willing to doanythingto wed a true child of the Daonnaí. His pride cloaked their shoulders; mine still ache with the force of his grip.

“Listen to that lot,” the first seanchaí says, her spine notched and jagged beneath the line of her dress. “Carrying on as though it’s something to be proud of, breaking the natural order of things. No mention of what came after—or what the slaughter cost.”

“Aye, becausethat’swhat’s on everyone’s mind tonight. The consequences of death.”

I curl my toes into the ground as they cackle, digging my nails into my thighs.

Death will be akindnessif you make a fool of me, Saoirse.

My father’s final blessing, after he unlocked my cell door—careful never to touch my skin. Even after seven years of exile, with the amulet secured at my throat, he won’t risk the magic. Not when any small intimacy could allow it in.

Maybe that’s why he’s never been soft.

You will join the others until I find you, and for star’s sake, don’t look anyone in the eye. They believe you simple, sent away to heal your fractured mind. You’ll earn your place with silence, and, gods willing, we’ll put an end to this before the night is done.

I didn’t dare ask what he meant by those words, or how I could please him by offering nothing. But if I could talk to the seanchaí…my shoulders ease at the mere thought.

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