Page 4 of Soulgazer

His heel shifts upon the sand, and I feel the grit of it beneath my fingertips.

Eyes hunting the darkness, landing everywhere but me.

I am weightless.

Heavy.

“Saoirse.”

The Wolf’s gaze snaps to mine just as a mountain steps between us, forged into the body of a man.

Two

The man stops a breath away from me, boots twice the size of my own bare feet. He wears no costume, auburn hair braided back from pale skin and eyes that are a sharp kind of beautiful. The sort that could be soft as cornflowers but prefer thistle spikes.

“Your name is Saoirse, yes?” His voice is a rockslide tumbling down my back. “Rí Dermot’s only daughter, descendant of the fifth Daonnaí. You’ve come here unclaimed?”

It’s only then that I see the young seanchaí at his side.

Cheeks burning, I drop my gaze to the gleaming chestnut leather of his boots. “Aye.”

“Then I’ve come to collect a dance.” His hand fills the air between us, curving like a scythe toward the darkening sky. It’s rough, thickly calloused, but the embroidery on the edge of his sleeve is pure silver. “Unless you’ve something else in mind?”

Nothingcomes to mind. No clever turn of phrase or even a simpering smile. It’s all I can do to slip my fingers along that starlight embroidery, avoiding the skin below.

The man nods to the seanchaí in a dismissal, and I do my best to keep pace as he walks off—but sensation rolls through my body like thunder, the drums an iron hammer against my heart. Itmatches the frantic press of bodies around us, their hopes and desires tugging at my consciousness in a way that makes it difficult to breathe. What would it be like to touch them? Strip myself bare and allow them all to slip inside, until nothing of me is left?

I tuck the fabric feathers tighter. It’s too close. Too chaotic. Nothing like that moment when time ceased to exist because the Wolf stole it all away.

I glance past my shoulder, breath caught in my throat.

But the Wolf is already gone.

“A drink first?” The auburn-haired stranger shifts his grip as he walks toward a row of flattened logs lined with barrels of mead, whiskey, and wine, his thumb now resting on the bronze cuff at my wrist. “I cannot abide the clamor without it.”

I cannot manage a single word in response. A few linen feathers and the cool curve of metal is all that separates our skin. One more shift and we’ll be touching.

I pray the amulet’s numbing power holds.

A heady scent of liquor drenches the air as we approach. Coins flash one after another, tossed into copper bowls while wooden cups and carved horns exchange hands just above. I chance a look at the stranger’s face and find a firm jaw set below a furrowed brow—stern, but like it was carved that way from creation.

“You’re pale as grianchloch, woman.”

Instinct draws me back, but the man does not allow me to pull free. Light flickers over the red-gold dusting of his beard as he tilts his head, examining me with a hawk’s gaze. “Are you ill? Faint?”

“No, I—” A knot forms on my tongue. His grip tightens, fingers sliding over my sleeve until the rough pad of one fingertip brushes against my tender blue veins. I grit my teeth and wait to feel…

Nothing.

I feel nothing. There are no emotions or impulses, no visionsof impending death. Relief uproots the panic blooming in my chest so abruptly, I nearly collapse.

The amulet works.

“I’m cold. That’s all.”

The stranger’s frown eases, fingers relaxing until they fall against his thigh. “Wine will warm your bones.” He drops a coin into the half-filled bowl, nodding to a woman with a violet-stained apron on the left. “And in any case, I’m not much for dancing. It was only ever a means to an end.”

The woman hands over a drinking horn, which he presses into my palm—amber bleeding into onyx at the curved tip. I drink the deep purple wine without prompting, and it’s a relief when the black cherry and earth unlock my tongue. “Thank you.”

---