Page 44 of Soulgazer

What was it? I squint against the rain, studying his face.

“She told me the cliffside they inhabit is so steep, my great-grandfather outlawed any attempts to catch them. There were too many lives wasted.”

Faolan’s fingers abruptly stop their drumming against my waist, lying flat instead. “You really believe that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

His laugh jolts against my back, sending heat over my neck. “I suppose you would, living a life tucked away in a palace.”

The words sting more than I think he means them to, rubbing salt into the wounds Brona left behind. The castle was never mine, nor the cottage Da banished me to. I held no control over the nursemaids or nannies, the conversations I overheard or what I was directly taught. And at the cottage, I had no one but myself. How was I meant to learn otherwise?

He must feel my rigid limbs; his laughter cuts short, then shifts into a sigh. “The Ring of Stars forbade attempts to catch them because their agility led us humble wayfarers to be far too good at our jobs. We were getting wealthy, buying up land, settling down—no incentive to keep at the adventuring when you could retire in a few years to a good life, eh? They couldn’t have that. It’s the same with about fifty other objects of interest or resources left by the gods. Wayfaring is a dangerous business, and none of them want to risk their own hides for the magic their world runs on, but they don’t want us getting our piece of it either.”

A fresh wave of thunder drowns whatever pitiful response had formed on my tongue. I close my eyes to let it seep beneath my skin, where his words slot neatly into the gaps and questions that’ve grown every year since I was small.

It makes sense. The wealth wayfarers gained by their plunderis exactly the sort of threat my father would have foreseen—a threat he’d have found a way to diminish with his clever words and false concern for their well-being. And though Faolan embellishes when he speaks, I’m learning he’s not a liar for lying’s sake any more than he’s a hero. I don’t have any reason to disbelieve him, as strange as it is to speak of the Ring of Stars as a lofty, conniving group of lawmakers and rulers rather than the just, kind leaders I’ve been raised to see.

Faolan squeezes my waist once, drawing me closer to him. “Believe what you want, Saoirse, but—”

“I believe you.”

I’m not sure who’s more surprised by the words. He stiffens against my back, his breath suspended in his lungs. “That so?”

My nod jars his chin, and I bite down on my lip when I feel his arm hitch lower over my hips, steadying us both against the next swell—but they’re getting slower, the waves calming without much ceremony. Splashes of deepest indigo appear through the gray as the sky gives a final complaint, then stills.

Nessa looks to Faolan, crimson strands of hair plastered to her face like scars. He nods, and she flashes a smile before relaying orders to the rest of the bedraggled crew to clean up the deck and get some rest below. Faolan’s fingers lift away from my ribs one after another until the whole weight of his arm is gone, draped over the wheel’s spike to my left.

I could duck free of his arms if I want to—return to the cabin alone.

I trace my fingers along the wheel and lean carefully back into his chest instead.

“Is that why they call you a pirate?”

Faolan snorts, reaching for one of the fine daggers sheathed athis side. Its hilt is the body of a wolf, carved of pure bronze that flickers to life every time he draws it through the air. “Technically, I’m a wayfarer.”

“What about the Wolf?”

Faolan pauses, a muscle feathering in his jaw. “My mother gave me that name.”

He ducks down before I can see more of his face, slipping the blade beneath a strip of hide tucked into his boot and cutting it free. A moment later, dagger between his teeth, he ties the same piece around my ankle.

“Winning these daggers in a game only solidified it. I was a lone wolf when I started, until Kiara sent Tavin to mind me. He was as miserable to be stuck with me as I was with him. But shortly after we started is when Nessa joined the crew, then Lorcan, and finally Brona. At some point…we became a pack.” He knots the leather cord, fingers teasing across my ankle. “I had more to look after—which meant more wee tripsoffthe official record to keep us afloat. Protection comes at a price.”

“I thought that was your cousin’s job.”

His muscles tense, arms brushing my shoulders as he eases the wheel to the right. “Kiara is my queen.”

I twist just enough to see his frown. “I know.”

“Then you know it’s her name that gave me the ship in the first place. Opened up every port. Spared my life. So whatever tasks she comes up with, they’re not the sort I can accept or deny.” He huffs a laugh. “For now. But she’s not half so bad as the rest of the kings and queens—and worse than the other handful that are decent. Honestly, the whole lot of them have gone to rot.”

“When did it happen, though?” The words sound naive, even to me. “Our ancestors slaughtered the gods to ensure equality and justice. Wasn’t that the whole point of forming the Ring of—”

Faolan buries his groan in the curve of my throat.

“Stars.” I jerk against the wheel, wholly unprepared for the heat of his mouth. Or the weight of the air separating our bodies. It settles against my skin like the memory of a touch—except no one has ever touched the places it’s gathering now. And he must know what he’s doing, because Faolan has gone still. Lips parted, just below my jaw.

Where he must feel every savage beat of my heart.

---