Page 99 of Soulgazer

“I never wanted this magic. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it from the start.” Tears slip past my defenses. I blot them away with my hand. “It’s—terrifying to see things happen inside your mind. You think you’re going mad, or maybe that you cause them to come true by bearing witness.”

Conal’s face flashes across my mind. I shake my head to clear it.

“But I canusethis magic. I had a vision while holding my grandmother’s soulstone at the Teeth, which led me to this ring, and if I can actually find the Isle of Lost Souls with it, then…”

My voice falters, and Faolan steps closer, until my palm lies flat over his beating heart. “Then we all have something to gain.”

The crew shifts their focus, and I might collapse were it not for the steady pulse beneath my fingertips, held down by his own. Faolan is unwavering now, indigo eyes locked on the others.

“I told you at the start of this journey thatthiswould be the quest. The one we’ll be remembered for—and not just in cleverpub songs, but real history. The sort of tale grandmothers pass on to the weans in the dark of night.” His thumb traces the tattoo at my wrist. “The wolves who salvaged a dying world.”

I want to laugh. I want to weep.

Whatever magic I possess, it’s nothing compared to Faolan’s silver tongue.

“We’ll buy our freedom with the Isle of Lost Souls. No more errands for Kiara, or backward political deals, no more lost spirits wandering the lands or debts tying us down—justfreedom. Can’t you taste it?”

Their faces are torn in half. Brona’s on the fringe of their cluster, arms folded tight across her chest. Nessa abandoned her own bowl to hug her knees to her chest as Lorcan rubs at his brow.

Tavin rolls the nautilus shell against his palm, glancing from my husband to me. “We’re risking death if we fail. Kiara won’t take a bad gamble—you know that, Faolan. If we’re caught on Dermot’s isle, I’m not sure even her word would be enough to protect you.”

Faolan opens his mouth to speak, but I press my hand down until he stops. “Then I’ll go alone.”

“What?”

“I said I can go alone.” I straighten until my spine hurts, aware of every drop of caipín baís ink below my skin. My hands are numb beneath Faolan’s grasp. “After a Damhsa is done, Father spends weeks courting favor among the other five rulers, and he almost never returns until summer solstice strikes. I could take a horse by land—no one would recognize me. I was kept far from the public eye.”

Tavin stops fiddling with the shell. “And what of the ship? We can’t lay anchor without his guard taking notice.”

“You can off the southern tip. I watched the waters every day,and it was rare a ship ever passed by. The land is remote there, hardly populated. The waters themselves are so shallow between ours and the Isle of Frozen Hearth that most don’t bother coasting there.”

Faolan is staring at me. I turn my face away, pulling until he releases his grip.

“I’m sorry for breaking all your trust. I have no right to expect you’ll give it to me again—but I want to try.” My gaze finds Brona’s, and I startle to see that beneath the rage is a raw sort of pain. One I know all too well.

Muscles draw tight across my neck as I swallow.

“Give me three days to find the ring. You’ll be safe as long as you stay on the southern tip, and if for any reason I’m caught or you’re spotted, you can leave me behind. I’ll tell my father I paid you in jewels to take me, or stowed away on your ship. And you”—my throat closes in—“you can tell everyone I was just some fanciful girl who fell in love with a pirate. No one has to think he was stupid enough to have ever loved me back.”

“Saoirse—”

I turn my wrist over, so that we can all see the woad wolf. “Angry or not, Iamone of you now. Let me try to prove it. Please.”

Their silence is deafening. For a long, agonizing moment I stand alone again in the murky dark, wind lashing my face as it blows in from the east.

And then Lorcan stands with a sad sort of smile, tugging his collar to the side so that I see his own tattoo. “Once a wolf, always a wolf.”

My vision blurs as I step forward, pressing a hand over my mouth.

Nessa is next, groaning as she pushes onto her feet and catches me by the back of the head, pressing our foreheads together. “I’mfine with having an oracle on board, as long as you don’t scold me for all the dirty thoughts.”

“I can’t see into your mind.”

“Sure you can’t.” She grins and jerks her chin at the others. “To freedom, then?”

Tavin still frowns as he taps his scrying shell, then tucks it into his pocket. “Freedom.”

“Freedom!” Lorcan shouts to the open sky, relief in every part of the word. He reaches for Brona, but she ducks under his arm and heads directly for the map. And Faolan—

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