Chapter Twelve
Twelve
Saoirse
Accusations and prayers descend upon the tent like vengeful winged beasts. Tadgh walks to an open panel and holds his unblemished hand to the light—further proof that Maccus isn’t lying. He has done the impossible.
Just like me.
I feel the Stone King’s eyes take my measure as I stare at the ancient hammer in his hands.
Faolan tenses beside me, his shuddering breaths disturbing my hair, but it’s Kiara who cuts at my heart with her complete and utter shock.
Yet even that is merely the prick of a needle, as if the room swells with such ferocious emotion, my body’s left with no choice but to go numb.
“This…” Kiara swallows. “This is absurd.”
“Did we not accuse you of the same when you sent the Wolf to find this very island?” Maccus’s smile makes a mockery of gentleness.
“I admit my mistakes in dismissing you. But the Isle of Lost Souls proved to be real, and so has Dia Eamon’s great relic.
Please, Ríona Kiara, offer me the benefit of your belief. ”
“Oh come off it, you great gobshite.” Faolan spits out the words. “You want to play hero now, is it? Save us all from ourselves—be crowned High King off Saoirse’s blood?”
The Stone King’s smile doesn’t falter. “I ask for no more than that which Ríona Kiara has already asked for herself.”
Ríona Etain raises a hand. “Enough.”
“You misunderstand—”
“Feckin’ lecher, you—”
“I said ENOUGH!” Ríona Etain’s voice fills the tent without effort, splitting everyone’s shouts neatly in two.
She stands with the aid of her granddaughter, gaze locked on the weathered grooves of the hammer in Maccus’s hold.
Aisling’s eyes are mournful as they latch on to her lover’s, but Etain doesn’t falter as she points to Kiara.
“To uproot tradition so severely, Kiara—to retrace every trade route, relocate whole villages, tax items of magic and demand the Ring of Stars report to you—is to invite destruction. Awaken old feuds, invite war. But you, Maccus.”
Etain turns to him, and finally his smile slips.
“You speak of arrogance as though it’s a past affliction, but what you would have us do is…
a violation. Using the tool of a god who laid waste to hundreds of his own people and poisoned the very land that took your own wife and son.
We honor the Daonnaí who slaughtered the corrupt gods—we do not destroy what they have built. ”
Maccus’s eyes cloud over, a touch of the Stone King I knew breaking through. “What of the Soulgazer? Is she not a ‘violation’ to their work?”
My heart collides with my rib cage as the collective room’s gaze falls on me—but mine does not stray from Maccus even as the scar at my throat pulls taut. Regret chases the tense line of his jaw before a harsh breath banishes it, leaving a softer mien in its place.
What is he playing at?
Etain leans heavily into her cane as she speaks.
“Saoirse was born of the Daonnaí and the divine. The old laws do not apply. What’s more, she has proven her worth by finding the Isle of Lost Souls and releasing thousands of trapped spirits.
Her sacrifice has provided the Crescent with peace like it has not known since the fall of the Slaughtered Ones, so to accuse her—”
“I don’t accuse her. I revere her.”
Faolan grips my arm as Kiara strides in front of me, red cloak drifting off her shoulder like a river of blood.
But their bodies are distant, their emotions a blur.
Maccus regards me through the haze of voices and bodies with a zealotry I cannot begin to untangle, let alone understand.
He was prepared to kill me three months ago.
Sometimes I still wake with the feeling of his fingers wrapped around my throat.
Yet here he stands, knuckles gaunt from their rigid grip on his hammer, lowering his head as I once had done.
“One drop. That is all I require.” Maccus glances to me. “Restore Eamon’s hammer as you did your ancestor’s ring, and with it—”
“With it, you’ll destroy what’s left of your people,” Kiara shouts, “and the rest of ours. Magic cannot be trusted.”
“Magic is our only chance. She is our only chance.”
My toes sink between the rushes and into the shifting sand as Callen whispers to Aisling while the gilded antlers of Etain’s crown tilt to one side.
Tadgh turns on Kiara, brandishing his hand like it’s a gauntlet descended from the heavens.
Aidan stares at the ground, as Da taught us to do. And Faolan—
Frustration bleeds off his skin and into mine as a scrap of song drifts between us, crowding my already buzzing mind.
Drink the bones dry, oh, drink the bones dry
’Til the earth cries out in madness,
’Til the ceasing of…
I shake my head to dislodge it, starting to pull free of Faolan’s grasp.
My bone ring catches as I do.
My ancestor’s bone ring.
Something stirs in my memory as the silver-blue stone winks from its center, drawing the lost goddess’s words up from that strange place between worlds.
You found my relic. As well as my name.
It was a dull ruin when I found it, cracked even before my father drove it under his heel, but when I bled…
When I bled, the ring was restored. More than that, I experienced visions without confusion or pain.
Muireal’s song came clearly, as though she were singing it now, guiding us to the Isle of Lost Souls to awaken its full power.
And Faolan was wearing the ring when he fought for his life, drowning in the Knowing Sea.
I straighten the band above my knuckle, stone glistening like the surface of the soul pools.
Magic lives in my blood—we’ve proven that—but if it also inhabits the relics…perhaps Maccus speaks true. But how could he awaken the hammer without—
Faolan lurches forward, and I tighten my grip until another fragment of song passes from his body to mine.
A thousand years it gave us, by blood and sigil, tied
’Til mortal gods grow thirsty, and drink the bones dry.
“ ‘Blood and sigil’?”
Faolan jerks beside me, his head snapping to the side. “What?”
“ ‘Blood and sigil.’ ” My head pounds as I repeat it. “Sigil, like…Faolan, are you—are you thinking about the gods’ relics?”
Immediately, his hand drops mine. “No.”
“Faolan.”
“All right! Fine, yes—but only because it makes no feckin’ sense.
” Faolan turns toward me, face paling as his shoulder blocks the room.
It’s already devolved back into chaos. “For two hundred years, the relics haven’t shown a speck of power and then suddenly, that bastard prays to a god and wakes one up? I don’t believe it.”
“Even after I woke the island?”
“There’s no comparison.” A line bends sharply at the center of Faolan’s forehead, casting shadows across his eyes. “For all his posturing, Maccus is only a mortal. You’re descended from a god.”
The brutal truth fills the air between us, sticking fast to my lungs, but there’s something else to all this.
Something…not quite right.
I glance past my husband to where the Stone King stands, tracing the stiff line of his posture down to the tense ball of his hand. Remember the emptiness that consumed me when I held it. That sensation of being somewhere between living and dead.
“If Maccus is only mortal, then how was he able to enter the soul pools? To encounter my blood without going mad?”
Faolan’s jaw clenches so tight, I fear it might snap.
I start to reach for it, then stop. Curl my hand into his coat instead.
“How was he able to use Eamon’s relic, and—”
“And why does he need you now?”
Faolan brushes my hair back, fingertip tracing the shell of my ear as voices rise around us, the swell of their anger and confusion pressing in. It forms a thicket behind my rib cage. Robs me of my breath.
“Listen,” Faolan murmurs, hand sliding round the back of my neck. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever that bastard wants, he’s not having you.”
“But what if that’s what it takes?”
“To what?” He bites the word off, though his fingers remain gentle where they trace the top of my spine. “To let him take over the Crescent? Drink up whatever power you have left?”
Drink the bones dry, oh, drink the bones dry.
Again that line of the song drifts through my mind.
Gritting my teeth, I shake it loose.
“Saoirse—”
“If I don’t agree, what’s our recourse?” I pull away. “Stand back while he manipulates the others? Wait here as Maccus strides twelve paces ahead?”
For once, my husband is silent, but there’s rebellion in his eyes.
“He used a relic, Faolan. Without being a descendant—without magic in his blood. We have to figure out how.”
“By risking you?” It’s not so much a question as a growl. “Absolutely not.”
“What other choice do we have?”
“Anything else.”
My heart shudders as I glare up at him, light dancing across my palm. “And what if he finds the other relics? Maira’s shield, Róisín’s talon? What if he uses them as he’s done the hammer—”
“He won’t—”
“You don’t know that!” I wince as my voice cracks through the air, Faolan recoiling like I’ve struck him.
But no one turns our way, the tent caught in a mindless whirl of sound.
Still, guilt pulses through my veins as I tread closer, until we’re but a breath apart. “You don’t. But I could find out.”
“While I do what? Stand by and watch him hurt you?”
“While you be the Wolf.”
Faolan blinks twice, breath rushing out to tangle with mine. Torment rages across his features, though it’s balanced tentatively by hope. “What does that even mean anymore?”
“What does it…Faolan, you’ve created an entire life off of impossible stories. You’ve battled sea monsters, swum with merfolk, and bargained with a goddess who’d been dead for two hundred years. You—” My eyes catch on Eamon’s hammer again. The ring on my finger. That line of the song.
…blood and sigil…
“You could find the other relics.”
Faolan jerks back. “What?”
“The other gods’ relics. Unless”—my nose wrinkles—“they were destroyed?”
This time, Faolan snorts, but it’s more out of habit than sincerity. “Of course not. The Daonnaí were meant to, but you know bloody well not a single one of them followed through.”
“So where did they put them?”
The humor slowly drains from his face. “All over. Some of the families hid them. Others carved them into trinkets and bits. But—look, it doesn’t matter. Their power died with the gods.”
I raise my hand between us. “Well, something’s brought it back again.”
Neither of us says the obvious: that the one factor linking this all is me. Which explains in some small measure why Maccus would forgo storming our island with soldiers and attempting to take me by force. There’s something we’re not understanding yet.
Something I could find out.
“Do you trust me, Faolan?”
There’s not a single hesitation as he takes my hand.
“Always.”
I kiss him—brief and firm, doubts already simmering at the back of my tongue—and then I step around him between Maccus and Kiara: a great mountain and the wild flame.
“I’ll do it!”
There’s one final uproar, and then the Ring of Stars falls still.
My scalp prickles as I look to Maccus, Kiara’s glare driving daggers into my spine.
“I’ll do it. I will bless the hammer of Eamon and mark it with my blood. But I need time. And…I need trust. If you will aid us in building shelters for the people here, I will consider your words.”
I wait for Maccus’s eyes to harden—his stare to grow flinty, his hammer to swing through the air. Relief breaks over his face instead, and somehow it’s far more unnerving.
“Whatever you require, it is yours.”
“No.” Kiara reaches for my arm, but I sidestep the touch. “No—Ríona Etain, this cannot stand.”
Our eldest queen watches me, mouth folded into dozens of fine lines. “And if it turns out what he says is true? That this is the relic of Eamon and can be wielded as such?”
“Then we will cast our judgment upon it, as the Daonnaí once did.”
“So be it.” Ríona Etain strikes the ground again, cane sinking below the rushes.
Facing the rest of the room, she raises her voice, and I swear I can feel it tremble in my bones.
“We’ll gather again at the bloom of winter, and cast our votes to determine the fate of our Crescent: a path lain with magic or without. I pray you will all be wise.”
One more smack of her cane, and the room devolves beyond repair.
Faolan comes to my side at once. “Saoirse, what are you—”
Kiara lurches between us, face red, her whole frame shaking. “We need to talk. Now.”
“In a moment,” I say, watching Faolan even as his eyes dart over nothing, stories likely spinning in his head. “Can you do it? Can you find the others?”
“What others? I—it doesn’t matter.” Kiara takes his arm, her grip ironclad. “Faolan and I are going to have a talk, and you are going to go to the soul pools to consult your great-great-grandmother or fate or the bloody stars about that…thing Maccus is holding.”
Tendrils of anger flare up from where they’ve lain dormant since our conversation yesterday.
“I don’t need to consult with anyone. But if I could get close to Maccus, or touch the hammer—”
“Absolutely not.” Kiara’s breaths come faster as she glares over her shoulder, a trace of fear in her eyes. “It has to be fake. Or a trick—gods, Saoirse, you pledged yourself to me. Have you forgotten so easily?”
“Of course I haven’t.” Kiara falters at my bite, but I’m not sorry for it. “Which is why I’ve agreed to do this. To try to understand what he’s planning—and to buy us time.”
Kiara’s laugh is incredulous. “Time for what?”
I glance once more at Faolan, but he’s gone deathly still, wild eyes locked on mine.
He’s figured it out, then. The truth of what I’ve asked him to do.
Blood and sigil.
I take a long, hard breath and face Kiara again.
“Time for Faolan to leave the island and hunt the other relics before Maccus finds them first.”