Chapter Sixteen
Sixteen
Saoirse
The feasting has dwindled to embers by the time I make my return.
Dancers sway lazily amid low-hanging smoke, cutting patterns across the dingy landscape while avoiding the drunk beneath their feet.
Most of the courts have trickled off to their tents, while others pile elegantly across woolen blankets, sharing a collection of long clay pipes.
Callen is among them, their arm draped over a pretty girl’s thigh.
I hover near the torchlight and search for any remaining crowns.
Tadgh is gone, most of Frozen Hearth retired with him.
Maccus’s face is partially hidden by the horn of ale he drinks.
Ríona Etain and Aisling bend together in a perfect reflection of time: a maiden peering into the pool eternal and seeing her hair turned silver, face pitted with age. Neither looks up as I approach.
Not until I reach for Aisling’s emerald-studded glass and drain the wine within.
“Everything all right?”
I don’t have to force my laugh to make it sound tired. “Aye.”
Aisling blinks and pulls back from her grandmother, who watches me with shrewd eyes.
She will be the one to convince.
But I tell myself to wait. Count backward from ten, like Faolan told me to do while we lay together earlier.
I love you, but you’re a shite liar. You’ve got to let them create the story—make it up for themselves.
It takes twelve heartbeats before Aisling sets a hand on my arm, squeezing gently once. “Your eyes are swollen.”
“It’s just the smoke.” I blink, like I’m trying to clear them, and draw my legs up to wrap my arms around them. It’s a familiar enough gesture…and one that will show the stains on my knees. “A dancer probably kicked up ash—”
“Saoirse.” Aisling drops my name like an admonition, her hand falling by her side. “We both know it’s not the ash.”
I blink again, harder, then turn toward the dying flames.
Wait for them. Always wait for them if you can.
Aisling whispers to Etain, and I pause in anticipation of their concern. Wait for more questions, or tearful explanations.
I’m not prepared for the old queen’s cackle.
“You gave her sneachta samhraidh? Aisling, love, are you simple? I taught you better.” Shaking her head, Etain beckons to a serving girl. “Summer snow is only good for bringing on the blood. What you need is a handful of mugwort from Painted Claw to get rid of it for good.”
“I’m sorry—what are you talking about?”
Both of them look at me, Aisling sheepish and Etain with a bemused smile. “The sea swell.”
“The…what?”
“The light-foot fawn? Sprouted seed?” Etain rolls her eyes and swats a hand over her stomach. “The wain, Saoirse. If you’re wanting to be rid of it, I can—”
“Stars, I’m not pregnant.” Furious heat blooms in my cheeks, and I can practically hear Faolan howling with laughter in my head.
“No?” Etain stares frankly at my soft middle, and I pray fervently for the ground to swallow me up. “Then why the crying and carrying on—”
“Faolan left.”
Mercifully, she stops talking. Or perhaps it’s not a mercy. Perhaps I’m the biggest fool in the Crescent for believing myself capable of convincing anyone that I am something other than I am.
“Oh, aye.” Etain turns her silver-black braid over in her hands. “Now you’re speaking sense. The lad’s always been too smart to send a lass up the pole—”
“Nana!” Aisling waves the servant girl away with a frantic flick of her fingers, but the damage is done. Mortification spreads between us like a disease as Ríona Etain studies me, then leans forward to fill my glass.
“You thought Faolan would stay.”
An ache blooms in my belly over the half truth, half lie, sharp enough I wonder that I don’t bleed.
But the pain is something I can use.
“Yes? I thought…” My voice shakes without effort. “I thought I would be enough.”
Wine spills over my fingers as Etain sets down the pitcher, then lifts a beautifully carved pipe in its place.
The handle gleams with lacquer and gold leaf, the bowl carved of pristine, luminous bone.
It’s shaped like a stag’s head, antlers branching back so that when she ignites the leaves, their tips catch the light.
Is it…carved of an antler?
“I’ve known the Wolf since he was a boy of thirteen, and hungry to claim his place.
” She draws in a slow, deep breath, and the pipe crackles in its stead.
“He was a pathetic creature. Scrawny. Scared. He likes to tell it a different way—that everyone was in awe of this wondrous lad who’d survived an impossible shipwreck.
Truth is, the palace boys were relentless, tearing him apart for worshipping the Slaughtered Ones and having no proper name. ”
Sparks flare in the pipe and I blink, staring at the old woman.
“What do you mean?”
“Faolan?” A stream of smoke coils free of Etain’s lips. “It’s not the lad’s born name—not that he was blessed with one of those either, thanks to his fool of a father.”
The air stings as I take it in but does nothing to clear my head. “Faolan…had no name?”
“None of the Gan Ainm do.” I stare at her until she frowns, mouth wrinkled like a dying rose. “That’s what the word means, girl—the Unnamed. Hasn’t he told you?”
No.
No, Faolan hasn’t told me he went through boyhood without a name. And, no, he’s never confided that he once worshipped the gods. I’d believed he hated them. He said as much at the Scath-Díol, in their meeting chamber—that they were only useful to us dead.
My tongue grows heavy and dry as I shake my head, feeling all those intentions and careful plans we made for the evening crumble to dust.
Etain grunts inelegantly and draws again from her pipe. “Course he hasn’t. If there was anyone I’ve ever met who’d like to set his whole past on fire more—”
“Please.” The word is throaty and fragile when it comes. “Please explain.”
“Calm yourself, child, you don’t need to beg.” Her gaze drops to the knees I’d been so careful to reveal. “Looks as if you’ve done plenty of that tonight already.”
Shame hangs my head, until Aisling nudges my shoulder with hers: another fanciful girl in love with an advantageous liar.
“Five generations ago, as the gods fell and the Daonnaí rose, a clan of Clodagh’s most devout worshippers did also.”
Violet-gray smoke curls in unsteady patterns as Etain speaks, her voice a treacherous lull against the backdrop of the music. But I don’t grow tired, or curious or calm.
Anger’s left no room for that.
“They were once considered the prized jewel of Frozen Hearth—a whole sect of seanchaí whose sole purpose was to keep our histories pure. In the oldest days, you had to be born of them to join their ranks, lest those hopeful young minds be tainted by clan feuds or personal grudges. There was a song for everything: the proper way to greet a god or supplicate to their demands, birthing rituals, appropriate acts of vengeance, the handling of relics—all of it.”
My hand goes to that bone ring again as a thrill leaps up my throat.
A thrill, and the bitter taste of frustration.
Why didn’t Faolan tell me this?
“The Gan Ainm tried to shelter Clodagh, and because of that rebellion, they lost favor with the Daonnaí and were banished to the remotest parts of Frozen Hearth: a tiny island tucked between glaciers.” Etain traps her pipe in the corner of her mouth.
“Half their number defected after the first winter passed. Sickness and war nearly took out the rest. By the time the Ring of Stars formed three generations later, the Gan Ainm was hardly more than a smattering of old hermits—and age recognizes defeat. So they opened ranks after the ice melted and the paths were clear. Any seanchaí who wished to go deeper and hold the whole of the Crescent’s history in their palms could join for the price of swearing off their families, titles, treasures—and their names, as well. ”
Etain pauses, her eyes clouding over with the recollection.
“Faolan’s father, Barden, was among them.”
I catch Aisling’s eye. Search for my shock or disbelief…and find none. Instead, she bites her lip and gives a shrug. “Kiara made me promise not to tell anyone. But Faolan’s da was betrothed to my mother before he defected.”
“A nasty surprise, waking up to his disappearance the morning they were meant to be wed.” Etain cocks her head. Smiles. “And an amusing one, considering how you and the little wolf met.”
A thread of ice needles its way through my chest, making me want to cry again.
Faolan has never told me about this. Any of this.
But as I think back to all those whispered conversations on the ship, in the long stretches of evening or in our cabin after that first attack—the way he said his parents’ names when we spoke our vows.
Memories gather like lace-winged moths in my hand.
My mother was one of the guardians of Leigheas.
Son of Barden and Iona.
When I asked him why everyone calls him the Wolf…he said his mother gave him that name.
Faolan.
Little Wolf.
Etain watches me with an owlish expression, pipe dangling from her hand. Like my ignorance is a bemusing diversion—a chance to show she’s wise.
Irritation surges forward, pushing me to my feet.
“What is your point with this, Ríona Etain?”
“Your husband came into this world hungry, and no matter what stories he’s spun about himself, it’s never been quite enough to fill that ache.
” Our eldest queen looks past me, to the faded gathering and the woods beyond.
“What makes you think a man like that would be content to rest in your shadow?”
Striking me with a blacksmith’s hammer would have hurt less.
Etain sighs and at last puts out her pipe as I clutch the invisible wound to my stomach, the truth of her words lodged deep inside. “The sun doesn’t hide behind the moon’s skirts, Saoirse. It’s nothing you’ve done; it’s just…the way of things.”
Smiling like she means it as a comfort, Etain stands on creaking legs and extends her hand.
“Aisling? Fetch a girl to help me to the tent.”
I leave them without saying good night, my head spinning, though whether it’s from her strange pipe’s smoke or the impossible stories, I’m unsure.
What I am sure of is that I’ve failed.
Or—maybe I haven’t, judging by the last thing she said.
All Faolan told me to do before we parted was to sow the story that he’d sailed off with Kiara for Ashen Flame, and wait for Maccus to approach.
He’d worried that if I went straight to the Stone King, Maccus would see it for the distraction it was.
Yet after speaking with Aisling and Etain, I can’t help thinking I’d rather be facing that than the truth that Faolan was nameless for thirteen years of his life.
On the surface, it seems impossible—to think my wild, clever showman of a husband who’d sooner make jokes at the expense of the gods than ever be caught in earnest prayer was once raised to love them and only them. Impossible, and yet—
I can’t deny it makes sense.
That Faolan would claim so much space when he’d been born practically a ghost. That he’d wear shining, colorful garb to catch everyone’s notice, and learn to speak by telling stories.
My feet find the path to our cave without effort as I remember telling Faolan what it was like to grow up believing I was cursed by the gods.
I confessed to being unwanted, hurting myself to make the magic numb.
I would tell myself I was nothing like it was a comfort—and he listened to all of that without saying a single word about his own history.
No, that’s not true. He’d said plenty of words.
Every time I claimed I was nothing, Faolan fought back—even before we really knew each other.
Before I knew of his bargain and he knew of my tattoo, Faolan dropped hints like breadcrumbs, but I was too scared to snap them up.
And by the time I understood what he was hiding with them—the soul bargain scarring his palm—we were racing across the sea to save his life.
But…why not after?
My hand catches on strands of ivy, pulling until they nearly fall out as Etain’s words echo in my mind.
The sun doesn’t hide behind the moon’s skirts, Saoirse. It’s nothing you’ve done; it’s just…the way of things.
She’s wrong.
Faolan’s never once tried to make me smaller, or hide me away. He’s loud, yes, and excessive and maddening, but he’s only ever tried to reveal me further—not dim my light for the sake of his own. And yet—
He’s kept secrets from me before.
The truth of himself, buried where no one—not even I—could reach it.
I’m halfway into the cave, already reaching for the box of Bruidin flame and an oil lantern when a voice comes from the dark.
“That was an interesting performance.”
Before I can respond, another figure flies past me, pinning the speaker to the cave wall by their throat. It’s Brona—her curls catch the faint moonlight, as does the wicked dagger she clutches tight.
“I told Faolan we couldn’t leave you alone!”
“Brona?! What are you—” I swear as I unlatch the lid, fingers fumbling for a dried leaf. With a harsh crack, the ends of the Bruidin leaf ignite, amber light washing the walls to reveal Rí Callen standing flush against the stone, arms raised in surrender, a panicked smile on their face.
Brona immediately lowers her knife. “Fecking stars, why would you—”
“I couldn’t find a lantern, so I took drops of Bittersweet before dinner.” Callen pushes back their white-blond hair, pulse thrumming at their throat. “What’s your excuse?”
“I had to be careful picking my way back from the beach so no one else caught on that Faolan was leaving just yet, which meant no lights.” Brona scowls. “We can’t all be dropping expensive tinctures into our eyes.”
“Even so—”
“Wait a moment.” I set the lantern down to keep it from dropping as my hands start to shake. “Brona. What are you doing here?”
“Staying behind to keep an eye on you.” Brona looks at me, incredulous, then shoves her dagger into its sheath. “I wasn’t about to let you face Maccus alone.”
My eyes, already dry from crying, flood once more, and I lurch forward to pull her into a hug.
“Speaking of Maccus,” Callen says as Brona gives me a hard squeeze, then lets me go. “Are you actually trying to help him unlock Eamon’s hammer? You believe what he says?”
I hesitate. Look to Brona, who shrugs.
“I believe in keeping the Crescent from another reign of power-hungry gods.”
Callen smiles. “And what makes you think you won’t become one of them?”
My hands fall to my stomach, palms staining the silk with sweat.
One touch is all it would take to learn Callen’s secrets.
One refusal to damn the lost souls of this land.
I already hold too much power in my hands.
“I don’t.” The truth spills out, reckless, as heat ebbs from the lantern’s stone nook. “But Maccus has already shown what he would do if granted true power, and the only way to access his hammer without breaking our islands’ accords is by playing into his hand. At least for now.”
But Callen doesn’t frown or back away. Instead, they reach beneath their collar and pull on a cord, until a bright crystalline talon dangles between us, throwing prisms across the cave walls.
“Then I’m in.”