Chapter Twenty-Five
Twenty-five
Saoirse
The old queen’s words hang on the air between curtains of steam and fragrant smoke—powerful, yet insubstantial. Still, I do my best to breathe them in.
To hold them deep inside me, where I’ve started to gather questions like a magpie gathers trinkets.
The trouble is, I’m starting to collect answers as well.
“What do you mean, soulstones weren’t a gift of the gods?”
“I don’t know that any more than I knew you and our troublesome Wolf would be successful in finding this island, let alone releasing the soulstones themselves.
” Etain laughs, throaty and raw. “Quite honestly, I thought Faolan had gone a bit off in the head when I heard he’d run away with Dermot’s girl, but here you are.
Descended from a goddess even the Gan Ainm had no record of. ”
“The Gan…” I can’t help my sharp intake of breath as a wave of dizziness washes over me. It’s the bloodletting. That, and the sect of seanchaí’s name again.
I fumble for a rock, but Brona beats me to it, grabbing my unbandaged arm to lower me there before she sighs and heads for the ritual supplies and basket.
“It’s at the bottom. You just have to—”
“You act like I don’t know.” Rolling her eyes, Brona presses a waterskin into my hand and lays a bundle of food on my lap: thick brown oat bread slathered in butter, a wooden bowl of stewed greens, and rare strips of dried beef, all from Bridled Stag. “Eat. We don’t need you passing out.”
I catch her hand before she can pull away, squeezing tight. “Thank you.”
She opens her mouth, already drawn into a smirk, then stops. Looks me over, and I see it—just a brief glimpse of it. The sister she lost on my father’s ship.
“Just…take better care of yourself, would you?”
I nod and Brona lets go, stalking to the edge of the rocky outlet overlooking the beach as I drink deep. All the while, the Stag Queen watches me, rings tapping her pipe in a slow, even measure. A hum settles in my fingertips where I held it briefly, moments ago.
I have no doubt Etain knows what that is. But I wonder…
“What feats do you know of, that the gods’ relics performed?”
Her laugh mingles with smoke. “Plenty, to be sure. Róisín’s talon was said to imbue petitioners with extraordinary abilities of the arts when used to tattoo their flesh.
Eabha’s veil could let you live as in dreams, seeing and touching your past loved ones, or else taking away painful memories for good.
Far more potent than those mushrooms your father favored. ”
She draws on the pipe as I shove another bite of food into my mouth.
“Eamon’s hammer could drive into any rock and yield veins of gold, silver—precious gems. It could also raise storms, held high over the peak of Mount Iolair so lightning knew where to strike. As for Odhrán’s antler…”
Etain pauses, silver braid trailing snakelike in the shifting waters.
“Driven into the four corners of any field, it would guarantee an abundant harvest, free of rot or pests. Cut across the forehead, it would bless the line tenfold—a rite of passage on our island, once. My grandmother, stars keep her, bore the scar all her days.”
She’s quiet a moment, then turns to me with a sad sort of smile.
“You know the rest.”
I do. Every child of the Daonnaí does—and the rest of the Crescent knows plenty of the tales on their own—even the ones who worship the Slaughtered Ones in earnest, hoping for a reprieve from the worst magical corruptions plaguing our lands.
With time, Odhrán’s blessings turned into blood demands.
Sacrifice for his own amusement: one child for the promise of one hundred years in a family line.
Róisín carved tricks with her relic, giving the artists talent, yes—and torment when perfection was not at hand.
Eamon rattled the Isle of Unbound Earth to its very bones, engulfing the cracked rocks with floods when the people failed to satisfy him.
But Muireal…the lost goddess…
I glance down at my bone ring, food forgotten in my lap. “What about the soulstones?”
“What about them?”
“Were they ever used like that? Corrupted?”
Etain’s eyes narrow, her fingers tightening around the pipe. “They corrode with time. You’ve seen plenty—”
“No, I don’t mean that. I mean…” Setting the food and waterskin aside, I roll to my feet and go for the basket again, reaching into its bottom for the scrap of silk. Palming it gently, I return to the spring and unwrap it piece by piece until the colorless, cracked soulstone is revealed.
Instantly, the eldest queen jerks forward, nearly dropping her pipe as she gapes. “Where did you get that?”
“One of our crew found it.”
“That’s not—” She shuts her eyes. Reaches haltingly for Aisling’s hand. “Get me out.”
“Nana?”
“Get me out, girl.”
“Nana, what do you—”
“We’re leaving. The autumn council is done.
We’re heading back to Bridled Stag.” Etain fumbles for the side of the pool, pushing jerkily on the stone until finally, she abandons all dignity and crawls out, the pipe still clutched in her fingers.
I start forward, then stop when she holds up a gnarled hand. “Stay there, Soulgazer.”
My eyes dart to Brona, but she, too, has gone stiff.
“Ríona Etain,” I try again, closing my hand around the spent soulstone. “Please, just tell me—”
“The age of the gods ended for a reason.” She grasps for her robe, tying it tight. “Do not play their games, Saoirse. That is my only warning.”
“I don’t understand.”
She stops, fingers hovering over the knot, yellow silk clinging to her wet skin. Behind her, Aisling drips over the rock, face screwed up with panic and confusion. But it’s nothing to the loss in Etain’s eyes.
“Neither do I. But I don’t have to, to know not to trust it. I would suggest you do the same.”
She walks toward the stairwell faster than I thought possible, robe snagging on rocks, pipe smoke still trailing behind her. Aisling shoots me a helpless look.
“I’ll try to talk to her—”
“Aisling! Come.”
Shaking her head, Aisling flits to her grandmother’s side, and together they descend.
Steam blocks the stairway in seconds, filling up the space they left behind. It sticks to my throat, cloaking my body as the sun pierces the sky. I stumble as the world tilts left, then right—spinning so that when I hit the ground, it’s on my knees and not my head.
“Saoirse?” Brona scrambles forward. “Shite. I should have waited until later, but I thought—well, there’s more privacy here than anywhere else on the bloody island.”
“No, you did well. I just—stars’ sake, what was that?
” I stare down at the empty shell that once held someone’s spirit, then close my hand over it.
Thrust it back into the basket, out of my sight.
“There is something about the soulstones that she and Faolan know. And it has to do with the Gan Ainm, but they won’t tell me more about it.
Maccus won’t let me get near him since yesterday morning, and I can’t trust that what I’ve seen is even what I need—”
“Of course you can’t. They’re never going to tell you outright what you want. I told you. You have to start acting like a pirate.”
“I tried. Yesterday with Maccus, but—”
“So try again.” Brona kicks the basket away, then crouches in front of me, eyes hard.
“You’re a queen, sure. Goddess, maybe. But a wolf?
That’s for feckin’ certain.” Grabbing my unbandaged arm, she turns it over until the woad tattoo stares up at us, carved by Lorcan while Faolan lay feverish belowdecks.
“You want something, you take it. Through cunning or courage or coercion, it doesn’t matter.
You’re still playing by their rules, and if you do that, you’ll always lose. ”
“She’s right.”
We both jump as Callen melts out of a thick wall of steam—one I’d attributed to the sun shining at last, but it’s clear they’ve manipulated it somehow by their smirk.
“Feck’s sake, I nearly gutted you,” Brona says, a knife poking out between her fingers, arm still tensed from where she’d pulled it back to throw.
“Good thing for me you’re far more clever than that.” Callen strides across the damp rock on silent feet, making no sound even when their boot meets a puddle. At my curious glance, they say, “It’s the leather. I’ve treated it with—”
“Sap from the tuar ceatha’s nesting grounds, I know. Faolan painted the currachs with the same.” Biting my lip, I glance from Brona to Callen and then reach for the waterskin again. “Do you have more of it?”
“Always.” They cock their head. “Why?”
I drink, long and slow, until the waterskin is empty and my head feels attached to my body again. When I lower it, they’re looking at me like the crew used to look at Faolan: not worshipful, but willing.
It’s enough to banish any doubts I had left.
“I tried speaking with Maccus. Appealing to his reason—even slipping into his mind—and it didn’t work. Not really.” Turning to face them, I set the waterskin down. “I need to see the hammer of Eamon. Alone.”
Callen raises a brow, but Brona only smiles. “Wondered when you’d get there.”
A laugh breaks through me before I swallow it back down. “I was trying for diplomacy to start.”
“Aye, well, it has its moments.” Her lashes sweep across her cheek as she looks to my throat. “But there are limitations.”
“Such as the fact that you have eyes on you everywhere you pass on this island,” Callen adds. “I could get it for you?”
“No.”
They frown. “You don’t trust me?”
“No, it’s not that, it’s—I need to touch it.
Understand its power and figure out how in shade’s realm Maccus has been able to use it at all.
” Picking at my bandage, I tuck the end tighter and pull the sleeve of my shirt down.
“It would be best if I could get into Maccus’s tent, though, rather than one of us trying to bring it out. ”
Callen’s eyes light up. “Right, because if you’re caught, you can tell him…you wanted to seduce him?”
Brona snorts once, but I go perfectly still. Remembering the way it is, to stand before him.
How utterly and completely small he makes me feel.
Rigidly, I shake my head. “No. But I could make some excuse—if I’m caught.”
“Right, and how do you plan to make it into his tent without him noticing?”
Again, my mind leaps to the forge. “By creating an accident at the building site? A collapse or fire would work best, I think—but it couldn’t be too large.
We can’t afford anyone’s tents or belongings to burn.
We just need it to be big enough that he and his men will be called in to manage it. Could you handle that, Cal?”
“Aye. What about the party from Bridled Stag, though?”
Brona’s face slowly relaxes, her eyes darting toward the sky. “I could warn Etain’s captain of a storm. They know I’m the best navigator there is, and these are unfamiliar waters. They’ll trust me.”
“But that might catch you out in a lie.”
She rolls her eyes. “It’ll rain tonight regardless—they’ll see by the time the old bird rallies her people. It will delay them enough that if you find decent enough information from that hammer, we could delay them further. Maybe even secure Odhrán’s relic in the bargain.”
To do what, I still don’t know.
My stomach pitches as I imagine trying to do what I just did with Róisín’s talon on Odhrán’s antler—or Clodagh’s vessel for that matter.
Rí Tadgh is still on the island, though he, too, is preparing his people to leave.
And for all the stories Maccus spun about curing Tadgh’s flesh waste by diverting blight with Eamon’s relic, the logic falls through, knowing the rest exist.
Knowing Maccus has found some way to wield them without a god’s blood.
“Cal…you’ve visited Rí Tadgh’s tent for negotiations. Have you seen—”
“Seen an ancient-looking bowl stamped with Clodagh’s mark?” They cock their head as I snap my mouth shut, white-blond hair falling like feathers into their eyes. “No, I haven’t seen the goddess’s vessel, but it wasn’t for lack of looking.”
“And you were going to tell us about this when?” Brona asks, glaring when Callen cuts her with a look.
“We’ve all been a bit busy, haven’t we? Besides, it’s not like I could just up and make off with it.
The old man gets tetchy if you so much as forget to bow properly—I can’t imagine he’d take well to blatant theft.
” Callen tips their head back with a heavy sigh.
“If I had to guess, it’s probably on his ship. ”
“Forget it, then.” I wrap the rest of the food and shove it into the basket.
“It’s not worth the risk—not when we still have to figure out how Maccus is even using the relic.
I’ll stay in the cave until nightfall, then go to Maccus’s tent.
If for some reason he catches me, I’ll just tell him I came to apologize for what happened in the blacksmithing tent. ”
“All right,” Brona says, reaching for the waterskin and slowly fitting in the cork. “And if he demands your blood for the hammer?”
I pause, crumbs still sticking to my thumb. “Then I’ll have to do it.”
She drops the skin. “Saoirse.”
“It wouldn’t be any worse than Róisín’s talon!” Swallowing, I wipe my hands free. “A surge, and exhaustion, but not much else. Maybe we’d even get some more answers.”
She goes to argue again, but Callen holds up a hand. “It’s as good a plan as any. I’ll handle the distraction. Brona, you can keep an eye on Saoirse.”
“Fine.” Brona picks up the waterskin and throws it into the basket. “Tonight, first fire?”
“Tonight.”