Chapter Thirty
Thirty
Saoirse
The woods are strangely silent tonight, save for the constant presence of the wind.
It drifts beneath my collar as I tug Faolan’s heavy green coat closer, its wool a far better match for the breeze than my lavender linen gown, soft and tattered as a butterfly’s wing.
Neither grand nor gilded, they’ll make poor armor if I’m discovered, but I couldn’t bear to wear Aisling’s creations.
Not when I’m running with the wolves again tonight.
I shift from foot to foot as I reach the edge of the tree line, nerves dancing up and down my spine, but no leaves crunch beneath them.
We’d all painted our boots with Callen’s tar as the sun set this afternoon, Brona bemoaning my lack of battle training as she prepared to chase down Etain and Aisling.
But I don’t need more training.
I need to take hold of my magic and trust it won’t lead me astray.
So I hold my breath and wait for Callen’s signal, until chickens cluck and then shriek off near the building site, followed by the sound of metal and stone crashing to the ground.
The uproar is immediate, voices tumbling over each other as at least a dozen bodies race toward the noise—but I don’t move until I hear Maccus shouting orders.
Hold my breath until the graveled weight of it fades.
Only when every sound is distant and muffled do I step out of the tree line and down the path Maccus just deserted.
The tent of Unbound Earth is a large structure fashioned with long, smooth panels of flaxen fabric treated so that rain will flow like waterfalls down its side.
It’s much like the others, but where Kiara’s was painted with the symbol of her island, the outline of Mount Iolair is rough and unromantic—a jagged peak that looms over me as I approach.
Light-footed and wary, I reach for my hood as I draw near the entrance, ready to reveal my crown to any guards present so they might let me pass by.
None are there to see it.
Unease knots my gut as I release the hood to reach for the tent flaps instead, fingertips skimming their heavy hide—but I can’t tell if it’s the magic warning me off or just my nerves flaring to life.
Because there’s a chance I can’t actually do this.
A chance I’ll mess it up, just like I did speaking to Maccus that first day.
My heel digs into the black sand, and I’m about to step back when a slight…tug comes beneath my rib cage. A humming at the back of my mind.
I push through the entrance without another delay.
The Stone King’s tent is stark inside. Devoid of anything remarkable…
anything personal at all. There is Maccus’s bedroll, aye, and a pile of furs, but there’s nothing ornate about it.
The few trunks are plain wood and iron barred.
A table and cushions bear a simple lamp, a rock, and a handful of the same tools Maccus showed me at the forge the other day, but there are no sleeping arrangements for servants or carefully stationed guards.
There is also no hammer.
I move throughout the barren space, carefully opening trunks—even turning out Maccus’s bedroll, and still find nothing inside.
Those knots in my belly draw tighter, sending fire through my veins.
Did Maccus run off with the relic? Or stow it away on his ship? Both possibilities are entirely likely—and would be utterly futile to attempt. Still, we might, if it were more than me and Brona on this island, with Callen aiding our hand. Or better still if Faolan was here—
But he’s not.
I close my eyes.
Draw in a slow breath.
Focus not on the frustration coursing through my body, but on the gentle tug that led me inside.
Magic is drawn to other magic: spirits and soulstones and the gods’ holy realm. It hummed in my veins when I held Róisín’s talon, and again at the nearness of Odhrán’s antler pipe. It brought me to the gods’ chamber on the Scath-Díol, and to this very island I’m standing on now.
I pull my boots free and then dig my feet into the rushes, until sand grinds between my toes.
“Help me,” I whisper, feeling just a little absurd—even after communing with the Knowing Sea before. My skin crawls as the silence presses in.
I’m too anxious. Too unsteady on my feet.
I sink to my knees instead, curling my fingers into the earth below.
“Guide me.”
At last, the magic whispers back.
Not in words, but in feelings and faint images, and a rushed sensation like a current drawing me toward—
My eyes fly open as I hear a whistling sound off in the woods.
Is it my signal on Callen’s lips? Or just one of the magpies, disturbed from their sleep?
A chill trickles across my skin as the magic starts to leave me, and I lunge for it—slamming my eyes shut and calling on it again.
“Show me where to look,” I whisper, pressing my palms down into the dirt and pebbles until that gentle tug returns, guiding me to the table, which I heave against and push aside…
Exposing a patch of earth recently turned over—but it’s too small to contain Eamon’s hammer.
Still, the magic is insistent, pressing into me until I reach up, hand scrambling over the table for one of those tools Maccus left lying around.
I shove its long, sharpened end into the earth and gouge a line. Two, three—
The tool lodges itself against something solid, and I throw my weight down to wrench the object upward. Press until the hard-packed sand cracks, unearthing a thick leather pouch the color of dried blood.
Confusion saps all my fury as I turn it over, looking for Eamon’s sigil or a mark of the other gods, but there’s nothing special about it.
Nothing but the magic’s hum still winding through my jaw.
“What—”
The whistle sounds again in the woods, more urgent, but this time I don’t bother trying to make out its rhythm.
I’m too busy fumbling the cords wound tight around the pouch’s top as possibilities fly through my mind.
It could be another relic Maccus has already seized.
Eabha’s veil of silver, or Clodagh’s healing vessel. Or maybe—
The cords come loose, and out into my palm tumbles a pile of gleaming soulstones.
Bright as starlight, as colorful as abalone shells, the triskeles carved into their tops are faint but present. I tilt my hand to see them better—watch as they shimmer—and still I question my own sanity until the bargainer’s mark flickers on my hand in response.
These are real. Maccus has buried a cache of soulstones.
The only question is why?
“Bandia Saoirse.”
Stones spill into my lap as I tear my head up to see Rí Maccus standing in the entryway, watching me, his tunic open and sweat dotting his brow.
Panic drags my heart into my throat, holding it tight as he lets the hide fall behind him and stalks slowly forward, shadows crossing his face with every step.
“I’d feared you’d lost your intelligence. After that pathetic display by the forge, I was sure you’d become that spineless, fanciful girl again, unfit for this task.” He crouches before me, nestling one finger beneath my chin. “Thank Eamon, I was wrong.”
I tear my face from his hand. “Maccus, what is this?”
His eyes, generally a hazy blue-gray, darken to the color of bruises as he narrows them at me.
“A temporary solution. One that will no longer be necessary once you provide another.”
I gape at Maccus even as the soulstones shudder in my bare palm, the spirits’ voices weaving into my consciousness—forcing their way in. Images tangle together: a man’s pickaxe driving into rock; a child’s last memory being swept down a mountain during a storm.
Róisín’s hunger as she huddled over a soulstone, talon pressed to its heart.
Drink the bones dry, oh, drink the bones dry.
There’s something fighting to take root inside me—something that slips every time I have it in my grasp. It vanishes altogether when Maccus tilts his head and starts to speak.
“I’ve played my hand before the council plainly. Appealed to you through the proper channels—even knelt and supplicated myself to you in front of the Ring of Stars. It’s time you held up your end of our bargain, Soulgazer.”
Maccus beckons to one of his men by the door.
“Time for your payment in blood.”