Chapter Thirty-Five
Thirty-five
Faolan
I am drowning.
Not in the ocean, or my memories.
Not in that gold-dirt place where Saoirse and I have found each other—but in some undulating other world speckled with millions of stars.
Stars and the love of my life’s ragged, desperate screams.
“Please don’t—”
I wrench my body forward, floundering in the water that isn’t water, black and silken and strangling as it keeps me from my wife.
A snarl leaps out of my chest, rattles my skin so it feels like it’s stretching.
Shredding. And as I drop forward, clawing my way through the heavens, I could swear a coat of needlelike fur begins to push through.
It doesn’t matter. I will become whatever I need to, to reach Saoirse in time.
But as I crest a silver-dusted wave, the screaming stops.
My heart stops with it.
Until I see her—curled over and trapped by the Stone King’s side.
Saoirse is still fighting him, her eyes gone wild with it, but Maccus pays her no mind.
His gaze is on the swirl of constellations playing out before them both: the scene exactly as Saoirse described to me.
All seven gods are on a ship, the last cutting off her finger, summoning an almighty twist in the sea below.
Maccus studies the scene intently, and I don’t trust that gleam in his eyes.
I try to scratch my way closer—to throw my body forward.
To scream Saoirse’s name.
All that comes out is a howl.
“The Knowing Sea,” Maccus whispers, but his voice might as well be a shout, given the way it reverberates in the waters. “I understand now.”
—
“Faolan?!”
A hand claps down on my shoulder, shaking me so hard it rattles my teeth.
Teeth. Not fangs.
But that other place keeps pulling me under.
Only this time, it’s not a place I recognize.
It’s not a place at all.
—
Images crash together, voices overlapping like I’m in a room with five people trying their damnedest to tell all their stories at once.
“You don’t understand! The sacrifice—”
“You will lead me there.”
“Stop…STOP!”
Then there are the images—Brona by the soul pools with her arm hanging crooked.
Saoirse pinned to a rock.
Maccus crashing headfirst into water—hammer at his side.
A crack echoes across my skull, moonlight dripping over bloody skin…
Eyes of sparks, not born of the sea.
The bastard smiles as he severs—
Saoirse swipes for his neck—
“…please…”
—
I come to with a jolt of reality so severe, it nearly makes me sick. Is that what Saoirse experiences? Why she vomits half the time after a vision’s taken her over? The second one was nothing like those we’ve shared, the dreams we’ve walked—nothing like I’ve ever known at all.
Rolling onto all fours, swallowing down the nausea while someone grabs for my arm, I try to sort out what happened—to sift through the visions faster than they can fade away.
But there’s something else distracting me. Like a sword’s dug into my middle and carved some essential piece out.
Saoirse was in the soul pools.
Brona was there, standing like a broken doll, while Maccus—
“Faolan, what the feck are you—”
I draw my sword before I can think, hurtling to my feet as Rian falls back, wrong-footed and furious, concern swiftly bleaching his face. I’m still panting—still shaking and choking down my own urge to be sick—but desperation drives me forward until the point of my blade touches his chest.
There’s a scuffle behind our backs, the door bursting open.
I don’t turn to see who’s inside.
“The apothecary, Rian. I don’t have time to negotiate. You can take the gold, take the eye, take all the bloody Docklands, just—”
Aoife moves quicker than I judged possible, sliding a dagger up to the hilt of my sword as she shoves against my wounded chest. My back hits the table, and the blade clatters as she drives an elbow into my collarbone and holds that knife directly over my sight.
“You ever threaten my husband again, pup, and I’ll carve your feckin’ eye out.”
I stare at the blade and try to find something in me to care.
There’s nothing but panic left.
“Please,” I say, and mean it with my whole gut.
Aoife flinches—jerks back a touch, just enough for me to scramble free, but I don’t go for the sword.
Instead, I throw my hands up, backing away a step.
Two as Aidan peels off the wall and Nessa takes the hint from where she’d burst in to grab Páidí, who swears and swipes at her with a knife.
Aoife whistles sharply, gaze hostile as it flicks between us. Trying to understand. Failing.
There’s no time for it.
“Please, Aoife. Rian,” I say again, then do what I swore to myself I never would again.
I clasp my hands together and beg.
“Take whatever you like. I’ll make any promise, leave whatever territory, just bring the apothecary to me and—”
“Feck’s sake.” A mixture of revulsion and bewilderment crosses Aoife’s face as she raises the dagger, then stops. “You really are the tamed wolf now, aren’t you?”
It lands like a stab to the gut.
But even that doesn’t hurt like seeing Saoirse under Maccus’s hold.
Aoife looks from me to Rian, who gives her a bewildered nod.
“Fine.” Aoife shoves her dagger into her belt, and Rian sits back, running a hand through his black hair.
“The gold, the eye, the Docklands. We’re agreed. Páidí, bring the bastard to them. And then the three of you, get out of my sight.”