Chapter Thirty-Seven #2
A frenzied sort of dread rushes through my blood as I stumble, then reach for a tree trunk, pressing myself against it with a sob as Brona turns.
“I’m sorry,” I gasp. “I just—need a minute.”
“Have it.” Brona drops beside me, wincing when a branch jostles her bad shoulder. “It’s not like running ourselves ragged’s going to do much if we don’t have an escape.” Rubbing at her face, she looks toward the bay. “We need a ship.”
“And a way to reach it.” My hands, already damp with sweat, lose their grip on the hammer, which hits the pebbles and sand with a hard thunk.
I look across the water to the cluster of boats bobbing on the waves.
Maccus’s gray sails, furled tight above the mast. Tadgh’s closest to the bay’s end, basalt columns glinting in the waning moon’s light.
And then there’s the massive golden ship: head of Etain’s fleet, all lit up with lanterns and teeming with life.
“…Did you mean what you said to Callen? You think Etain would be willing to help?”
Brona looks past me, lips pulled to one side. “She has a soft spot for Faolan. And a healthy respect for power and the gods. I doubt she’d take kindly to the idea of Maccus splitting soulstones.”
I rub at the tender skin of my wrist where Maccus gripped me, blooming with dark bruises even now. “She panicked when I showed her one of them this morning. Warned me against playing with the gods.”
“Well, this isn’t you playing—this is you running, so I think she’ll let it slide.” Brona throws up a hand, then groans. “Can you do the asking, though? I feckin’ hate begging.”
“There will be no begging required.”
The two of us jump as Ríona Etain steps around a tree, Aisling trailing just behind her.
The eldest queen is no longer the imposing figure I first saw at the Damhsa.
She’s shrunken, weighed down by worries and a thick, deep-hooded traveling cloak.
As she approaches, she picks her way carefully across the path, that same old pipe trailing smoke from her hand.
“I always knew the age of the Daonnaí would end someday. But I thought it would happen beyond my lifetime, when the magic faded to legend and memory and our peoples forgot the gods ever existed at all.” Slowly, she shakes her head. “Never did I think it would come to this.”
I push myself upright as Etain studies the hammer at my side, eyes lingering on the symbols carved into its metal side. The places my blood has dried on its surface.
“…Did he use the soulstones, then?”
My entire body recoils, remembering the feel of his fingers at my lips.
The stone’s soul pouring down my throat.
“Aye,” Brona says, taking a step closer to me. “And it would have been really helpful to know that was a possibility this whole time. Skies of fire—”
“I’d worried the temptation would be too great for our Soulgazer if she knew.
But it’s done now.” Etain rubs at the wrinkled furrow of her brow, then stops.
“A coalition of Maccus’s men are waiting on the beaches.
Rí Tadgh’s as well. They say they’re just enjoying the evening, but not one of them has touched his wine. ”
My pulse flutters at my throat. “Then we’re finished.”
“Not quite.” Etain nods toward the golden ship bobbing on the waters.
“They are still holding to the rules of the court for now, but it’s a tenuous grasp at best. Enough to allow me passage to and from my ship.
For my crew to make ready to sail.” She pauses another moment, wrinkled throat working as she swallows.
“You may board it if you promise me something, girl.”
My fingers tighten on the hammer, lifting it an inch or two off the ground as some of that tightness eases in my chest. “Anything.”
Etain draws one last breath from her pipe, smoke curling between her lips like a dragon’s, then taps it out and grinds the embers beneath her heel. “Promise me you’ll destroy them.”
A thousand thoughts race through my head: impossibilities and terrors all.
What would it mean to break the relics? Would the magic return to the islands? The depths of the Knowing Sea? What if destroying them destroys the magic?
And then another, far colder thought.
What if destroying them kills me as well?
Uncertainty bites at my heels, but still I nod. “I will. I promise.”
“Then you’ll take my ship. And my granddaughter with it.”
Aisling’s head jerks up, my shock reflected in her face. “Nana, what are you talking about?”
“You’re not coming with us?” I ask.
Etain clucks her tongue gently. Then she tucks the pipe between her teeth and unclasps the cloak from her throat, wrapping it not around my shoulders, but Brona’s instead.
“You need a way onto that ship—one that won’t draw suspicion.
So long as Aisling remains visible, the navigator can wear my cloak and you, Soulgazer, can take the place of our handmaiden. You have a cloak of your own?”
“I—” My throat closes as I look from Aisling to Etain. “Yes?”
“Put it on. Keep your head down. And do not delay.”
I fumble for the leather bag lashed over my shoulder, pulling a cloak free as Aisling shakes her head.
“Nana, you can’t—”
“Hush, child.” Etain brushes a lock of hair from Aisling’s forehead with one wrinkled hand. “I’ll not hear a word about it, Aisling. You’re the prize of our island, and if this gets ugly—and it will—you’d be better off at the Soulgazer’s side than gathering my bones from the rubble. So go on.”
Aisling balks at the suggestion, tears flooding her eyes, but my attention is stolen by Brona, who’s staring at Etain like she’s never truly seen her before.
I stagger under the hammer’s weight—the uncertainty and horrors settling again into my body—as Etain tears her gaze from her granddaughter and looks to me once more.
“You keep her safe, Wolf Tamer. And when the time comes—because a time is coming—” Her weary gaze drops to the hammer. “Do not falter.”
“I won’t.”
She nods, then tucks her pipe into the pouch at Aisling’s side. “Go.”
And with one last look at the Isle of Lost Souls, we do.