Chapter Thirty-Eight
Thirty-eight
Faolan
“Send another.”
Tavin staggers against the wooden rib of the hull as the ship pitches to one side, emitting an ungodly groan. It’s a piece of shite held together by strained supports and pure spite—no magic to be found in any corner of the damned thing.
It’s also my one way to reach Saoirse before—
No. I won’t think about that.
There is no before, because she’s fine. Alive. And whatever Maccus did to her, surely I’d know if she was…
Right?
“Faolan.” Tavin’s voice runs wary as he tucks the conch shell beneath his arm and digs into a pouch at his hip, coming up with a single strand of black hair, curling gently at the end. “We need to slow the ship down. Get farther out from the Teeth—”
“This is the route that gets us there fastest. It’s not my fault the navigator is feckin’ incompetent. Stars above, Brona managed the Teeth for the first time when she was only fifteen years old—”
“And we took on enough damage to ground the ship for three months after.” Tavin’s brow wrinkles, then falls. “I know you want to get back to Saoirse. But I’ve sent ten messages in half as many hours, so until those old seanchaí respond for her—”
“Well, they haven’t.” I don’t mean to snap, but as thunder drives against the wood slats and the ocean sprays up toward the deck, my patience ceases to exist. “So we’ll stay the course and make it through. Send another.”
Tavin only hesitates a few seconds longer before violet-gray smoke fills the air.
In the early days, after Kiara first assigned Tavin to join me, I’d watch this ritual in a temper, listening to his chanting like it was a curse, waiting to hear whatever information he felt was worthy of passing on to Kiara.
When it became clear he wasn’t immediately interested in my downfall, it turned into a comfort: a sort of magic unattainable to any who didn’t take the hands of Clodagh and the spellcraft infused in the ink.
Right now, though, crammed in the darkness and damp, it’s enough to drive me mad.
I stare at the apothecary’s bound, limp form, and then curse as I snatch up his leather bag again.
It’s pointless—I already know what I’ll find inside—but there’s a restless spirit in me to match the brewing storm outside.
So I rifle through the potions I have no use or name for.
My finger drags over an empty loop that held the caipín baís ink now tucked into my own satchel, next to the effigy doll, half a bottle of water from the Spring of Leigheas, and the pearl creation Flanna strung up for me.
But there are a handful of other objects, strange and intriguing, I’ve yet to understand: near-translucent fangs and putrid flowers, packed into the same leather pouch.
Peat moss lay at the bottom of one clay pot, a garish green snakeskin coiled on top.
There were the remnants of a few more death caps—those I ground beneath my heel.
But it’s the prize jewel I’m after—the one I keep nearly convincing myself is gone.
I tug the bundle wrapped in oilcloth free once more and turn it over in my lap.
A veil of moonlit lace spills out.
It’s woven finer than any I’ve seen across the seven isles, even as the silver threads snag in places, holes stretched between the lunar phases and the wild sea in between.
Eabha’s celestial design’s become something of a tradition on Reborn Stalk, patterning all the long cycles from birth to death—but this one’s different.
There’s a young woman at one corner, dancing beneath a new moon.
She strolls across a glittering sea, her body changing, belly swelling.
And then her shoulders stoop. By the time she reaches the center of the veil, she becomes an old woman setting foot onto the full moon.
And then it reverses as she walks to the other end, turning maiden once more.
It’s a common thing on the Isle of Reborn Stalk to weave the stars into such veils as this for wedding gifts and ceremonies, meant to swaddle firstborn babes or adorn blushing young brides—but this piece.
This is a shroud woven to cloak the dead.
I wrap the fragile-looking thing around my knuckles, transfixed by the way it doesn’t catch on my calluses or nails. Half my body stiffens when it passes over the soul-bargain mark, just in case something happens.
It doesn’t. But the apothecary does make a sound.
“Ah, lovely. You’re awake.”
I shove the lace into my satchel and kick Sionn’s chair hard. “We were seconds from feeding you your own potions, to see which one of them would get you up.”
He blinks blearily, then jerks back against the ropes. “I appreciate your restraint.”
“Do you, now?” I snort. “Then perhaps you’ll appreciate this as well.”
As he watches with tightening eyes, I run a finger over the bottles, letting the glass clink together. Ignore the shuddering of the ship as I pluck up one filled to the top with a dark, gory red. It takes nothing to break the wax seal, and only the slightest flick of my thumb to free the cork.
“What are you…Stop! You don’t know what that will do.”
“Exactly, and what better way to find out?” I hold the vial over his head as the floorboards creak and slowly tilt, shifting my weight with them. “We’ll start with an easy question. Why did you take Eabha’s relic?”
Sionn’s cheeks go hollow as he sucks them in.
I click my tongue once. “That’s a shame.”
I turn my hand just a touch, and some of that scarlet liquid leaps into the narrow neck of the bottle, collecting into a drop. Sweat gathers on the apothecary’s brow.
“Does it burn your skin?” I ask. “Light a fire that can’t be quenched?”
He stays silent, so I let my hand slip, just a bit, and Sionn flinches as the potion lands on the ropes in front of his hands.
Within seconds, every drop of sea water and humidity is squeezed out of the hemp strands, leaving the patch shriveled and a small pool of water at his feet.
“Interesting.”
“Ingenious.” The apothecary’s already sallow face pinches tighter. “And unspeakably cruel.”
I lean closer, until I see the yellow, veined whites of his eyes.
“What misled you to think I’m inclined to be kind?”
“You’re a king now. Or at least, a consort.” The knot at his throat bobs as he swallows. “You’re held to a higher standard. Married to the creature whose entire purpose is healing souls.”
Somewhere deep in the hull, wood snaps. Tavin stops his chanting.
Even the footsteps overhead go still.
Or maybe it’s my blood, turning to ice that encases my bones as I tip half the vial over the apothecary’s shoulder and listen to him scream.
Watch him writhe and squirm until the skin’s as withered and dry as that of a man centuries old.
Then I cork the bottle and crouch low until I’m sure he’s looking nowhere but in my eyes.
“That ‘creature’ is my wife. And you’re the son of a bitch who cut her open.”
I set the vial into the leather sack and pull out another.
“Ask me how cruel I can be.”
His chest seizes as he presses back into the ropes and the chair when I approach, a wide-bottomed bottle containing dust in my hand.
“Do not open that.”
“Then tell me about the relic. Why did you take it?” I toy with the cork, hooking a foot through the satchel’s strap as the ship leans a hard left, dull thuds erupting across the boards—heavier waves than usual.
Nessa shouts in the distance. I shove it all to the back of my mind, ignoring it in favor of swirling the jar’s contents, filaments tumbling over one another with a wee puff of something like smoke.
The apothecary goes as pale as the belly of a fish.
“It doesn’t matter why,” he says, throat jerking as he swallows. “You should be asking who I stole it for.”
I stop turning the jar, and Sionn strains against the ropes.
Good. He’s learned.
“Maccus.”
Sionn flinches, then jerks his head in a nod. “I offered my services first to Dermot’s pathetic second born. He made it clear he had no use for me, so I…sought employment elsewhere.”
Another bead of sweat drips down his throat, his eyes tight on the bottle.
I roll it across my palm. “What else?”
“The Stone King offered me a place in his court—but I know how fickle the stars are.” A sneer curdles Sionn’s mouth. “How weak mortals can be.”
“Speak clearly, or this cork comes out.” I thumb the porous edge, relishing the creak of the ropes as he leans back. “Sharpish, too. I’d hate to get bored.”
His glare snaps back to me, but after another moment, his shoulders slump as he gives in.
“Rí Maccus wanted to know what I knew about the young princess’s magic, having grown up in her court.
He asked about it after you’d both run away.
Asked about Eabha’s relic too—but it was clear he wanted what anyone wants. Power.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes. “Aye, and?”
“And he’s convinced he can have it, if he has her and the relics in his grasp.”
The ship lurches and my boot strikes the ground as Sionn’s chair tips over—his shout short-lived when I catch it by the side. My eyes leap to Tavin, who’s already crawling onto his feet, shaking with exhaustion from dispatching the messages we sent out.
“I’ll check on things,” he mutters, shoving the nautilus shell deep into his side pouch as he goes for the ladder.
Guilt flashes through me, until Sionn grabs my attention with a moan.
“Quiet.” I wait until Tavin’s out of earshot, shouts and thunder briefly filling the hull before he slams the hatch closed. And then I turn to the apothecary, tossing his precious glass jar lightly in the air. He looks like he might expire on the spot. “You must think I’m stupid.”
“Yes.” He blinks. “I mean, no. I did, but—”
“Maccus wanted you to bring him the relic, so you ran off with it to the Isle of Painted Claw?”
The cork on this jar is tighter than the other, but it wouldn’t take much to pull it free. I remove my dagger, taking my sweet time letting the bronze catch the light.
Sionn audibly swallows, hands flexed wide between the bindings. A flake of dead skin drops from his finger to the ground. “I needed time to understand it. What powers it possessed, if it possessed any at all. What might activate the relic, what might—”
I stop, the blade’s edge half-buried in cork. “What might…what?”
He blanches, collarbones spiked beneath his skin. “Destroy it.”
My dagger twitches, cork shifting in the bottle’s neck.
The apothecary laughs. “You don’t believe me?”
“No, frankly, I don’t.”
His temple dips as he leans forward, putrid breath rushing between us.
“For twenty years, I made my home in Rí Dermot’s court, only for his weakling son to throw me out.
My ingredients, pilfered. My equipment, destroyed.
What say I did join the Stone King’s court, and handed him power the likes of which we haven’t seen in two hundred years?
Do you really think I would be safe there? That anyone would be?”
“Oh, that’s rich.” I can’t help a snort. “So you ran away with the relic to protect the Crescent. What a hero.”
“There are no heroes here.” Sionn laughs. “Least of all you. I was close to finding a solution—close to finding a way.”
I flip my dagger, turning it over the back of my hand. “Finding a way to what? Burn the veil of Eabha?”
“To keep Maccus as mortal as the rest of us.”
The Stone King flashes through my memory as Saoirse saw him last: eyes sparking like embers, hands pinning her down.
I shove the blade back into the cork until the tip sinks halfway in. “So did you do it, then? Find a way?”
“Obviously not.”
The cork slides up, powder shimmering below. “Then how—”
A shriek echoes throughout the hull.
Not from a wave, or lightning, or even a rock.
I drop the vial into my satchel and belt it shut, throwing it over my shoulder as the ship gives a violent rock, then goes still.
“What—what was that?” the apothecary asks, genuine fear in his voice for the first time.
Without the slightest hesitation, I slide my dagger beneath the ropes and cut him free.
“You’re about to find out.”
Shoving him toward the hatch, I climb after him and emerge into a storm the likes of which I’ve only seen once before.
The sky churns like sour milk over our heads, dawn mostly drowned by a storm blown in from…
From the east.
I twist around on deck, ignoring the rain pelting us sideways and the lightning splitting the sky, searching for the faintest bit of light until—there. I spot the sun, heavily obscured by the mast and sails.
When it should be far off the stern.
“Winds of fury.” My feet slide across the weathered deck as I pelt across it. “Nevan!”
Kiara’s pitiful excuse for a navigator grabs on to the wheel, face tinged green against the growing swells. “Captain?”
“Why the feck would you approach the Teeth from this direction?!”
“I—you said to go through them!” He glances at the sky, then the horizon, growing greener by the second. “But the storm came out of nowhere, and I thought—”
“You’re entering from the side, lad, not down the bloody middle!
Where you’ve taken us…” Already, I see the pieces glinting out of the fog far on the horizon.
High, jagged structures of mottled black and white.
A cluster of them all clumped together—not the open channel between that we’ve sailed a dozen times before.
The eejit’s followed the wrong current, and I was too caught up about Saoirse to notice.
I run for the wheel, already barking orders, when that sound comes again.
Not the wind or the storm, or the crew.
Not anything they’ve likely encountered before.
But Nessa knows. Lorcan and Tavin too. Our eyes lock as I swear under my breath.
And there, only a stone’s throw away, a tail breaks the water.
Death, dressed in vibrant green scales.