Chapter Forty-Three
Forty-three
Saoirse
It takes three days to reach the waters off the Isle of Ashen Flame.
Three days for the twelve dead sailors to become twenty as the wounded lose their battles with injury and infection.
Etain’s healer does their best but is used to treating stomach pains and sunburns—not the vicious bites of sea monsters most of those on the crew thought were a myth to begin with.
Tavin’s wound heals well enough, but he still has to cede most of his quartermaster duties to Nessa, who keeps us all in line.
I help the healer grind herbs and create poultices, wrapping wounds alongside Aisling and Kiara as the rest of the wolves recover and take charge of the massive ship’s course over the sea.
There was some concern about Maccus’s fleet: would they be coming from Unbound Earth?
Isle of Lost Souls? Tavin was unable to magic a message to Etain, even with the strands of hair Aisling plucked from her boar-bristle brush.
So we wait.
At some point, Brona mentions the currents again: how they pull at the ship’s rudders, trying to draw it off course. She says even the wind plays tricks, nudging us toward the Scath-Díol. Faolan goes to look with her, leaving a scalding kiss on my neck.
And I tend to the wounded, waiting to feel something.
Gradually, my magic comes back—but it’s slippery, waifish and impossible to grasp.
In some ways it’s a relief as I drain suppurating wounds and stitch together skin, not at the mercy of the injured sailors’ pain or worst memories.
In other ways, it’s terrifying—like the moments it does come back, but in splintered visions, as though I’ve just shattered a glass.
Privacy is hard to come by after that first night.
Faolan and I whisper to each other in the morning, part ways for much of the day, then stumble into our hammocks in the crew’s quarters, linking hands until one or both of us drift off.
Every night, I reach toward the old satchel I managed to grab from our cave, intent on gifting him the new coat.
But every night, I draw my hand away. It hardly seems the time—especially when I know he’s still drowning in those dreams, thrashing in his hammock, impossible to reach.
Because our soul stains—those twin marks on our palms—are broken now, their patterns still and colors gone dull. And try though I might, I can’t enter Faolan’s dreams anymore. So I simply wait for them to be over and hold his hand once they’re done.
I’m studying my palm now, a pile of fresh bandages folded over my lap, when Faolan appears.
“Have they spotted land?” I fumble one of the strips of cloth, watching it drift to the ground. “Are we almost there?”
“Not quite.” Faolan takes the bandage up, then scoops the rest of the pile and sets it aside. “Kiara wants a meeting. She’s summoned all of us to Etain’s study.”
“All of us?”
“The wolves and the Ring of Stars. Or what’s left of it, anyway.”
I take his hand, and Faolan catches my shoulder as well when I start to pitch back. It’s as though air’s rushed through my head, there and gone again just as fast.
“Are you all right, love?”
“I’m fine.” Squeezing his fingers, I brush the sparse petals and dust left over from muddling herbs off my skirts and start for the door.
We cross the deck on light feet, the gentle rocking of the ship familiar even after so many months onshore.
Etain’s crew and those from Kiara’s bow to us as we pass.
I don’t like the way it makes something leap inside me, like a cat raising its proud head to the light.
But I don’t want to go back to the days of shrinking from it either.
Together, we enter Etain’s study and I stop, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of power seated around her table.
Without meaning to, they’ve arranged themselves as they did during the autumn equinox: Aidan and Callen sitting across from each other with a space between for the Isle of Lost Souls.
Kiara stands at the center, Aisling to her left, the wolves scattered along the walls in no-man’s-land: not quite part of their islands anymore, but not wholly separate either.
“Take a seat.” Kiara gestures toward the two empty chairs beside Aidan, whose eyes find me without flinching or squeezing with contempt.
I nod and take one, glancing once at my brother before sweeping the table with a glance.
“I won’t drag this out,” Kiara says, “Tavin was recovered enough this morning to send a message to Etain and we finally heard back.”
“You did?” I glance at Aisling, whose cheeks have begun to dip at the center from where she’s sucked them in. “Is she all right?”
“She is Maccus’s captive.” Kiara leans on the table, fist pressed over the eye of a beautifully carved fawn. “His ‘guest,’ he called her. It was his court’s seanchaí who responded, sending a message directly to me.”
It’s as though the air’s punched clean out of my lungs.
I’d forgotten that part. That every court seanchaí keeps a lock of each rí and ríona’s hair so they might contact them in case of an emergency. I was supposed to give mine at the autumn council, but with Maccus’s reveal of the relics, everything was tilted a bit on its head.
Kiara levels a heavy gaze on me, but something softer slips through the cracks. “Maccus expressed his regrets in pushing Saoirse too fast to accept his plan for Eamon’s relic and promised to rescind his plan of battle if she agrees to return it before the first snows set in.”
“No.” Faolan jerks forward in his seat. “Absolutely not.”
“I’m not done.” Kiara glances at him, then slowly turns to Callen and Aisling.
“He also says he’s willing to forgive Rí Callen their attack on him and his crew, as well as Ríona Etain’s heir her part in allowing the theft if they both agree to his plan for the relics.
Otherwise, he will be declaring war on the Isles of Ashen Flame, Bridled Stag, Lost Souls, and Painted Claw—assuming Reborn Stalk is not also a willing participant in our plans.
If so, you can add Rí Aidan’s tuatha to the list as well. ”
The table groans as she leans more heavily on it, tapping her fist twice across those pale, speckled flecks of wood meant to be the fawn’s spots. Aidan’s gone completely still in his seat, as Callen tilts their head back and laughs, a hollow, husky sound.
My chest rises in fits and starts as I try to understand what this means. As the faces of the people who’ve entrusted their lives to me bubble up in my mind. The grannies, the fisherfolk. Brìd and the rest of the seanchaí.
I left them.
All of them.
Faolan leans forward, elbows hitting the table’s edge. “Obviously, we’re not giving in to his demands.”
Kiara snorts. “Of course we’re not.”
“Then what did you tell him?”
Kiara goes quiet, staring at the patterns on the table. Tracing the fawn’s spine to a cluster of flowers below. “I’m going to agree to a meeting. To negotiate.”
Faolan shoves to his feet. “Kiara—”
“This is the Ring of Stars. A centuries-old tradition built to maintain peace throughout the six—seven islands.” Her eyes cut to me. “Saoirse’s magic along with the relics is unprecedented, but we cannot take our roles lightly. There are accords and laws in place.”
“You think Maccus gives a shite about the laws?”
“Yes.” Kiara’s hair flashes like copper in the sunlight as she turns on Faolan again.
“As long as they serve him, then yes, I believe he will comply even though he got dangerously close to breaking them with Saoirse that night. But we’re not dealing with Maccus alone—there’s Tadgh and Etain to consider as well. ”
Aisling shoves a sleeve over her mouth to push back a quiet sob.
Kiara glances to her side, then sets a hand gently on her shoulder.
“Whatever Maccus’s intentions, whatever threats he’s made, as of now he has three of the seven rulers in his palm—three of whom, I’ll remind you, hold most of the power in our lands.
Assuming Etain allowed it, he could use her to control the majority of our food supply.
Tadgh is rí of a frozen wasteland, meaning he’s used to navigating cold waters with few resources.
Maccus has access to the finest weapons of war, and winter is fast approaching. ”
“But we have the relics!”
Kiara looks from Faolan to the ceiling, where a cluster of golden stars is painted overhead.
“Right. The gods’ relics.”
Even without my magic, I can feel her apprehension. Her disdain as she closes her eyes, then squares her shoulders and looks at us again. “How many do we have?”
Nobody moves.
Kiara pinches the bridge of her nose, about to speak, but it’s Aisling who unfolds from her chair first, reaching into her pocket to withdraw Etain’s smoke-stained pipe. She looks at it for a long second, then places it on the table and sits back down.
“Odhrán’s antler. My great-great-great-grandfather had it carved into a pipe.”
“Practical,” Faolan mutters, and I step on his foot. He glances at me, lips quirked to one side, then sighs and fishes in his own pocket for a bundle of oilcloth. Unfolding it, he slides the tarnished silver veil onto the table, where it lies limp in a pitiful form. “Eabha’s veil.”
Callen stays rigid in their seat, but I look them in the eye as I ease the bone ring off my finger and place it on the wood. “Muireal’s ring.” I glance back at Nessa, who nods and steps forward to lay the relic she’s been guarding next to the others.
“Eamon’s hammer.”
Again, I turn on Callen, who scowls, then jerks the chain free of their neck and drops the curved crystal on top of the others. “Róisín’s talon.”
Brona clears her throat and Callen rolls their eyes, reaching into a sack by their ankles and extracting a warped bronze bowl. “And Clodagh’s vessel.”
Kiara frowns. “How did you—”
“I boarded Tadgh’s ship to go looking for it while Saoirse and Brona worked their way through the woods.” They shrug. “Easy.”
Faolan snorts beside me as Kiara presses her lips together, then turns back to the table.