Chapter Forty-Three #2
A stillness creeps over us then, as we all take in the sight of lost history.
Tools and weapons of gods long dead, meant to be destroyed alongside them.
Each one is in some state of disrepair, fractured or pockmarked, or hopelessly bent—and though my ring’s been restored, even its stone has once again gone dull.
Kiara turns the relics over, one after another, lip curling in thought. When she reaches the hammer, she stops, fingertip poised between a rusted carving and another that looks fresh, as though it were sculpted this morning.
“Soulgazer,” she says, not quite looking at me, “walk us through what happened, one more time.”
My back stiffens, but at Faolan’s gentle rub, I take a breath and begin.
The bulk of the details are the same I’ve relayed to each of them so far: Maccus claimed to have found Eamon’s relic and made sacrifices to the god to summon enough magic that he could restore a few channels of his mountain and, allegedly, the Spring of Leigheas.
As Faolan points out, the bastard lied. He’d been using soulstones to wield the hammer and later, Clodagh’s vessel, polluting himself with power that came at the sacrifice of others’ lives.
Maccus had begun to lose his memories. Emotions.
The things that connected him to mortal life.
Besides that, the relics were still just as ancient, growing more fragile with every use.
That was why he’d needed my blood: to restore the hammer to its full potential—to wield it as he thought Eamon once had.
Yet still, it was not enough.
Because Maccus wanted power. Magic.
Not by splitting soulstones, or praying at the altar, or even bleeding me.
But by becoming a god himself.
It’s only when I reach this part of the story that I hesitate, glancing back at my husband and then at Callen and Brona, who’d seen some of it for themselves: what happened after Maccus realized how little satisfaction there was in restoring Eamon’s relic when it was by a hand other than his own.
How I’d tried to hurt him—to kill him—and how all that had done was allow his blood to commingle in the soul pools with mine, summoning a vision I’m still trying to comprehend.
Sweat gathers on my palms as I press them against my skirts, bunching the fabric while Kiara looks, impatiently, on. But I can’t leave this part out, no matter how mad it might make me seem.
“…What have you heard about the Knowing Sea?”
Blank stares greet me, though Faolan’s touch at my back grows firm. Only he knows the truth about the source of all our magic—and even he, for all his willingness to believe in stories, had laughed when I first told him.
Aisling glances at Callen, then Kiara, before releasing a hesitant smile. “It’s an expression, isn’t it? A poetic way to describe the ocean—”
“Like calling the earth ‘mother’?” Callen asks, and Aisling gives a quick nod.
“Exactly.”
A dart of frustration marks Kiara’s brow. “What is the point you’re making, Saoirse?”
Again I rub my hands over my skirt, remembering the first time Kiara confronted me over an impossible notion: how she’d nearly called it all off, the night Faolan and I were handfasted and set off to find the Isle of Lost Souls.
But we had done it. Hadn’t we?
Surely that has to count for something.
“I…had a vision in the hours before Maccus caught me.” I shut my eyes. “A vision of the Knowing Sea.”
In a tangled rush, I explain how I’d lain in the cave playing with my ring as questions gnawed at my stomach, and how I’d remembered the descriptions of the seventh goddess, Muireal: my ancestor.
How she’d claimed to commune with the deep and speak with the Knowing Sea—how that was what allowed her to foretell the age of the gods falling, even though it led to her own death in the end.
And then, cheeks burning, I tell them how I summoned the Knowing Sea.
Just like I dreaded, a few of them begin to laugh—out of shock or pure disbelief, I can’t tell. Aidan stares at me, open-mouthed, as Callen snickers behind their hand, but to my shock it’s Kiara who shushes them and nods at me to go on.
So I do.
I try my best to explain the undulating waters and presence without sounding too odd.
How Etain’s words had rung like prophecy, that the soulstones weren’t given by the gods at all, and how when I’d asked for understanding—an answer to what the source of magic truly was—the Knowing Sea had answered my call.
“The stars formed themselves into pictures—I know how that sounds.” I bury my face in my hands with a groan, so I don’t have to see their expressions.
“Believe me, when I had the vision of Muireal in the gods’ chambers last summer and she’d said she’d seen the future in the stars, I hadn’t thought she meant it literally. ”
“I can’t imagine who would,” Kiara says, her voice as dry as week-old bread.
I lift my head. “But it finally gave me answers. Made sense of why the relics held no power on their own—why it took my blood all this time, to open the gods’ doorways or restore my relic, or—”
“Find the Isle of Lost Souls,” Faolan supplies.
I nod. “It all comes back to the Knowing Sea. That is the source of the soulstones. Of magic itself.”
Heart pounding, I look around the table, forcing myself to meet each of their eyes.
“The Knowing Sea is what made the gods gods.”