Chapter Fifty-Nine
Fifty-nine
Faolan
I’ve sailed the Crescent for half my life, but never have I seen such a calamity as this.
The whirlpool starts as a gentle stirring of the water, hardly noticed in my fight to get back to Saoirse’s side.
I’d thought our bluff might work. That Saoirse might pull it off as we took on the others.
But within seconds, the boat starts to shift.
Barrels and crates clanking—sliding—as the entire ship gets caught in its way.
My elbow drives deep into the eye socket of the man holding me, a hidden knife buried in another’s heart.
Everything in me—all the fire and furious wind—drives me toward Saoirse.
But Maccus is there now.
Gripping her arm like she’s a rag doll, one he can use and abuse at his whim.
To the shade’s realm with that.
As Maccus’s men fight to keep their balance, I shout back to the rest of my crew.
“Cut Kiara and Aidan loose! Get them free, and for feck’s sake keep your footing!
” But even with the goat’s hide tied around all our ankles, already Tavin’s stumbling on his bad leg, racing for the wheel, while Maccus’s men swarm him.
Aisling throws herself by Kiara’s side, tugging at the ropes, while Brona slams her fist into a sailor’s mouth.
I weigh a knife in my hands as I pound across the deck—then stop.
Maccus is saying something to Saoirse, his face buried in her neck.
Her hand is shaking on the railing, blood still streaming down her fingers.
It’s like that night.
That horrible fecking night she cut herself from elbow to wrist.
The night I thought she’d killed herself for us all.
My muscles lock up. Vision tightens as her words sing through my mind.
You were always my favorite legend, Faolan.
A rope flies toward me, and I catch it—use it to swing forward as the entire ship starts to spin.
It’s a mad whirl on an even madder sea, Saoirse and Maccus falling over—his arm pinning her to the deck.
My feet hit the railing and, half flying, half running, I cross it, dipping lower as the ocean roars to my left. For just a second, I let myself look.
The whirlpool is massive. As big around as the Scath-Díol ever was. Our ship is already at its center, tossed like a child’s toy in a stream, capsizing—swallowed straight down its middle.
“Faolan!”
I jerk my head to the side and see Brona pointing to Saoirse, who’s fighting Maccus off even as he tries to push her down.
Pick her up?! Fabric flies by my face, one of the sails losing its battle with the sudden rush, and I drop down the rope so fast it would burn my palm open if it weren’t for the glove covering my skin.
The glove. The mark?
As I clamber and sprint and crawl my way to Saoirse, the Gan Ainm’s song echoes again in my head.
’Neath the drowning sky, oh, ’neath the drowning sky,
Tear the stars asunder,
Return their borrowed prize.
A thousand more you’ll grant us, by age-old sacrifice—
As I duck closer—see Maccus hoist Saoirse kicking and scratching into his arms—another vow passes through my mind.
Should a dagger strike toward your heart, let it be my body that meets it first.
Catching hold of another rope, I use it to fling myself forward, my boot landing in Maccus’s face.
He topples to the ground, Saoirse rolling a foot away from him.
I land just beside her, gathering her in my arms.
“Saoirse?! Are you—feck.”
“The blood,” she says, gripping her arm. “There’s too much. And my—head!” She stammers as she tries desperately to clamp down on the cut Maccus left around her wrist, but the blood’s flowing fast between her fingers now. Her skin growing paler by the second.
Fear engulfs me like a tidal wave.
Say you were to greet the Knowing Sea. Holding the gods’ relics, Bandia Saoirse by your side. Would you allow her to enter it? Play her part as the goddess?
Not if it means losing her to this.
“We’re going to fix this. We’re going to—” I look around for anything—anything—that could be of use, my eyes skating past knives and debris and the relics—
The relics.
Squeezing her hand once, I dive for Clodagh’s vessel, but something grabs my ankle, wrenching me to the ground.
“You meddlesome, vile, cowardly fecking dog!” Maccus’s fist lands on my jaw.
I spit my mouthful of blood into his face, then drive my dagger into his eye.
There’s no time for anything more graceful or storied—not when Saoirse’s crying out. Again, I scramble back as Maccus howls in pain, looking for the vessel. I’m almost there. Clawing my way like a dying man toward shelter, reaching for—
With a massive lurch, the ship begins to tilt, sending all but Eamon’s hammer and Maira’s shield spilling into the sea.
“NO!”
I start to stand—crouch again, holding fast as Maccus’s great boat rights itself with a groan, then starts to spin again.
But Clodagh’s vessel is in the water. Gone.
There’s no chance of healing Saoirse.
No magic cure.
Unless…
Biting into the leather cord, I tear my glove free. Stare at the soul mark, then cup my other palm beside it, looking at the narrow white scar Kiara’s blade left behind.
What is your part to play in this history, lost one?
“This had better fecking work.”
“Faolan?”
My knees hit the deck as I reach out for Saoirse—take her into my arms, panting as her eyes flick back and forth. The wound’s still bleeding freely. It’s too damn much.
“Saoirse?” I cup her face—slap her cheek when her eyes start to flutter shut, my heart convulsing as I remember Nessa drifting off. “No. No! Don’t you dare leave me.”
“I—you have to…drop me in the water.”
But I won’t do it. I won’t lose her again.
Gathering her hair in my hand, I tilt her face toward me and press a kiss against her lips even as footsteps pound near me. As Brona throws herself by Saoirse’s side.
“I love you, Saoirse.”
“W-wait. Faolan—”
“Keep her alive.” Touching Brona’s hand once, I fling myself to my feet again and run for those last relics.
Maccus is already there. He wields the hammer of Eamon in one hand, an empty socket where his left eye should be. As he reaches for Maira’s shield, though, I snatch it up.
“You wretch.” He swings at me, unsteady. Enraged. “Blight on the world.”
I knock one of the blows back with the shield, swearing when it dents.
“Enough of this.”
I drop to one knee as he swings the hammer at my head, pulling a knife from my boot.
One hard cut and he screams again, dropping like a tree, the tendon behind his ankle sliced through.
I don’t have time to admire my own handiwork—I just grab the hammer, loop the shield over my forearm, and run for the edge of the rail.
The sea swirls below me.
My wife bleeds on the deck.
There are no choices left.
“I’m here!” I call out, feeling utterly ridiculous.
Then I remember the blood and look down, swearing when I realize all my daggers are back on deck.
So I bite into my wrist instead, tearing at the delicate flesh on the side of it until a drop of blood appears.
“I’m here, damn you! You wanted me so feckin’ bad? Here I am!”
I hold out my hand with the hammer, looping the other arm through a rope as the ship tilts again.
“Every night you’ve haunted me. Wanted my soul back—well, here it is! Take it!”
“Faolan, please don’t do this!”
Saoirse’s voice chases me faster than the wind can speak. Balanced on the railing, I turn to see her sitting up, terror and horror warring on her face. I want to soothe her. Want to say her name, lie in her arms, spend every fecking night for the rest of my life kneeling at her feet.
But I refuse to worship a dead woman.
So I close my eyes, and jump.