Page 141 of Soulgazer

“Stop it!” My throat is raw with the shout, but like all the others it’s pointless. I writhe against a guard’s hold on my wrists, whimpering when one nearly gives way—the same one Maccus twisted after I tried to stab him with my knife. “Please—whatever you want, I’ll pay it. We’ll both pay!”

“You’re as foolish as your old man if you think money will atone for what you’ve done.” Maccus’s laugh is a soft, cruel thing he casts over his shoulder like it costs him nothing. “But you’re welcome to beg.”

Faolan spits. I go boneless as the glob lands square on Maccus’s cheek, sliding slowly down his jaw.

“Bastard,” Faolan coughs out—or maybe he laughs.

Gods, don’t let it be a laugh.

Maccus moves faster than I thought possible, grabbing hold of Faolan’s hair in one hand as he drives his fist so hard into Faolan’s gut, we all hear the crack of his rib. The men drop Faolan to the ground, where he curls onto his side, clenching his teeth against a groan.

My own echoes across the clearing, until Maccus grasps my jaw in one gloved hand and snaps my head back to meet his eyes. I don’t look down—not this time. And something shifts in his expression, almost like…amusement.

“Go on, then. Make your offer, girl.”

I blink, my lips parting and then pressing feverishly tight at the glint in his eyes. The only thing I have to offer will cost him nothing, and meeverything. I dart a glance to Faolan, who’s just barely recovered enough to raise his head. Even hollow-eyed with fury, dirt-streaked and panting on the ground, he is beautiful. My proud, fanciful Wolf.

Legends don’t die.

It’s a promise I make myself as I look back at Maccus, forcing my lips to form the word as my heart tears to pieces.

“Marriage.”

“No!”

Two guards dive onto Faolan as he protests with a vicious snarl, but Maccus only laughs—the sound scornful and deep, vibrating from his center straight to the hold on my jaw. “You’re worthless for that now, though. Aren’t you?”

My hand meets his cheek in a vicious slap before I’m even aware I’d torn it free from the guard.

A whisper of memory chases in my mind from the touch—loss.

So all-consuming, it ate his heart whole.

We stare at each other, the Stone King and I, until his jaw quirks as he drops his hold to wrap his fingers round my throat instead. I claw at his hand, nails dragging uselessly over the leather as Faolan and the others rage around me, fighting their restraints, but it’s an impossible feat. Maccus seems truly made of stone.

“Even if the Wolf hadn’t already made you hisbitch, you’d be worthless as a wife.” Maccus strokes a thumb over my pulse, and bile rises in my throat. “Your blood is tainted, and I won’t be driven mad like your father. What else is there to give me?”

“The—island.” The words waver as they leave my mouth, every syllable dripping with lies. I failed to awaken the Isle of Lost Souls, just as I’ll fail to save my husband and our crew.

Maccus’s lips draw into an outright sneer as he looks over the arid rock washed in silver light, seeing none of its magic andallits blight. “Worthless.”

“You’re wrong! I—” His fingers tighten, and I choke on the next words. “It’s the—Isle of Lost Souls, I swear to you now. You just have to…”

I trail off as my vision blackens, my head lolling back as moonlight slips past the columns of smoke, revealing a cluster of stars in the dark silk sky. The moon is a gleaming pearl hanging just above the constellation of three stars mirroring one another below, cupped like gentle hands.

Some called her a siren, others a whisperer of fate or collector of stars—caught in her own pattern forever when the sea eventually tired of her song.

I blink furiously, twitching under Maccus’s grip. But I don’t stop staring at the constellation even as somewhere nearby, a wolf roars my name.

The last time Muireal cradled the moon between her palms, the isle sank into the sea.

Muireal…my lips shape the name—and then wrench apart in a gasp as understanding dawns with a violent streak of sensation down my spine, forcing my body to buck against Maccus while he fights to contain me. But I don’t cower away this time. I writhe, claw, andbiteuntil his fingers loosen enough for me to breathe—to shout.

Because the seventh goddess is coming. Tonight, she will rise.

“Let me go! Muireal is returning—don’t you see her in the sky? I have to awaken the isle before she releases the moon from her stars, or else Faolan—”

“Quiet, you raving madwoman!” Maccus’s hand digs tighter, until my breath trickles to a feeble stream. “You think you can play tricks on me? That I’m someone to be fooled by the stars?!”