Page 28 of Soulgazer

The fifth sacrifice.

Faolan.

“No.”

Something inside me snaps into place at his name, the memory of his touch, like a limb returned to its socket.

And I am raw with sensation.

Fear sends the world spinning until I drop to my knees, my body wrapped over itself in a child’s idea of protection: if I can make myself small enough, maybe the threat will go away. The amulet lies on a chair beside the bed, useless as the curse rams into my tattoo like a swollen river against a dam. But the magic willnotbe contained. Swirls of pasty ink will only turn it inward, flooding my soul—breaking my mind.

I cannot live with war raging constantly inside me.

The charms are in my hand in seconds, pulled from their constant home tucked beneath my bodice. I don’t even know if I believe in them anymore, but I press my lips to them all the same, fingers weaving between the tiny metal slates until I’ve prayed three times to each of the holy gods.

“Bandia Eabha, spill your moon over my soul. Dhia Odhrán, raze my impurities with your sun.”

For years of my life, the six charms and all their stories were a comfort. A hope of salvation. I truly thought if I prayed enough, behaved, and sacrificed, whichever god had seen fit to curse me for touching the soulstone would end it, and I’d be all right.

But it was a lie. It’s always been a lie.

I whisper the prayers frantically now, desperate to hear something.Anything.Over and over I repeat their names in a plea, a rage, a sob, until my fingers tangle so tightly in their cords, my skin mottles like an overripe plum. It’s a macabre tapestry—a lamb bound for slaughter.

I stop, my tongue poised against the roof of my mouth, lips shaping the next god’s name. Róisín’s broken antler presses to my palm like it wishes to pierce the skin—a tiny fleck of metal among half a dozen that have demanded blood for nineteen years of my life and notoncegiven a damn thing back.

Because only a fool seeks mercy from a god slaughtered by mortal hands.

The antler breaks my flesh, and a bead of blood trickles down my wrist.

Iwas that fool. But no longer.

My fingers go white as I pull my wrists apart, slowly at first and then with singular focus, gritting my jaw at the sting of my flesh until one by one, the leather cords snap free. Charms rain into mylap with a furious cry—not the gateway to the gods I once believed in, but a pile of tiny, harmless scraps of metal.

Nothing more.

I’m not sure if it’s a laugh or a sob that escapes me as I stand on shaking legs, wiping my wrist against my skirt. Faolan said to come after the fifth sacrifice. It’s not too late. With unsteady fingers, I tug the satchel free from beneath my bed and drag it to the door. The wolf’s-head ring is nestled deep inside.

Never again will I beg the air for salvation from this curse. If the Isle of Lost Souls will wash it free, then to its waters I shall go. But first…

The ship is quiet as I slip down the hall, my own door unlocked since I’d been unable to move when they left me behind. My bare feet find well-crafted rugs and smooth panels of oak as I count each door. My father’s cabin, that of his advisers, Mam’s lady’s maid.

I stop at the very last one.

The apothecary’s door is latched, but this ship was built for luxury, not protection. It’s a struggle to lift it on its leather hinge, wiggling the handle like Aidan taught me long ago until the latch slips free. My hands drop, exhaustion sending dark splotches across my vision as the door swings open.

Pools of melted wax litter the ground, dripping off flat surfaces secured to the walls where instruments and bottles lie strapped in by slender leather cords. Clay tablets covered in elaborate drawings are nailed beside them, and a smell clings to every surface, sweetly spiced as rotting flesh.

I gag, fumbling to retreat, when I spot it. The bag he brought to my room.

My skirts drag across discarded papers as I kneel to lift the top. There are the other bone needles, the bloodstained cloth he usedto wipe my skin. A bottle of noxious orange paste sits beside one that looks like sulfur, another filled with glistening liquid black.

And there, at the center, is a tiny glass vial swirling with milky ink.

I weigh it in my hand. Wonder what it cost my father to make. They spoke of tests—others they tried the inverted triskele on who lost use of their limbs, their minds. Did Da know what he was doing? Did he care about the cost?

Do I?

My fingers close around the bottle, tendons rolling against the glass.