Page 50 of Soulgazer

It’s only as I put my fingers into the first one that doubt slips in.

I have to tilt my head back until my neck strains, just to catch a glimpse of the flattened top. I’m hardly more agile now than I was two weeks ago, and I’ve never climbed anything higher than a tree. But the magic’s call is only getting stronger. With trembling hands, I pull down on the ledge above my eyes, fit my boots into another, and climb.

“What in shade’s breath are you doing?”

I drop hard to the ground, jerking around to see Brona standing at the edge of the Tooth, brows fixed in a straight line. She’s wearing the same scowl she’s had for days, but something about it—about the magic humming in my veins and irritation over Faolan’s dismissal—has me scowling back.

“Why do you care to know?”

Brona huffs. “If you fall and break your royal neck, who do you think will pay for it?”

“Myself, seeing as I’ll be dead.” The words are bitter, scraping away whatever nerves I had left. I turn back to the monolith. “I’m just careless, remember?”

“No, you’re not.”

My hand slips from a crack, falling hard against my side. “What?”

“I’ve been watching you.” Brona crosses her arms, turning her glare onto the sky. “And you’re so damn timid. Irritatingly quiet, avoiding the rest of us when you can—and I’d think you hate us all if it weren’t for the forlorn looks you cast our way after you’ve sat yourself in a corner while the rest of us eat.”

My laugh is shaky when it comes. “But not careless?”

“No.” She kicks a rock into the water and finally meets my eyes. “Thanks for mending my shirts.”

I say nothing. Not until the magic tenses in my belly again, urging me forward. Up.

“Would you look up?”

“Sorry?”

“Lookup.” I jerk my chin toward the sky, and Brona snorts. But I know she’s humored me when her breath hitches a moment later.

“The tuar ceatha. They’re killing the fish by dropping them—why didn’t you tell Faolan?”

A whoop carries across the water, followed by a splash. “I tried.”

I expect Brona to bite again, tell me I didn’t try enough. Instead, Brona’s stony expression softens by parts until, for the first time, she watches me with curiosity rather than open suspicion. “Aye. Well, sometimes Faolan gets on to one subject or another and only wants to hear his own voice.”

My laugh surprises even me, sending a sharp ache through my chest and a flicker of confusion through her eyes. We stand for just a moment, the distant splashes and shouts hanging between us,before she lifts her chin. “Right. Lorcan told me the other day that he thinks I might’ve been a wee bit harsh with you at the start.”

I can’t help another laugh. “A bit?”

Brona kicks a shell into the water. “I won’t apologize for it, so don’t ask me to. Just…answer my question and I’ll help you climb up. Why are you really here, Saoirse?”

My smile drops. What can I possibly say?

There was a starlit night and a bonfire, the painful collar of an unwanted betrothal. A feral man dressed as a wolf who touched me like I’m not something other and whispered how special I was. The promise that my magic could heal for once, find and restore life rather than take it away.

I swallow. There is only a small piece of the whole I can give her, and I know instinctively it won’t be enough. But if I’m to survive this, I’ll need allies. Friends.

It’ll have to be a start.

“My whole life, I’ve believed a lie about myself—about the world and my place in it. I believed my father’s version of things.”

Brona’s grimace nearly stops me, but she forces it back. Watches me with intent in her dark eyes.

“Faolan showed me otherwise. And now I—I want to know the truth about myself. Ihaveto know it. But the only way to uncover it is by finding the Isle of Lost Souls, and I couldn’t do that married to Rí Maccus or—”

Banished on my father’s lands. Not even Faolan knows that part.