Page 56 of Soulgazer

“Daughter of the knowing sea, gaze sworn long ago to me.” The voice is ragged and high—unnerving.

Not mine.

And yet, somehow, it is my body that rocks back and forth, my heart that beats weakly in a rattling, caved-in chest. No longer surrounded by water, but warm, stagnant air smelling of mead and ripe bodies. Sunlight drifts through the mottled glass of a window, past heads bent over pints of ale.

“Captive soul…c-captive soul…” The rest of the strange words evade me, slipping through my mind like strands of tattered silk. “Captive. I am a captive—the captive, not queen. This is all a dream. This is all a dream.”

The ring cuts into my lifeline the tighter I hold it, until blood seeps over the curve and my mind fragments again, a hundred times over. Such pretty pieces they form.

But my little Soulgazer will collect them for me. She will find it. Someday.

“Captive soul, your blood shall free…”

I part my fingers and let go, watching as the ring paints a line of blood across the wooden table and lands in the open palm of a sharp-eyed lad with a wolfish grin.

Lost.

It is lost—I am lost.

“The Isle of the Lost.”

A blink, and I am my own again.

Saoirse.

But the weight of what I’ve seen—of what I justlived—sinks into my stomach like a fist as I double over and gag on the water that’s meant to be my air. It’s too thick, and the pain coming from my tattoo’s attempt to blot the vision makes me sick. Gráinne’s soulstone grows still in my palm, but I canfeelher, like her spirit’s touching mine.

It’s too close—too intimate.

I kick off from the seafloor and swim away as hard as I can. Away from the bones and broken spirit, away from the strongest magic I’ve ever experienced, away from the darkness until I am swallowed whole by it and can no longer remember which direction to go because the ocean is fathomless and night has fallen and I amjustone woman.

I feel nothing.

I want nothing.

I am nothing.

My next breath strangles me, and I don’t think. I dig my fingers into my throat and claw the gills free—flooding my lungs instantly with water.

Twenty-One

I wake to the splatter of salt ripping from my throat as a firm hand lands between my shoulder blades.

“Easy, easy, now. There’s a good lass—dammit, Faolan, we should’ve waited.”

The hand pushes me onto my side once I’ve stopped retching. I blink hard at the pair of deep brown eyes hovering over my own. It’s Lorcan, dripping wet and shaking. Brona stands at his side, half-drenched herself and holding two sets of gills in her fist.

“It’s not my fault she went ripping them off halfway through.”

“You’re lucky he saw the kelp move!” Brona thrusts the gills at Faolan’s chest. “If these were properly cured, they wouldn’t have sloughed off at a scratch like that.”

“Aye, well—” Heavy boots cross the deck, and with another blink, Faolan replaces Brona in front of me. His cheeks hold angry streaks of color, eyes wild and face drawn. He reaches for my face, then stops himself. Curls his hand into a fist. “She’s alive. That’s something.”

“No thanks to you. What the feck has gotten into you, Faolan?! Ever since you decided we needed to find the Isle—”

“Saoirse could have said no. I’ve given that choice to everyonehere—and have I ever broken that vow?” Faolan lurches back on his heels. He does not meet my eyes. “The Isle of Lost Souls is a greater gamble than we’ve faced before. Than anyone alive has faced. It comes at a higher risk, yes, but a higher reward as well. Aren’t you all hungry for it?”

Lorcan’s jaw is tight as he kneels by my side, lifting me away from the pool of water I just expelled. He sets me on a blanket tucked beside Oona, who sports a scrape down the side of one arm. Blood trickles down my own throat where I scratched myself, welts and pebbled marks dotted along my limbs.