Page 123 of Soulgazer

“Keep her at the entrance. Serve her and her people wine, food, whatever they want. I need time to—”

The central doors fling wide as Kiara strides in, her body outlined by the sun. It catches in the short strands of coppery-red hair spilling over to one side, highlighting the crest stamped in goldhanging round her neck. She takes in the sight of us with one hard sweep of her pale green eyes and cocks a brow.

“I came to speak with the king, not a princeling.”

Aidan straightens in an attempt to match her height, bloody hands in fists at his sides. “Rí Dermot has fallen ill. As his heir apparent—”

Kiara snorts. “Is that what you call yourself?” She sizes him up, then dismisses him with a flick of her gaze. “I’ve come to collect my cousin and his bride. I have the cords of their handfasting if you need proof, but the fact that your king thought it appropriate to seize a member of my court will not go unmarked.” From her pocket, she pulls the flimsy braid of fabric that once reordered our lives.

Aidan locks his jaw. “Faolan may be yours, but Saoirse is a daughter of Dermot’s house.”

“Not by the tradition of a handfasting. I conducted the ceremony myself.” Kiara casts the braided cord at his feet like a bone. “They are bound in the eyes of our law.”

“Unless it was only a farce.”

Faolan’s indignation shudders through me, drawn by the magic into my body to perfectly match my own. He wraps an arm slowly around my waist as Aidan shifts under Kiara’s heavy gaze.

She cocks her head to one side. “What are you on about, lad?”

“Saoirse told me the truth.” Aidan glances at me, then firmly away. “She confessed it was all a lie—that the only reason you wed them was to protect her if they were caught. But they don’t live as husband and wife.”

Kiara laughs outright, and Faolan’s grip on me tightens. “You’re saying there’s been no consummation?”

Aidan’s neck flushes red, but he nods.

Kiara snorts. “Stars, lad, if you need a witness, I can give youplenty. The ship’s not so big and noise carries far too well, and you can hardly expect your sister to confide aboutthat. But if you need further proof, Ríona Etain’s niece, Aisling, can attest to a tryst in her very own cove two weeks past.”

“That’s not—” Aidan breathes out once, then jerks his chin. “Whatever the state of things, Saoirse must face the consequences of what she’s done. She attacked Rí Dermot.”

“Can you prove it?”

Aidan startles back a step. “What?”

“Did you witness the attack?” Kiara sounds almost bored as she collects the cord from the ground. “Can you prove it was her hand on the blade that stabbed him, or her fingers around his throat?”

“It’s not a—physical harm. His mind is…”

Kiara smirks, and Aidan turns red. Suddenly, he isnotthe brother I know, shadows gouged into his face so that it looks like Da’s. Terrible and wrong. When he speaks again, it’s with the quiet, sharp force of a rock released from a sling. Kiara’s response is a thousand arrows lit aflame.

“Wait,” I say, my voice barely a croak.

But the word means nothing to them.

Aidan starts forward until Kiara steps in his path, and their shouts are too much for my mind, which feels as fragile as Da’s in the rooms above. I reach for Faolan’s hand again, but he releases me to stalk Aidan’s steps, heedless of the guards who dog his path. My husband is not one to miss a fight.

“Wait—please.”

Aidan is seconds from drawing his sword because that’s what they’ve forced him to learn, his knuckles white on the hilt. Kiara’s own hand drifts to the back of her belt, where a dagger sits. Blood will splash the tiles of my childhood home and it will bemyfault.

All my fault.

I fling myself between them, hands raised to either side. “Stop!”

My shout echoes off the high ceiling, drawing every eye—except they’re not looking at my face. They’re staring at the brilliant gossamer streaks painted again down my hands and arms, all leading to Conal’s soulstone resting in my bare palm.

But I have no memory of withdrawing it. My mind has become my enemy once more, and I feel so far away.

Still, I have to explain. I have totry.

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