Page 8 of Soulgazer

The servants’ discontent would stick to my bones, their restless energy and unspent desires crowding my mind as they combed my hair. Mam’s heartbreaks would become my own with a touch, as would Aidan’s mischief and Conal’s worries. And that is to say nothing of the grief of the dead.

But with these amulets, I’ve survived a soulstone curse. Somehow—impossibly—I’mstill alive.

It’s only cost me everything.

I stagger from one fire to the next, head swirling with the potent scent of wine. I should go to the water—wash until all I smell is the briny sea. Instead, I drift closer to the tree line, where I lose sight of my father and the other rulers altogether. There, an amber moon has replaced the sun. It kisses the treetops bordering thebeach, where food passes freely from hand to hand: steaming, golden boxty and crumbling rhubarb tarts. Everyone is smiling, the younger set twirling round one another like birds in a mating dance while the elders embrace and laugh, old friends reunited each summer.

My throat swells with a sob that I cannot allow to surface.

I lied to the Stone King. Iama fanciful girl.

A ridiculous, stupid, hopelessly fanciful girl, because after seven years without a vision, I dared to think perhaps it was finally done. The amulets had worked properly at last—or more likely the curse was sated on my brother’s blood and would leave me to what little peace I had left. I thought when Da fetched me for the Damhsa, I could find someone to tolerate me. Be safe, and numb, and learn to bite my cheeks until the smile felt true.

But maybe this is the gods’ justice.

Why should I live free when Conal is bound forever by death?

“Oi, sparrow! You’re trying to cheat, aren’t you?”

I don’t realize the words are meant for me until a length of cloth covers my eyes, hiding all but the smallest pinpricks of firelight. “What are you—”

“She’s not a fecking sparrow.” A girl snorts, shoving the boy’s hands aside to pry at the material until my vision clears. It’s a mask. “You ever seen a sparrow sporting feathers like that? She’s a blue tit, I’m telling you.”

“Come off it! She’s a cheat, that’s all—no one’s supposed to know what they’re getting ’til the night’s through!”

I stumble back from their argument, fingers spread wide to keep the mask in place. It’s a tradition I forgot, a mask worn on the first night of dancing to confuse faeries seeking their own brides. Da took my mask when we arrived, saying he didn’t want to loseme in the mass of people. But as the music strikes up again, I realize I’m no longer safe on the edges of the crowd.

I’m right in their midst.

Drums and fiddles blaze through the air, weaving a spell that pulls near every person into a frenzy. They beat the earth with steps I’ve never seen, exchanging cries and howls as though they’re truly animals come to life. It’s a scene ferocious enough to wake the…

A silver light flashes at the edge of the woods.

Sweat gathers cold at the base of my spine.

“She’s a blue tit!”

“Sparrow!”

They are watching us. I can feel them. Not the dancers, not the rí or ríona.

The dead.

Curious, broken things left to decay on this earth just as their bodies once did. Some spirits dwell among those they once loved, unable to touch or speak—watching as the lives they built crumble to nothing. Otherswishfor nothing, trapped in endless repetition of their own violent deaths without the means even to scream. And the rest simply…linger.

An incessant, gaping wound.

My hands drop to the amulet as a silver light takes shape, flowing over the curves of a body that no longer exists. The ghost wraps herself around a tree at the forest’s edge, silver-pale skin tinged blue beneath the branches. She looks hollow. Hungry.

I shudder as her longing sinks like a rotting tooth into my flesh.

“You don’t feel it,” I whisper, pressing the amulet down until its edges dig into my skin, as two other spirits flank her. A fierce ache brushes against the amulet’s numbing power, blurring my grasp on what’s real. It’s always been this way. The dead have noneed to touch me as the living do—their memories and emotions, their very souls, bleed into the edge of mine with their presence. Even the strongest, newly wrought amulets are not enough to dull the raw, raging bite of a lost soul.

Prayers form and falter as I wait for the lonely ache to be quelled—or for anyone else to be half so affected, but the others hardly notice. Only those dancing nearest to the trees falter, glancing at the spirits and then firmly away. Whatever they feel, it’s easy enough to look away.

Iwantto look away.

My fingers press harder as I try, forcing my gaze to the ground.

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