We stood above a battlefield in some long-ago yesterday. The world was washed-out, dim except for a few of the figures—one here, one there—scattered throughout the armies massing on the field. I thought I recognized some—a certain red-haired man in leathers, a tall woman with a spear, a pair of dark-haired men with her.
Beside me, Phelan sucked in a pained breath. “Why are you showing us this?” he asked the Morrigan in a strained voice. “This is long ago and far away.”
She looked at him sidelong, one brow arching delicately. “There are lessons to be learned here,” she said. Her voice was gentle, less frightening than it had been every other time I’d heard her speak. She didn’t want us to be afraid—not of her, anyway. “Lessons that you, cousin, have stubbornly refused to pass on to later generations.”
“Brutality on this scale isn’t meant to be passed on to future generations,” he said quietly, moving around me to face her head-on. “We don’t have to be monstrous to win. Brighid and Finn wouldn’t want that. I don’t want that. They wanted better for tomorrow, for their children’s children.” His voice dropped to a bare whisper. “For their own immortal souls.”
The Morrigan regarded him with a long, silent look.
I swallowed hard, easing past the both of them to get nearer to the edge of the rise we stood on, the one that overlooked the battlefield. “I’ve seen this,” I said quietly, trying to quell a queasy feeling in my stomach. I had seen it—whether in a dream, a vision, or some kind of memory from a past life I didn’t fully remember, I couldn’t be sure. “I remember this.”
The Morrigan titled her head slightly, studying me as she took two steps forward, drawing abreast of me. “Have you, Seer? How do you remember?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I just do. It…it was a bloodbath. A thousand died, but the Imbolg and the Fianna won. Dirty tricks. Solid tactics…my brother…he said that we’d face some kind of reckoning for what we did that day.”
“Ciar said it,” Phelan said quietly. “He was right. Brighid and Finn faced assassins for a decade and more after that. They kidnapped him twice before Brighid stopped letting him out of her sight.” His gaze slid toward the Morrigan. “I realize that Cariocecus and the Hecate don’t necessarily have entire clans at their backs to send after us like that, but forgive me, cousin, if that’s a risk I’ve no desire to take.”
Carolyn’s fingers tangled in my sleeve as Phelan and the Morrigan attempted to stare each other down. “Marin? Where are we?” she asked in a bare whisper, her voice very small.
“Ireland,” I whispered back. “A thousand generations ago. Do you see that woman there, the one with the spear?”
She frowned for a moment, the nodded. “She seems…brighter than the others.”
“Her name was Brighid iníon Dúbhshláine,” I told her. “She was chieftain of the Imbolg, and she was Phelan’s friend.” My lips thinned. “And in this time, I was her.”
Carolyn looked at me sharply, blinking for a moment. I met her gaze steadily, taking a deep breath.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” I said, letting my gaze drift back to the battlefield. “This was a war against an invasion—the invasion. The one that Phelan talks about sometimes.”
“The one where he faced Vammatar?” she whispered.
“And others,” the Morrigan said, turning to us. “Many, many others. There were so many,” she said softly, those cold eyes focusing on something very distant and far away. “But we survived somehow. Moved on to another day.”
“And we’ll live through this war, too,” Phelan growled from behind her. “Take us back, Morrigan, or tell us what your warning is and let us be. We’ve got too much to do to dally here.”
The goddess tsked softly, smirking as she turned to Phelan. “So demanding, cousin. It’s unbecoming. All in due time.” She nodded to the battlefield. “Watch.”
He grasped her arm. “No. Take us back.”
“Hush,” she said, her voice firm. “There is something you never saw here, Wanderer. Something you must see.”
I saw it before he did—the shadow that crossed over the field. My throat tightened.
“The Hecate,” I breathed.
“Yes,” the Morrigan said. “Even then. Even then she was seeking this blood, seeking the Wandering One—before he was who he became.” Her gaze slid to Phelan. “She will come for you, daor chroí. She will come for you and she’ll come for Seamus’s get. Do not ever say I did not warn you.”
Phelan’s voice was tight but quiet. “Take us back, cousin. Take us back now.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she said softly, “Very well.”
Shadows wrapped around us. When the faded, light almost left me blind.
If we were home, I certainly couldn’t see it.
When they faded, surely?
BTW – thanks, big, big thanks.