“So let me get something straight,” Aoife said as she slowly seated herself by the fire, her gaze taking in all of us—me, Thom, Seamus, her brother. “No one has dealt with this Hecate problem yet? After thousands of years, that bitch is still out there and is still gunning for our family.”
Phelan stiffened next to us. “Unfortunately,” he said quietly. “She’d been out of sight and out of mind up until Teague started seeing Kira and I wasn’t exactly inclined toward kicking any hornet’s nests before that.”
I reached out to touch his arm but he shook off my comforting gesture, as if he didn’t deserve it.
“Maybe if I’d taken care of her during one of the other incidents where she was after me, we’d be in better shape,” Phelan continued, his voice dripping with bitterness. “But I was always more interested in keeping myself out of her hands. But by all means, go ahead and blame me for something else, little sister. I’m not carting enough around already, right?”
“Phelan—”
He shook his head and I went quiet, leaning into Thom, who held me a little tighter, his expression oddly blank as he stared at Aoife.
“Leave your brother alone,” Seamus said. Phelan opened his mouth—probably to tell his cousin to shut up, too—but Seamus held up a hand. “You don’t know the whole of the burden I foisted off onto his shoulders when I went away, Aoife, and you were always too hard on him. Apparently your relief at his survival and his relative state of well-being has worn off—a little more slowly than I thought it would, actually, to tell the truth—and we’re right back to where we always are with the two of you. Let me tell you something, though, Aoife, something you might not understand because you’ve never been what I was or what he is: carrying the mantle of Taliesin isn’t easy and it means more than being just yourself and doing things that you, personally, may think are necessary or right or need to be done for your family or your friends. It’s a duty and a calling and sometimes we don’t have a choice in what we do—we do what has to be done. Ending the Hecate has never been something that has to be done. Staying out of her clutches has been.”
Seamus does have a point.
One thing Erin, it would be nice of the point of view transitions were indicated better. It may work better when read as a batch (I don’t know) but I find myself spending the first couple of paragraphs often trying to figure out who the voice it by who is interacting with who. Generally, I default to Marin unless it’s clear that it coudn’t be her but I sometimes have to reread the first part of a page to put things back into context if I guessed wrong.
I do like the fact that you can show us the story from multiple viewpoints, compared to web serial authors who only write from one viewpoint but some help with the transitions and remembering from post to post would be really nice.
If I recall correctly, in the beginning (when I wasn’t commenting because I was too busy reading), you use to add the point of view character’s name to the title.
I used to label the Marin chapters with her name because she was the only one speaking in first person.
I could definitely put a note at the top of each post reminding folks who the current POV character is, though. I’ll try to remember to do that going forward!