[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]
My stomach twisted and I bit my lip. “Because you couldn’t stand by and watch her throw herself at us and maybe lose her life over a fight she never really wanted to be in—a fight she never should have been in.”
“Something like that,” he whispered, then looked down. “They turned her into a weapon they could point at people, much like they in turn did with the Ridden Druid—with your brother. After time, as her utility as a weapon of fear decreased, they groomed her for other things.”
“Like leashing and unleashing weapons,” Phelan said, his voice grim.
Cariocecus met his gaze and nodded slowly. “Aye.”
“She loved him,” I said. Next to me, Phelan startled and even Neve looked at me strangely.
“What do you mean, Marin?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Hecate. She loved Cíar. He never—” I broke off, sucking in a deep breath and trying to steady myself before I continued, emotions I couldn’t control welling up from the dark place where I’d been trying to keep them locked up since J.T. and Eríu had told me the truth of it all. “He never talked about it to anyone but Eríu. She was the only one who ever knew. I think…I think Brighíd knew he was sad sometimes but never knew why, never asked why and got the real answer. He had to suffer with the hate they all felt, the resentment they all felt. He never got to go back to help her, to get her away from that.”
“She disappeared for a while,” Cariocecus said softly. “After he was back with his people, after he was freed from the Hunt. She disappeared and no one knew why, no one would talk about it—not that many of us actually dared ask. She was a terror in the field, unpredictable.”
“She appeared a few times,” Phelan said. “While we were fighting. I know that I saw her.”
“But was it really her?” I asked, looking at him.
Neve took a deep breath. “Or was she somehow being controlled by Aietes or someone else when we saw her?” She shook her head, chewing on her lower lip. “How the hell can we know at this point?”
“We can’t,” I said. “Not unless we talk to her and gods know that’s not going to happen anytime soon. She’s completely vanished and taken my brother with her.”
“This is why you called off the search for him,” Phelan said. “Why you said it was time.”
“It was part of the reason,” I admitted. “Eríu told J.T. and then they both told me.” I sighed. “I don’t think she’ll let anything happen to him. Right now, if Olympium’s out there and gunning for us, he’s safer with her.”
“Until they hunt her down,” Cariocecus said quietly.
I shivered. “Yeah. Until that happens.”
All I can do at this point is hope it doesn’t.
