Six – 03

[This post is from Hecate’s point of view.]

Matt had gone tense again next to her, but she was remarkably relaxed. Perhaps she’d finally gone numb. Or maybe, just maybe, it was something else.

Maybe I’m finally safe and maybe I’ve decided they really do care.

“They’ve probably told you about how the Otherlands would go to war with each other. It was always about influence and territory and power, especially for Olympium. They wanted as much as they could get and to hell with whoever they hurt.” Hecate stared at her knees, worried the fabric of her nightshirt stretched over them with her thumb. “There were thousands of Otherlands with toeholds here. Most of them withdrew. Others were destroyed.”

“Yours was one of the ones destroyed,” Marin murmured.

Hecate nodded. “We were practically wiped out. They took a few of us. Some cooperated.”

“You didn’t.”

A brief, rueful smile curved her lips. “I didn’t. Not until they broke my will.”

Not until they broke me.

Her smile faded. “I was just a girl—powerful, raised from the cradle to do things like watch over travelers on the roads, to help midwives and their charges, to sanctify and protect boundaries and gateways and crossroads. I helped people.

“Then they stole me, killed my family and people who cared about me right in front of me.” She could feel the hot, red stickiness on her face though it was just a memory, feel her brother’s life slip through her fingers as she begged him not to leave her, too, as her mother’s blood slowly dried on her face. The hem of her gown was stained with blood and soot and she could taste bile and tears and the acrid sting of smoke at the back of her throat.

Thousands of years and it was still fresh as if it had happened yesterday, no matter how long or how deep she’d tried to bury it.

Hecate jerked when Marin touched her arm, blinking rapidly at the other woman. The hand she didn’t remember raising fell away from her cheek and she swallowed hard, meeting Marin’s gaze.              “I’m sorry,” Hecate managed. Her throat was thick; she was choking on the memories that had flooded into her mind’s eye, memories she struggled to force back into the shadows where she hid them, where they wouldn’t distract her or make her bleed again.

“It’s okay,” Marin said, her voice quiet. “You just got so quiet for so long we were starting to worry.”

One glance at Matt’s face bore out the truth of that statement. Hecate shivered.

I did it again. Damn it all.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, her voice more quiet this time. Matt squeezed her tightly and she closed her eyes.

She had fooled herself into thinking that telling them would be easy, would make it easier.

Now she knew that she’d been wrong.

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