[This post is from Hecate’s point of view.]
Matt cast a puzzled glance at the both of them as Hecate headed to get him the promised blanket. “Is she on her way?”
Hecate looked at Thordin, who grimaced and shrugged. “We could probably start without her,” he admitted. “Like I said, I’m not sure what she was having a word with Neve about and that means I’m really not sure how long their chat’s going to take.”
“Bold of you to assume it’s just some kind of casual chat,” Hecate chided.
Thordin snorted softly. “Both of you to assume that’s what I think it is.”
Matt watched them both for a second and huffed a sigh. “Right, then. What’s going on?”
Hecate motioned to Thordin to start as she pulled a blanket from a storage chest. Thordin took a deep breath and stretched with a slight wince, as if some old hurt had picked that moment to bother him—or perhaps it was something else.
“Can you feel it, too?” Thordin asked Matt. “That there’s something in the air?”
Matt stripped off his sodden shirt as Hecate brought him the blanket. For a second, her gaze lingered on bare skin before she turned to pour him a mug of tea. Sometimes, she still saw echoes of Cíar when she looked at him, and the conversation he’d interrupted brought those old memories swimming up to the surface. Their physiques were much the same, her long-lost love and her husband’s, two men who shared the same soul that had been bound to hers through the centuries. Matt was mercifully less physically battered, though, something for which she was silently grateful.
I hope he never gains the scars that Cíar had. I hope that things never get so bad here.
A faint shiver wracked her. If all of their suppositions were right, they very well could.
Gods and monsters, I’ve never wished so much to be wrong in my life.
