Awakenings

[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.

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

Her fingers curled into fists against her knees, nails digging into the flesh of her palms. “I hate them,” Hecate continued. “I hate them so much.”

Marin pushed off the door, moving toward the chair near the bed, the one that Matt usually used when sitting up to read at night when he thought she was asleep and didn’t want to disturb her. Hecate watched her, pressing her lips tightly together, though only briefly. The tightness in Marin’s expression matched hers and Hecate felt a new ache deep inside.

This is my fault and we both know that it’s my fault.

“Those bastards came here looking for me,” she said softly. “And now Leviathan will come looking for me, too. This is my fault.”

Marin shook her head slightly as she sank down into the chair, shifting her sleeping newborn as she settled there. “They would have come anyway—Leviathan came here once already. We had the feeling he was bad news then. This is just confirming it.” She sounded tired. “We’re targets no matter what happens. Don’t feel like you brought this on us.”

Hecate stayed quiet, trying to gather thoughts that had once again begun to scatter. Marin’s voice drew her back again, quieting the riot starting inside her head.

“You don’t have to face any of this alone. I’m sure Matt’s told you that.”

“He has,” Hecate murmured, glancing toward him. He gave her a weak smile, one she matched, one corner of her mouth curling upwards briefly. “Though I know it’s hard for me to really believe it.”

“You’ve been through hell,” he murmured, leaning in to press a kiss to her forehead. “Trust is hard.”

“It would be hard even if I hadn’t been,” Hecate said, then exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Her gaze drifted back to Marin and she chewed her lip, studying the other woman. “I owe you a lot of explanations.”

“Maybe one or two,” Marin said. “They can wait if you’re not ready to give them.”

Hecate looked down.

Am I ready?

Her heart was quiet. She was safe here, wasn’t she?

“I’ll tell you what I can,” she said at last, then smiled weakly.

Marin smiled back and nodded. “All right.”

Hecate closed her eyes, stealing another few seconds to gather her thoughts before she began.

“I was still a child when they took me from my home.”

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

Panic dimmed her vision and she felt herself starting to retreat even as Matt’s arms closed around her. The shakes were coming, her heart hammering at twice its normal speed. She stared at Matt’s sister, at Marin, whose expression was stricken and mournful all at once.

You can’t do this now. You have to stay with him. Stay yourself. Hang on. You can do this. You need to do this.

Hecate closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep, ragged breath. Pain lanced through her side and she tried to use it to stay focused. It was something tactile, something real, another touchstone that she could cling to beyond Matt. “Is he here? Has he come to demand my answer—to force my allegiance?”

She had no doubt that he would do just that—force her to work with him. He would use any leverage he could muster to bring her into the fold, to ensure her obedience if not her loyalty.

They’re in the line of fire. I—no. Even if I hadn’t come, they’d still be in danger.

“No,” Marin said softly. “No, he’s not here. He waylaid Cameron on the road.” Her gaze flicked toward Matt. “He was coming home from the settlement south of here.”

“The one with Nyx’s girl,” Hecate murmured. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. Matt’s arm tightened.

“You know it?” Marin asked. Her tone was curious, not wary. That helped Hecate’s stomach settle, though only a little.

She nodded slowly. “I knew there were survivors there. I haven’t been since the fall.” She let her hands drop away from her face. Everything ached—still ached, even after days spent mostly in bed, mostly trying to recover. “I’ve lived near here for years, been to a lot of places, see and sensed a lot of people and tried to keep people from noticing me. It hasn’t been easy.”

Marin’s brows knit. “With as much power as you seem to have, why would you hide?” The question came as a whisper.

Matt’s arms tightened again. His body was tense alongside her. Hecate stroked one of his hands, finding the question didn’t hurt, didn’t scare her like maybe it would have before. It was the faint thread of fear in Marin’s voice that hurt, not the question itself. The question was something to focus on, even if it meant revealing more about herself than she usually liked.

But she’s my sister now, too. If I can’t trust them, who could I ever dream of trusting? I want to trust her.

I want her to trust me, too.

“Because I didn’t want them to find me,” Hecate answered, her whisper matching Marin’s. “With power comes people who want to use that power and I didn’t ever want to be used again.” Her eyes itched; her cheeks were wet. When had the tears begun? Her voice was still steady. How could she be crying? “I made a mistake when I went after Teague and Phelan in Chicago. I—in—I made a mistake.” She took a shaky breath and tried to exhale slowly. Her thoughts were scattering. Why was this so hard?

Marin stared at her and Hecate swore that she saw sympathy in the other woman’s gaze. Somehow that made the ache inside worse, made the guilt worse.

“Cíar was the only man I ever loved before your brother,” Hecate said, the words spilling out before she could stop them. “Going after the Princes of the Áes Dána, that was the only way that my crazy brain could figure out to get anywhere close to that feeling again. I knew that Cíar had been their friend, was related to them, at least as distant blood kin and I thought that maybe, just maybe…” She squeezed her eyes shut. Matt’s arms were still around her as she reached up to wipe away the tears on her face with the heel of her hand. “It was a mistake and I am so sorry. My control has never been what it should be, not since they took me away from home and made me into their monster.”

“Who?” Marin asked, her voice quiet.

“Olympium,” Hecate whispered. “Olympium made me what I am and I hate it.”

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

As the first rays of dawn kissed the ruined buildings and the trees, I went to my brother’s door. My son had finally fallen asleep, but I hadn’t put him to bed, instead keeping him with me. In truth, that was partly for me because holding him was comforting but also a bit for him and Thom, since I was afraid that if I set him down, he would wake up.

Everything was quiet. Cameron had gone to bed after the first hour. He promised me he would tell Thom and everyone else in the morning so I wouldn’t have to.

I had the harder part of the task anyway.

There was no hesitation before I knocked, I’d worked all of the anticipation out of my system before coming. Silence met me and I waited for a few moments, allowing what I thought was enough time for Matt to get out of bed in case I’d woken him. I probably had.

I had to knock and wait a second time before Matt opened the door and peeked out, blinking blearily at me.

“Mar? What time is it?”

“Ridiculously early, but this can’t wait.”

His brow furrowed and he opened the door a little wider, starting to step outside. I shook my head.

“I need to talk to both of you,” I said.

Blood drained from his face and he stood there staring at me, lips parted as if to speak, but no sound came out.

“Matt.”

He jerked at the sound of the voice behind him, twisting to look back over his shoulder, back toward the bed. “It’s Marin.”

I could hear the bed creak and my brother abruptly abandoned the door, heading back inside. I waited only a bare second before I slipped in behind him.

“It’s all right, lie back down,” Matt murmured. “Whatever it is can wait a little longer.”

“The look on her face says otherwise.” Hecate gazed at me from the bed, her eyes holding mine. She was gaunt, almost frail-looking, swaying slightly as she fought to sit up even as my brother tried to ease her back down to the pillows and tangled covers. A little blood was seeping onto the old T-shirt she was sleeping in; either she’d ripped some stitches or the wound was worse than I’d been told. Two pairs of thin braids held otherwise wild hair back from her pale, heart-shaped face, her expression slack but somehow worried.

My breath caught for a moment. A memory surfaced, one that was not my own, a girl with her face staring at Cíar from a crowd, sadness and pain in her pale-eyed gaze. I as Brighíd had blinked and she was gone but somehow had that memory, that second, brief though it was, lingered in my soul strong enough for me to recall lifetimes later.

“I’m sorry about the circumstances,” I said quietly. “Usually I wouldn’t barge in like this.”

“Something bad’s happened,” Hecate said quietly. “Otherwise you would have let us sleep. What is it? What’s coming?”

“Nothing yet.” My gaze flicked toward Matt, who sank down onto the bed next to Hecate. I sucked in a breath and looked back to her. “But it’s only a matter of time before Leviathan shows up and demands your answer.”

I watched panic set in, what little color that was still in her face leeched away, her eyes growing wide. She groped for my brother, who wrapped his arms around her in a protective, sheltering embrace.

My heart ached.

This wasn’t what I wanted, what I’d hoped it would be. I’d hoped for better—for them, for all of us. It wasn’t fair.

But then, I’d begun to realize that life rarely was.