[This post is from Hecate’s point of view.]
“Are you all right?”
Hecate’s fingers brushed along Matt’s spine as she came up behind him. His head dipped and he leaned forward slightly against the rail fence that they’d set up long ago around the burial grounds. It had been there for long enough that fresh wood had weathered slowly to gray, the wood smoothed but not yet starting to splinter with age. She leaned against him, resting her cheek against his shoulderbade, arm curling around his waist as he took one slow breath, then another.
After all this time, she knew his silence could mean a thousand things, but she suspected he was simply gathering his thoughts. She led him have that silence, staring past his shoulder to the green grass that blanketed the field where dozens lay buried, many of them from the times before she’d come, before she’d joined them—from times when she’d been their enemy.
Matt’s hand drifted to cover hers where she held him around his waist, his fingers lacing through hers. He squeezed for a moment, then sighed.
“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I’m trying to be, but I really don’t know.”
“What’s bothering you?”
“I just—” he stopped, then started again. “I’m just not sure.”
“About?”
“Any of it.” He squeezed her hand again. “Am I making the right choices here, Peia?”
“I would have told you then and there if you had,” she said. “I’d have stopped you before things went too far.”
“And you’re not here to do that.”
“No.” She smiled against his shoulder. “I think you made the right decision—and I think they’re exactly where they need to be.”
“Even—”
“Yes. Even if one of them is her son and they heard stories from her. Even then.” She stood on tip-toe to press a kiss to his ear. “Aoife had every reason to hate me, Matt. I can’t blame her for it. Hell, I couldn’t even blame any of them if they hated me, even though I don’t think for a heartbeat that they do.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
He shivered slightly. “I’m glad you have that much faith. I’m not sure that I do.”
This time she squeezed his hand. “But you trust me.”
“Always.”
“Then trust me.”
