78. Bea
BEA
“The next…” My words fade on an exhale, a wave of dizziness washing over me. What he’s saying can’t be true. Can it? Because how in the goddess's name could I be a Fate?
And yet, I never would have believed Brennen was a god, either, and here he is, standing next to me, emanating power unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
Brennen. The only person I trust. Explicitly and wholly. If he’s telling me this is the truth…
Fated one, Lolly— I mean, Eiridh had said.
“Me?” I breathe, my entire body tensing.
“Aye, m’ anam.” My soul. “You.”
The words hit low in my belly, but I cannot truly feel them.
Cannot appreciate the immensity of their meaning as my disbelief morphs into frustration.
I didn’t ask to become a Fate, but even if I had, of the three of them, why would I be destined to fulfill the one role I would never, ever want? I shake my head.
“I’ve seen enough death. I despise it,” I say to the goddess, anger bubbling in my chest.
She gives me an approving smile, leaning forward and dropping her voice to a near whisper.
“Exactly. You appreciate death. You respect its role. Its power. There is no one better suited, after the life you’ve lived, to fulfill this sacred duty,” the goddess says, something akin to pride in her voice.
I want to strike her across her cheek, this woman who has ripped my reality apart, but I bite my tongue.
Brennen chuckles, lifting my hand, caressing the new dàn on my palm. Pulling my focus away from the goddess, I focus on the lines, examining the way they swoop and curl, but the symbol means nothing to me.
Not until, tucked into the intricate design, I see a long vertical stroke, then an arched one across the top. From the right edge of that one, a line runs down at an angle, looping up at the bottom.
Shock and recognition ripple through my body. “This is the dàn I picture. The one I can never complete.”
He nods. “It would have begun to appear in your mind before Cailleach found you. Had you been given more time, you would have realized what it was, and your magic would have awoken. If you had chosen to accept the role, the cycle would have begun. She found you too soon.”
I bring it closer, staring, the shape somehow so familiar and not at the same time.
It doesn’t look like Cailleach’s sigil at all; the marking far more intricate, with so many loops and swirls, I could find a hundred different designs within it if I searched.
“How could she take it from me?” I ask, trailing my fingers along the fine lines.
Brennen’s voice drops low. “She stole the dàn from your mind, just as she manipulated your memories to make you believe you killed those people.”
The goddess places a hand on her chest. “I am so very sorry for what you’ve endured.”
I shake my head, unexpected tears burning the backs of my eyes at the sorrow in her voice. Is it possible Blàr means it? That the goddess of war and monsters cares this much about the pain of mortals?
“Tell me everything,” I say, turning to Brennen, and he squeezes my hand.
“Prior to the last Epoch, we made a plan. We knew that cycle would be brutal, and the Cutter would be given one more chance to step down. It would have been far easier if she had done it of her own will, with less of a chance of destabilizing the magic of the realm. Even Ban-dia a’ Bhàis cannae use her power unfettered without consequence. ”
Ban-dia a’ Bhàis.
The name makes my heart nearly stop. The silver hair and gold eyes.
This isn’t a lesser goddess at all. I am standing before the very creator of our realm. The goddess of death.
I look down at my feet, suddenly unable to breathe. I had been cross with her. Had almost demanded she not touch Brennen, and that she respect my dragon.
“Dinnae fash,” Brennen says, as if reading my mind. He tilts my chin back up. “She willnae harm you. She is the one who sent me to find you.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
I shake my head. “But why? Why would a god come to the mortal realm?”
“Ban-dia a’ Bhàis’s magic, if she uses it for anything that changes the fate of her kingdom, requires a bargain.
When the Cutter wouldnae step down, I offered one.
Only one Cutter is fated prior to each Epoch.
We were determined not to lose another to Cailleach’s greed.
She was to weave it into the next Cutter’s thread that she couldnae be killed, and in exchange, I would find her and bring her here to step into her power. That thread was yours.”
“Wove it into my thread… Is that why I have an immortality dan?” I ask, my mind struggling to keep up.
The goddess places a hand to her sternum.
“Aye. But it didnae appear until Cailleach tried to kill you, and she couldnae see it. I tried to hide you so it would never come to that. A Fate can sense their replacement once they place eyes on them. I’d hoped she wouldn’t find you at all.
I almost succeeded. Made you a nobody. No family to miss you.
Just a girl adrift in a kingdom that doesnae care for those without power.
But when you took your friend’s clothes from the river in your attempt to save her, Cailleach felt you.
Only one fated to touch death would have been able to remove the clothes.
Even with my magic hiding you, she knew who you were. ”
The statement is a knife between my ribs, shockingly, deeply painful. How different would things be if I’d made a different choice? A better one? My friend had died anyway, and my entire life was ruined.
“She hid you somewhere you willnae find on any map and turned you into a legend the entire kingdom feared,” Ban-dia a’ Bhàis says.
“But what about her sisters? Why have they done nothing to stop her?” I ask, trying to complete the picture forming in my mind. Ban-dia a’ Bhàis stiffens, but she doesn't answer.
“Each Fate is duty-bound to find their own ascending, but it is only once the next Cutter accepts her dàn that the women destined to become her sisters awaken,” Brennen says. “Without an ascending—”
“Wait,” I say, pressing a hand to my forehead, trying to keep up.
“Breathe, m’ anam,” Brennen says. I drag in a shaky breath, but my mind doesn’t still.
“When there is no Cutter to ascend,” he continues, “the cycle resets. Cailleach’s sisters would have been forced to continue their rule alongside her.”
I close my eyes, creating a map of connections in my mind. “When I couldn’t be killed, she started looking for the women who would become the Weaver and Measurer, should I accept the role.”
Brennen nods.
Once again, anger flickers in my chest. “Why do I have to be the one to accept the dàn first?” I ask.
Must the burden rest on my shoulders, always?
Why could the Weaver or Measurer not be the one to carry it for a while?
Why must I endure a century of a cursed existence before their trials even begin?
Ban-dia a’ Bhàis tilts her head. “I know it doesnae seem fair, but this is how it has always been. Without death, there cannot be life. A thread cannot be woven and measured if I am not certain there will be someone to sever it. No one is meant to live forever. Not mortals. And not the Fates.” She takes a step forward, pointing into the endless sky.
“Your sisters are up there now, waiting for you without even knowing it. Their dàn will appear to them, too, for them to accept or reject, should you choose your calling.”
I shake my head, trying to wrap my mind around her words. The immensity of their meaning.
My sisters. A family I never really had. One fate chose for me.
The thought overwhelms me, and I sag against Brennen. All I want is to feel his calm. His sturdiness.
He doesn’t let me down, wrapping a protective arm around my waist and pulling me tightly against him. My heart rate calms almost instantly.
“The missing women. The deaths.” A web more layered and intricate than I could have ever imagined unfurling in my mind. “They’re women she thinks could be my sisters, aren’t they? She’s desperate, trying to eliminate anyone who could overpower her, and so she’s killing them.”
The goddess’s eyes flash with anger. “Aye,” she confirms, her voice dark.
“Where are they?” I ask. “The souls who couldn’t pass on?”
The goddess gestures in the opposite direction of the gates, toward the misty black sand flowing from above. “Thanks to you, they rest in the darkness. Only those who pass at their time can enter until An Glèidheadair returns.”
“And Saoirse?” I ask, eyes flicking to Brennen. He stiffens, his arms tensing as he squeezes me tighter.
Ban-dia a’ Bhàis gives him a gentle smile. “She has found peace with your mortal parents. She is happy,” the goddess says softly.
The tension eases from Brennen’s grip a fraction, and while relief wraps around my heart, it doesn’t last long. All of this is wrong.
I’m glad she has found peace, but she shouldn’t be here at all. Saoirse should be alive. Those women, and Harold, should be alive.
“Does the Cutter know what she’s doing to those souls? That she is the reason they cannot enter the After? That her refusing to step down is the cause of the Epoch?” I ask, my voice turning sharp. How much suffering will that woman cause? And for what? Power?
What good is power when the kingdom loathes you? When you refuse to use it to help anyone but yourself.