“I don’t find myself at all surp
rised.”
“Fighting with your brother over me isn’t something I appreciate or consider flattering.”
“It wasn’t only about you.”
“I know that. But I was the catalyst. And I’m going to have a word with Moira about it, too. Of course, her idea of distracting Cian from us changed the entire scope of things.”
“It was madness for him to bring those things into the house. His own temper and arrogance could have cost us lives.”
“No.” She spoke quietly now, and with absolute certainty. “He was right to do it.”
Stunned, he gaped at her. “How can you say so? How can you defend him?”
“He made a very big and illuminating point, one we won’t be able to forget. We won’t always know when they’ll come, and we have to be ready to kill or be killed every minute, every day. We weren’t, not really. Even after King, we weren’t. If there’d been more of them, the odds more even, it might’ve been a very different story.”
“He stood by, did nothing.”
“Yes, he did. Another point. He’s the strongest of us, and the smartest in these circumstances. It’s up to us to work toward closing that gap. I have some ideas, at least for the two of us.”
She came to him, rising on her toes to brush her lips over his cheek. “Go ahead, wash up. I want to sleep on it. I want to sleep with you.”
She dreamed of the goddess, of walking through a world of gardens, where birds were bright as the flowers, and the flowers like jewels.
From a high black cliff, water the color of liquid sapphire tumbled down to strike a pool clear as glass where gold and ruby fish darted.
The air was warm and heavy with fragrance.
Beyond the gardens was a silver sickle of beach where the turquoise water lapped its edges gently as a lover. There were children building sparkling castles of sand, or splashing in the foamy surf. Their laughter carried on the air like the birdsong.
Rising from the beach were steps of shimmering white with diamonds of ruby red along their edges. High above them were houses, painted in dreamy pastels, skirted with yet more flowers, with trees that dripped blossoms.
She could hear music drifting down from the tall hill, the harps and flutes singing of joy.
“Where are we?”
“There are many worlds,” Morrigan told her as they walked. “This is just another. I thought you should see that you fight for more than yours, or his, or the world of your friends.”
“It’s beautiful. It feels…happy.”
“Some are, some are not. Some demand a hard life, full of pain and effort. But it is still life. This world is old,” the goddess said, her robes flowing as she opened her arms. “It earned this beauty, this peace, through that pain and that effort.”
“You could stop what’s coming. Stop her.”
Her bright hair dancing in the wind, she turned to Glenna. “I have done what I can to stop it. I have chosen you.”
“It’s not enough. Already we’ve lost one of us. He was a good man.”
“Many are.”
“Is this how fate and destiny work? The higher powers? So coldly?”
“The higher powers bring laughter to those children, they bring the flowers and the sun. Love and pleasures. And yes, death and pain. It must be so.”
“Why?”
Morrigan turned, smiled. “Or it would all mean so little. You are a gifted child. But the gift has weight.”