‘I don’t know him, but he’s been nicer than you.’
‘Don’t care for him, even a tiny bit?’
‘We’ve just met.’ The lie was ash on her tongue. The truth, a band around her throat, her heart.
‘Well, I suppose that’s a good thing, considering he’ll be punished for your failed mission.’
Nicole forced herself to don that cloak of pretend she was so used to wearing, even if it made her feel like a shade of herself. She was grateful the binding scar on her forearm was covered. Hiding it, hidinghim,was the only way to get through this.
And she would. She hadto.
‘Why don’t you give me another mission. A proper one. I can do that. That’s what I’d be doing if I swore your oath anyway, right?’
‘I’m curious,’ the woman said, ignoring the option. ‘Did your mother tell you about me?’
The shift in topic threw her.
‘I told you, my mother died when I was young. She didn’ttellme anything.’
A flicker of annoyance went through the woman’s gaze. ‘Let’s stop playing this silly game, Nicole. She left you some things, didn’t she? She would have. She couldn’t help herself. Freya wouldn’t have an oblivious daughter.’
Nicole forced her features to remain impassive, even as her heart skipped a beat at the accurate guess.
Whoever this woman was, she knew her mother very well.
‘My name is Aífe,’ she said. ‘And it seems Mummy has left out some things. Do you even know how old she is? Who shereally is?’
Nicole had her suspicions, had even wondered if her own mother was Scáthach. It fit the stories: a female Empyreal who was solitary and trained others. Someone who would have had a wealth of knowledge about creatures that she could then have put into her bestiary and books. But why wouldn’t Kyan have recognised her when he met Nicole, if they were supposed to have been so similar?
Unless—
Unless her mother had changed her face. Ormadehim forget?
Aífe was still waiting for an answer.
‘I take it I don’t,’ Nicole said flatly.
‘Did you know she was the first Empyreal who was made into what you are now? Chosen as the first to receive that extra piece of the Empyrean that allowed Empyreals to kill a Fomóir, should they ever need to? Morrígan-blessed, they called her. It gave her the ability to See, too, like she didn’t have it all, already.’
Nicole fought the urge to shake her head. ‘That happened, like, five thousand years ago or more.’
‘I think that’s why she was a little unhinged,’ the woman said conversationally, as if this was some secret between them.
Nicole had many theories about her mother, but Freya being the first Empyreal wasn’t one of them.
‘That would mean she’d met the goddess; that—’ Nicole thought of the carvings she’d seen in the Skye temple, of the woman with the flowing hair and the piece of gold embedded in her chest.
The first god-killing Empyreal.
Hermother.
‘Did you know your mother could change her face?’ Aífe continued. ‘I couldn’t very well let Empyreals wander around, especially the women, without making sure they weren’t her in disguise. Why do you think there are so few female Empyreals? All tracked, all stolen, all tortured and killed. Because women are “weaker”?’ She scoffed. ‘We sold the world that lie when the humans did. Poor precious bodies which can transform to make life, but are believed to behelpless and weak? It was easy to make the supernatural world believe the same thing.’
Horror seeped through at the woman’s words. Thismonsterhad massacred countless Empyreals in case they were her mother in disguise?
‘But she had to be a renegade, didn’t she? Not only did she have powers granted by the goddess’ – a subtle snarl curled the woman’s upper lip – ‘but she went and took herself away like a dramatic little bitch off to an island to beall alone. Woe washer. So fucking righteous, gods!’ Aífe had tipped her head back on the word, but it wasn’t just a scoff, there was real, deep disgust.
‘Jealousy?’ Nicole realised, incredulous. She thrashed in her binds. ‘You did all of this, killed all those people out ofjealousy? What happened between you that you hated her so much?’
