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“Every day was worse with him, until he finally snapped my neck in a fit of rage.”
Now Bryn was the one to put her arm around Niamh, squeezing her closer, careful of her skin.
“They buried me. A pauper’s grave since I had not produced an heir.” She laughed, and it was a painful sound. “I didn’t know that the witch had given me more than birth control. I rose from my grave with a blood lust, and I killed my husband while he was in bed with his mistress. Her too. Found my father soon after and I tore him apart.” Niamh’s hand went to the ruby-red diamond necklace at her throat, and Bryn realized she’d never seen her friend so distraught.
“The town hunted me, and one day they found me. I had been looking for my love only to find out she had been trying to find me. My husband... he did horrible things to her before he killed her. I lost it.” Niamh looked up at her with tears of blood welling in her eyes. “I killed them all and became the focus of the church to dispatch. They would have, too, had you not stepped from the mist to offer me refuge among the shadows.”
“I was there when this all happened?” Well, the Morrigan, obviously.
With a nod, Niamh swallowed.
“You saved me, and I never forgot that. When you went across the veil to close it behind you that final time, I promised you I would find you again. And I did, although it was accidental since I had just come to Ifreann a few years before you did, and I was unsure until people started dying while under your care.”
Bryn dropped her hands to her lap, staring at them. Unsure herself if she was actually who Niamh, Danu, and Sage thought she was. There was so much information thrown at her in such a small time frame, and she hadn’t had time to take it all in. Where did she even start?
“I can’t tell you much else, but I can tell you this.” Niamh placed a polished red nail under Bryn’s chin, lifting her face until their eyes met. No vision and no spark. “You, my darling, have always been powerful. Morrigan or not, and that is why they fear you so tremendously. If you were allowed to spread your wings, you’d be unstoppable.”
Bryn realized Niamh was waiting for something, so Bryn gave her a nod.
“Good.” Niamh nodded in return as she picked her knitting back up like they hadn’t just had such an intense discussion about Niamh’s past.
“You were meant to fly, Bryn, but they clipped your wings,” Niamh whispered, and Bryn felt the power of those words, and what they meant, infuse her.
“It’s time to get back into the sky. Hard to burn a witch from up there.”
Chapter 15
Ameetingwastobe held later with Danu. Bryn had wanted to catch Cyerra for some answers, but she was keeping her distance, staying to the sky so she could follow Bryn, but not allowing a conversation between them. On purpose? Probably. It was only a matter of time before she made the bird spill.
Bryn was thankful that Kessler had summoned her while she slept since it meant she had something to do while she was waiting for the meeting. Niamh had gone back to the Sanctuary and Sage to her books. Justin and Mr. Rafferty were working hard to keep the new arrivals under wraps, the citizens of Ifreann none the wiser.
Crossing Saints’ Road, the townspeople were leaving the evening service, heading toward their homes to settle in.
Stepping back onto the porch, Bryn observed them as they passed by, thankful no one noticed her.
Watching the people after a service, she saw there was a noticeable difference from when they walked about working and conversing during the day. They were radiating hostility, something she would think at odds with just having attended a religious service.
As far as she’d read, the old religions had brought people peace and calm... at least to the majority of people of faith. Others took it to extremes, but they were a small percentage.
The Church of Baleros seemed to only rile some primal instinct in its followers. She wondered at who Balor was, this god they worshipped so studiously. There was not any history of who Balor was in the book on religions she’d found in her teens, only that he came to save the people who deserved a second life after the Collapse.
Perhaps she’d looked in all the wrong places for the answers. She needed to look through all the books in Sage’s library since there had to be something on him somewhere.
A large portrait was all she could remember from going to church, having to sit on a bench while the scrios spoke of Balor coming to save them all seemingly from nowhere. The horned bull masks they wore were in honor of him, but his face was human. Black hair, black eyes, pale skin that was ghostly. A large scar crossed one eye, the tissue puckered. He wore black and silver, a sword sheathed at his hip with a scarred hand resting on the pommel.
Bryn wanted to ask questions as a youth: What did he do to save everyone? Where did he come from? Why did the king demand they worship a particular god instead of letting the individual choose who and what they wanted to believe in?
It took one question, a slap to the face from Mallory, and Bryn didn’t bother anymore. Bryn could still smell the cloying burning leather smell of the incense in Mallory’s room from that day, the smell forever held in her brain as something horrible. The sting from Mallory’s palm across her cheek, one of the few times she’d hit Bryn somewhere that she couldn’t hide with long sleeves.
One of the only times in her life that Bryn hadbeggedfor a vision was when she was in her aunt’s presence. To know that when her aunt laid hands on her, she’d die soon, and Bryn could have peace.
Those visions never came, though, and it’d been years since she’d questioned the church. Perhaps all the talk of gods lately was bringing those memories to the forefront of her mind.
Ava’s tinkling laugh caught Bryn’s attention as the woman left the chapel doors arm in arm with her friends. That woman had set Bryn’s teeth on edge long before she had found her curled up with Declan.
She tried not to compare them, but Ava was definitely the better choice for a man of Ifreann looking to hold his golden throne as the governor’s son.
Ava was all tan skin, honey-brown eyes, long lush blond hair, and the best dresses. Ones far higher in quality than Bryn’s. Ava’s father spared no expense for his little girl, and her stepmother doted on her to the point that Ava was sure she was the world and everyone in town just revolved around her.
