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Chapter 20
Jacewasanaceat medicine. A man with a natural gift for healing that surpassed even her father. His patients had always recovered, and the townspeople had long ago started to refer to him as a miracle worker.
So it came as very little surprise when Bryn heard a conversation between Danu and Jace as she stepped onto the last stair that his power was that of healing.
“Dian Cecht was the name of your past self. He was a gifted healer to the Tuatha Dé Danann,” Danu explained. The clinking of a teacup hitting a saucer followed her words.
“I am still... me, though, right?” he asked, his voice breaking Bryn’s heart. It reminded her so much of the little boy Jace had been after his own father had died.
A lost little boy who tried to find himself, having no father of his own to guide him, and trying as he did, her father wasn’tJace’sfather. A beloved uncle, yes, very much so, but Jace needed his dad. Especially because his mother was not the nurturing type, and while she treated Jace better than Bryn, she wasn’t exactly the type of mother to kiss his skinned knees.
“You are,” Danu comforted him as Bryn peeked around the corner into the drawing room where they were talking. She watched Danu place a comforting hand on his shoulder in such a grandmotherly way it tightened her sore throat. “You carry the soul of Dian Cecht, you are him and he is you, only now you are called Jace instead.”
If that was the case, Bryn was someone who embodied death while Jace embodied life.
Jace was a miracle worker bringing people back from the brink of death, while Bryn seemed to push them over. It fit, she could give the universe that much.
Placing her hand on the railing, she thought of the first time a vision had come after seeing her uncle’s death. It was after they had moved to Ifreann. She had seen blood pouring from the person’s mouth, and her younger self had woken from the fit screaming, thinking it was real.
It wasn’t then, but days later, when she was with her father on his many errands during his day off, it had happened just as the vision had shown. A man murdered another man, right on the street, the old sheriff not as keen on keeping his streets lawful back then.
Bryn had only been six at the time and had been in the process of getting a hard candy from the shopkeeper. It took months for her to be able to even walk past the store again.
That was when the first whispers of her being weird had started. Not yet a witch, but perhaps cursed. They were laying the foundation for Arioch’s accusations later.
Children at school heard from their parents about the “fit” the doctor’s daughter had gone into. The things she’d said when the vision was over as her father worked to calm her.
It mostly was young children and their whispers, adults playing it off as children being cruel.
That was until Bryn took to working as a healer during the second round of sickness brought in from someone passing through the gate. Until she lost more patients than she could explain, the “fits” coming so often that her cousin worried about the health of her brain.
Word carried, as well as the stigma, into the homes of those families who lost someone until just like the disease, it spread through the whole community until she was ostracized for being different any time she was in public.
But it was Arioch that threw the last match on the pyre of her reputation.
Words carried to her before the footfalls on the wooden stairs.
“These bodies need to be put in the pyre sooner than later. Not any of ours, but they were left on the edge of our territory. Had been there long enough to draw the attention of scavengers. Last thing we need is those monsters moving in.”
Bryn squeezed into an alcove next to the drawing room to avoid being noticed as Travis’s voice carried from the entrance of the Sanctuary. He made his way toward the front door, Caden following him and holding the door open for his friend.
“Not a priority right now I would think with half our people down with whatever the hell the old lady did to them.”
“Need to make it so. We have to figure out why they were left there. People have been screaming and hollering all day, and I am sick of it.”
“A warning?”
“Who knows, but lucky for you, I saved you the paperwork.” Bryn heard the hearty slap on someone’s shoulder and decided to make her entrance into Jace and Danu’s conversation in case the men came back instead of leaving and caught her eavesdropping.
She wasn’t ready to work the pyre. Not when she wanted answers first.
“Hello, Bryndis. Tea?” Danu held up a cup, not even looking to see if it was in fact Bryn entering the drawing room.
Moving to sit in one of the lush chairs next to the couch Jace and Danu were seated on, she caught Niamh poking her head into the room, seeing who was all there before disappearing once again.
Oh, she would be asking her questions later as well.
“Now we have powers, correct? What do we do with them? You said we needed to fix everything before you died, right?” Bryn demanded as she faced the woman who had brought far too much trouble to her doorstep.
