Emily rose from the floor, ignoring Tayda, and returned to the window. There was something out there making a noise that sounded so familiar—but not. A calling of her name, maybe? A voice she hadn’t heard in a very long time, but it was outside in the storm. “Do you hear that?”
“’Tis nothing more than the song of the wind.” Tayda held up a skein of yarn. “See here, m’lady. Is this not the prettiest shade of green? ’Tis like meadow grass during the first warming of spring.”
Uneasiness washed across Emily, taking her closer to the frosted pane. The broken heart she had scratched into the frost was gone, replaced by a large eye shedding a tear. She stepped back, her vague uneasiness changing to an ominous sense of doom. “Is Gryffe back yet?”
Tayda didn’t answer, causing Emily to turn and discover herself alone in a bleak, empty room she didn’t recognize. Don’t panic. Hands fisted against her middle, she swallowed hard and forced herself to pull in a deep breath and then slowly exhale. Shock and fear turned to irritation, that quickly flared into rage. She was so done with being manipulated by forces outside her control.
“I am really getting tired of this shit!” she told the glaringly bright emptiness of the place.
“Allow us to reset ye, child,” said a trio of women’s voices that echoed as if they were talking inside an empty bucket to try to sound even more ominous. “All will be well, and ye willna recall a thing—all yer painful memories will be gone.”
“No.”
“No?”
Emily slowly turned, eyeing the area that suffered from a complete lack of color. “No, is my final answer. Is that not plain enough for you?” She had a pretty fair idea of whom she was dealing with, but couldn’t tell for sure. She’d never studied pagan religions and their gods and goddesses all that much. She only knew them from a book about Scottish legends she’d read back at Seven Cairns and her firsthand experience with the vile Morrigan. “Put me back where I belong. I promise you’ll regret it if you don’t. I know you know about the blood vow.”
Laughter filled the air like soft music. It was not taunting or cruel, merely amused. “We dinna mean ye harm, child. We merely offer ye relief from the pain of yer past and protection from the pain of yer future.”
“Everyone has pain. That’s what makes us who we are. How we use it makes us stronger.” Her mother had told her that once. Right after the miscarriage. Emily had thought it sounded pretty hokey back then, but now? Now, not so much. She finally understood the truth of it. Everything she’d been through, everything that had touched her—be it good or bad—had prepared her for now. Prepared her to fight. “Your offer is weak for those who call themselves mothers,” she told the voices. “Would you choose to forget your children just because they caused you pain? I never want to lose the memory of holding my sweet daughter in my arms. Send me home. Now.”
“Why should we?”
“Why shouldn’t you?” She could play their stupid, cryptic games just as easily as they could. “I’m just a mortal, remember? Gone from the earth in the blink of an eye by your standards. No wonder you don’t care about us. We don’t live long enough for you to get attached. We’re like goldfish that you continuously flush down the toilet.”
Deafening silence filled the strange formless space, making her stick her fingers in her ears and swallow hard to pop them. “Gryffe will come for me. So will Nicnevin.”
“Ye should have never bound yerself to him, child. Him and his kind bring nothing but sorrow.”
“The same could be said of many kinds that populate the worlds. That doesn’t mean any one kind is better than the other or deserves a better shot at surviving.”
“Ye dinna love him.”
“You are wrong about that, and you know it.”
“We created ye. We created him. We ken well enough who ye should love and who ye should not.”
“My heart tells me who I love—not you or any other myth or legend.”
“Ye canna bear this child.”
“I can, and I will.” Emily jutted her chin higher. How dare they threaten her baby.
“Ye canna bear this child—and live. Ye will never survive the birth.”
“Is that your latest scare tactic?” She refused to flinch or show any weakness. “You’re going to have to do better than that. I don’t fear you, but you should fear me.”
“What harm could ye possibly bring to us?”
“Disbelief. I have learned not to believe in just anything.” Emily turned in a slow circle, then stopped. The disconcerting whiteness, the inability to tell the walls from the floors and the floors from the ceiling of the room made it hard to keep her balance. It was like floating in a bank of clouds. “If no one believes in you, you cease to exist. Have you failed to notice I refuse to even say your names, even though I know who you are? The Dreaming taught me that. What I believe in is real. What I don’t believe in—is not.”
“Ye are but one mortal of millions and millions.”
“But how many mortals from my original time truly believe you are anything more than a myth? I know some worship you, but not nearly as many as there once was, or as many as I am sure you wish there were. What would happen, how many fewer still would believe in you, if Jessa and I concentrated on erasing your names from history? How would that affect your believers in the future?”
“Ye will not survive the birth of this child.”
“All that matters is that my child lives. Gryffe will be an adoring father, and I am sure Nicnevin will be a doting grandmother.” Already feeling more certain that all would be well, Emily stood taller. “If I can’t see my babies in this life, then I shall see them in the next.”
