“She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever known. And I love her for it.”
Closing the locket, she handed it back to Medea. “She looks like you.”
“Thank you. But I think she’s a lot more beautiful.” Medea returned it to her neck. “What of your mother?”
A tear fell down her cheek. “My mother sold me to the Black Crom when I was ten-and-three. If she ever loved me, she never once showed it.”
“I’m sorry.”
Wiping at her cheek, she drew a ragged breath. “It’s not so bad. She sold my siblings to much worse. At least I had Sight. Had I been born without anything, my fate would have been.…” She winced as if she couldn’t bring herself to say more about it.
“What exactly is the Black Crom?” Medea asked, trying to distract her from the horror that lingered in the back of those lavender eyes.
“A headless Death Rider who seeks the souls of the damned or the cursed.”
Medea jumped at Falcyn’s voice in her ear.
“A kerling can sing to them to offer up a sacrifice before battle. Or summon them for a particular victim.”
“Can,” Brogan said, lifting her chin defiantly. There was something about her, fiery and brave. “But I don’t. I hate the Crom. He springs from Annwn to claim the souls of his victims with a whip made from the bony spines of cowards. He rides a pale horse with fiery eyes that can incinerate the guilty and innocent alike should they happen upon him while he rides. None are safe in his path. To the very pit with him. I’ve no use for the likes of that beast. You’ve no idea what it’s like to live in its shadow. Subject to its pitiless whims.”
Though she’d just met her, Medea felt horrible for the woman. “Can you be freed?”
She shook her head. “Not even death can free me as I am bound to him for all eternity. What’s done is done.”
Suddenly, Brogan stopped moving.
Medea became instantly nervous at a look she was starting to recognize. “Is something wrong?”
“We’re approaching the porch,” she whispered.
“Is that bad?”
Urian gave her a droll stare.
She didn’t answer the question except to say, “The Crom is here.”
Urian looked up at her words to see the massive glowing horseman. At first, he appeared headless. Until one realized that his head was formed by mist at the end of the spiny whip he wielded as he rode. The white horse was giant in size … almost as large as a Mack truck. An awful stench of sulfur permeated the cavern, choking them and sticking in their throats as if it had been created from thorns.
Even more disconcerting, the baying horse made the sound of twenty echoing beasts. And its hooves were thunderous—like an approaching train.
“I won’t do it!” Brogan shouted. “I refuse you!”
The horse reared as the Crom cracked its whip in the air. Fire shot out from the whip’s tip as more thunder echoed.
Unfazed and with fists clenched at her sides, Brogan stood stubbornly between them and the Crom. “Beat me all you like. I will not give you that power. Not again! Not over my newfound friends!”
“What’s going on?” Medea asked.
Brogan kept her gaze locked stubbornly on her master. “He wants the ability to speak. But if I give it to him, then he can call out your name and claim your soul to take it with him to hell. And I will not allow it.”
With a long, bony finger, he pointed at Brogan.
She shook her head at him. “Then take me, if you must. I’m all you’ll be getting today! I won’t let you have them! You hear me? No more!”
He charged at her.
In an act of absolute bravery, she stood her ground without flinching.
