So much so that I couldn’t bring myself to follow her home. Not that first night. Or through the mist and wind and raindrops of the second. I sat in scowling, smoldering self-loathing overwhat I’d done to terrorize my human until a new presence arrived in the wet gloom of my third day on foreign soil.
It would be a mistake to say a woman spoke, for a goddess was no mere woman.
The sodden earth beneath me trembled with the gravitas of her voice.
“Are you going to haunt my lands and prey on my people, or will you introduce yourself?”
I looked into the unflinching face of a being made of sunlight, fire, and earth. Flame-red hair cascaded to her feet. Our realms had yet to formally meet, but her reputation preceded her. I recognized her instantly.
She forewent the immortal language. The scattered temples in her home, the woven mementos to her on the hearth, her name on the tongues of her people, flowed into her as a power source. She outranked me here, on her land, and forced me to speak on her terms.
I was rusty in Goidelic languages but fell into cadence as we spoke.
“Brigid,” I responded with a dip of my head. She outranked me, and I was trespassing. This was not how we were meant to meet. “At long last, I’m grateful to make your acquaintance.”
“Is this how Hell sends its emissary?” she asked, folding her arms over her chest. The red-orange flames of hair showcased a life of their own. Her strands licked around her neck, her chest, tumbling down to her waist as she glared.
“I’m not here as an emissary, though you are owed one,” I replied. “Honestly, perhaps I shouldn’t be here at all.”
“Perhaps not,” she agreed, expression hardening.
The glow of her hair refracted off the burbling river. I hoped the light hit my face well enough to convey my expression.
“I’m here for a human.”
She was unmoved. “Keeva. I’m aware.”
I corrected the lettering in my head, scrambling for my Gaelic knowledge. Caoimhe. That’s how ‘Keeva’ would be spelled.
I swallowed, trying to remember Brigid’s numerous gifts. A high-ranking deity in her pantheon, she was the goddess of so many things, it was hard to keep track. Her dominion over fire was a given, and even if I’d forgotten, her hair certainly would have reminded me. Childbirth, metalworking, healing, homemaking, poetry, and…
Oh.
“You’re a goddess of prophecy and divination,” I said, more for my benefit than for hers. Of course she knew why I was here. “My human, Caoimhe, doesn’t know who I am or why I’m here.”
While her posture remained unchanged, I noticed the slightest relaxation in her face. “Because in this lifetime, she’s not your human.”
I shook my head.
Her brows lowered. “You’ve come to foreign lands to cower on Celtic soil? Act your station. Speak your piece, Prince of Hell.”
Perhaps it was the years of solitude, or the repeated heartbreak, or maybe the emerald grasses and the cauldron-dark sky had churned me in peculiar ways, but my lips parted, and given that she had a heart for ballads, I offered her my tragic tale.
I told the goddess the story of how a human had caught herself a Prince, and how that Prince had spent hundreds of years following her from body to body. I told her of our tumultuous lives, and of the long, healthy story of Yuka and the White Wolf. She offered a single, humorless laugh when I shared how the twenty-nine-year hunt had ended on her land only for me to frighten a married woman.
The mist stopped, leaving us alone in the cold dew as she examined me.
“You are on my land,” she said, “so you will listen to my advice, whether or not you desire it.”
My single, low laugh was sincere, however brief the moment of levity may be.
I’d shirked my ambassadorship with the other gods for so long that I’d nearly forgotten how to interact with one.
“It seems to me, Prince,” she said at last, “you’re trapped between humanity and godhood. Gods are freed from mortality by our detachment from it. I may favor a practitioner. I may even love one from time to time. But I balance affection while maintaining my sovereignty. You, however, appear to lend yours.”
I made no attempt to conceal my expression.
“On your journey to accepting your godhood, you must first learn what it is to be mortal. And for that, you have appointed a girl to teach you the lesson.”
