I close my eyes again. Reach deeper.
The vision that greets me is so real I can feel it.
“I remember seeing you sleeping on a hammock. In the woods. Between two trees. White with a rainbow.” I can see it—the colors, the light filtering through leaves. “One leg out, rocking yourself.”
“The day we left.” Sadness bleeds through her voice. “Do you know how old I am?”
The question surprises me. Offhanded. Almost casual.
“No.”
“My earliest memory is of blood and death.” That sad smile again. Like she wishes she had something better to offer. “I remember chasing the thrill of death. Summons after summons. Until one day I was more than a thought or an emotion.”
“That implies?—”
“Maybe.” She doesn’t confirm. Doesn’t deny. “I wanted so much more for you. From the moment Niamh placed you in my arms, I wanted your first memory to be of love.”
“Oh, Morrigan.”
I look at her. Really look. Because I didn’t realize—didn’t once consider—that this beautiful, competent goddess is at her core a woman. With emotions and feelings and needs.
“I am many things.” She looks into the distance. “Was many more. I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes. And some days I still fall asleep wanting more. More for me. More for you. Always more for you.”
I swallow my tears. Swallow my own pain. And just listen.
“We spent many nights in that hammock. You in my arms, rocking as we watched the stars form and find homes.” Her voice goes thick with memory. “I sang to you as the dryads formed shelters to keep us safe. And I bled when the walls fell.”
She grabs my hands now. Her grip is fierce. Ancient.
“You are as close as I will ever get to a daughter.”
I can’t speak.
Daughter.
An ancient war goddess, born of blood and death, who has lived a thousand lifetimes and watched civilizations rise and fall. And she’s calling me daughter.
My body is shaking. The tears are back. And I don’t try to stop them this time.
“I want for you all the stars in the world. I want even more for you to remember our years. Because they mean more to me than all the heavens.” A lone tear tracks down her face. She swipes it with a finger and holds it to me. “Perhaps that’s the cruelty of fate. The best years of my life are the ones you may never recall. And I have to be okay with that. Accept that all I gave to you, you may never know.”
She runs the tear across my cheek, mingling it with my own.
And suddenly I’m three years old again.
I’m in her arms. The hammock swings beneath us. The stars are forming—actually forming, pulling themselves together from dust and light while she points and names them.
“That one is for courage,”she whispers. “That one is for loss. That one, little root-born, is for you.”
The memory hits me so hard I gasp. My knees buckle. The bar stool catches me.
I was loved. I was so fucking loved, and I didn’t even know.
Another fragment surfaces. Whispen’s gold glow at the foot of the hammock. Standing guard. His needle-teeth bared at the darkness like he’d fight the whole night to keep me safe.
He’s been protecting me since before I could walk.
And I had no idea.
