“Healer, I expect you to make sure they live for at least as long as it takes the young to be brought forth.” He shoved her inside the tent, throwing her surgical box in after her.
Aine blinked, trying to accustom her eyes to the sudden brightness. The opulently decorated tent was lit by hundreds of candles. Women lounged on cushions, sipping wine and eating pastries. She recognized several of them as women who had ignored her when she had first arrived at Guardian Castle.
They were all pregnant.
“Oh, good. You’re finally here.” A blonde with a bulging abdomen motioned regally at Aine. “I’m having some discomfort and the wine is not dulling it. I need you to give me something to relieve the pain.”
Aine stared at her, swallowing down her fear and revulsion. Those creatures out there were not Tegan, just as she was not these women. “You’re pregnant with a Fomorian’s child.”
“Of course.”
“Why?” Aine said, not hiding her disgust.
The blonde’s eyes went cold and mean. “That is not your concern. You’re here for us.”
“We’re bringing a new species into this world,” a plump redhead said dreamily.
“An army that will worship us and our beautiful, three-faced god.”
Aine felt sick. They worshipped evil; they reveled in it.
“Quiet! She’s only here to stop our pain.” The blonde gave Aine a cruel look. “Now, do you brew us something or do I call Nuada and tell him we don’t need you after all?”
Aine pulled opiates from her surgical box while she concentrated her mind on one thing, over and over: Tegan, be wary, but come to me…
Chapter Seventeen
Tegan arrived with the next dusk.
His sword slicing through the rear of the canvas tent made a distinctive sound. He held open the flap and offered his hand to her. Aine looked at the women she’d drugged one last time before taking his hand and turning her back on them. They didn’t speak until they were well beyond the Fomorian camp.
“Did you know about them?” Aine was facing him, arms wrapped around herself as if anticipating a physical blow.
“I knew my people had given in to evil. I knew they were planning an attack on Partholon. I did not know about the women.”
“They’re dead,” Aine said in an emotionless voice.
“The women?”
“I killed them. They were all completely mad. I gave them an easy death before they could bring more demons into this world.”
Tegan’s head shook back and forth over and over. “You shouldn’t have killed. The darkness taints you like that.”
“And what should I have done?” Aine was weeping openly. “Run away? Hide?” She rounded on him, shoving hard against his chest. Tegan made no move to defend himself against her. “You’re not like them! You’re not a demon, but you did less than nothing. You didn’t stay and fight. You let evil win.”
His voice was hollow. “If I’d stayed I would have become what they are. The darkness infected them. I left because I wanted to live without darkness.”
“You left and let darkness rule. What did you think would happen to Partholon if you stayed silent? What did you think would happen to us?”
“I wasn’t thinking about Partholon when I exiled myself. I just wanted to be free of evil and death. I didn’t expect to meet you. I didn’t expect to love you.”
Mocking applause sounded from the darkness. Nuada stepped out of the shadows. “What a moving speech, brother.”
Tegan stepped between Nuada and Aine. “We’re not brothers anymore,” he said.
“We still share the same blood.” Nuada’s smile was feral as he looked beyond Tegan to Aine. “I see more blood that I’d like to share with you.”
“You’ll have to kill me first.”
“As you wish.”
The shadows behind Nuada stirred. Aine saw at least a dozen Fomorians awaiting their master’s command.
Then Tegan changed before her eyes. His wings unfurled. His fingers became talons. His eyes blazed with anger. “Run and live! I will find you.” He told her in a voice magnified by power before he leaped forward to meet Nuada’s attack.
Aine ran, but only until she understood no one was following her. She doubled back, creeping quietly along the mountain paths until she heard an odd sound. It was out of place in the night, and it reminded her of something. She almost didn’t identify it, but just before the screaming started she realized that it sounded much like Tegan’s sword slicing through the canvas tent.
With the first scream the pain hit her, driving her to her knees.
Aine didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious. She woke up in the gloaming of predawn with a single thought: find Tegan.
Her body felt heavy and off balance as she stumbled, drawn forward by a relentless invisible thread.
When she found him it was too terrible for her mind to fully comprehend. She could only stand there, immobilized by despair and loss.
They’d cut his wings from his body. That sound she’d heard had been metal slicing through the flesh of his soul.
Then Tegan moaned and the Healer in her took over. She ignored everything: the raging pain that seared through her body in tandem with his and his pleading to let him die. Aine worked methodically. She pulled him into the shadows. Calling on strength she didn’t know she had, the Healer half-dragged, half-carried Tegan to his cave. Then she went to work with his sword, trimming the ragged edges of his eviscerated wings. She used the same sword to sear the flesh that wouldn’t stop bleeding. Finally, she filled Epona’s funeral urn and bathed his body, mixing cool mountain water with her tears.
His eyes opened when it was all over. “You should have let me die.”
“I couldn’t,” she said.
“He took my soul.”
“No, love, he couldn’t. Your soul is safe with me.”
Tegan closed his eyes against the tears that streamed down his pale cheeks.
Aine did the only thing left to her. She prayed.
Chapter Eighteen
Aine used Epona’s urn to pour a libation circle around her. Then she knelt in the middle of the cave under the round opening that showed a night sky filled with the brilliance of a full moon. The Healer spread her arms wide and lifted her face to the heavens.
“Gracious Goddess Epona, please hear me. I have nowhere left to go. No one else to turn to. Forgive me. I killed those women. I love a Fomorian and I’m too weak to leave him, even after I’ve seen what he could become. Goddess, I’ve felt you throughout my life, even before I heard your voice. I used to believe I only knew your presence when I healed someone, but I’ve come to understand that you were always closest to me when I failed. I don’t deserve your love or your help, but I’m asking for both. And I’m asking for Tegan, too.”
The sky above Aine shifted. The stars that littered the night began to whirl wildly, funneling into a shimmering cone that rained light through the roof of the cave. Aine heard Tegan’s gasp of shock as the figure of a woman materialized in the air above them.
Aine’s eyes stung with the effort it took to gaze upon the Goddess. With a gentle smile, Epona passed a hand before her visage, and her divinity dimmed and became bearable. Aine felt the raging pain as Tegan struggled to lift himself so that he could bow before Epona. She started to move to help him, but the Goddess was there before her.