Brighde sat on one of the barstools. “You know quite well what I mean. Cailleach told me about the day she visited you, when you first selected the Goddess’ Watcher. About your lost love. How much ire do you think you have you brought upon yourself from the Ancients for bending the world to your will, Old One?”
She hated it when Brighde called her that. “I followed the prophecies. And when I revealed the past to Lina, I didn’t show her everything, even though it was in my memories.”
“By whose hand were those prophecies written, hmm?” Brighde arched an eyebrow at her. “You even forced Cailleach into a mating you knew she didn’t want to serve your needs.”
“I forced her to do nothing. She fell in love with that wolf.”
Brighde waved her objections away. “You placed her in a position where she couldn’t refuse her heart. I should count myself lucky you didn’t bend the prophecies to include me in your matchmaking efforts. You picked her because you knew damn well I don’t give a flying fig about the prophecies because I know they’re bullshit. And if I was to walk away from them, you know the humans will follow suit.”
“They are not bullshit!”
“Oh, please. You got the Seer drunk and told him what to write. I watched you do it!”
Baba Yaga’s gaze narrowed. “Are you saying I was wrong?”
Brighde shrugged. “We are all masters of free will. At any given time, any of them could have chosen not to fulfill the prophecies. Then they would have seen them for what they are, empty pieces of paper with words of your choosing on them.”
“I swore an oath of revenge. I will not walk away from it.”
“So I see. And at what cost to others, hmm?”
“Those who fell in love did so because they felt it, not because I bewitched them. I simply set up events allowing them to more easily meet and fall in love with each other.”
Brighde laughed. “Call it what you will, Old One. Lie to yourself if you wish, but know this. You play a dangerous game with lives over your revenge. It’s not right.”
“The cockatrice have decided to wage war, not me. Had they simply faded from existence, then none of this would have come to pass.”
“True. It’s the only reason I haven’t stepped in to stop you. Know this, however. If you continue taking steps to deliberately manipulate people and usurp their free will, I will stop you. I will expose this entire plan. You walk a very dangerous path, Old One.”
“It is almost done. The cockatrice chose their way and I simply made it easier for the other shifter races to ally against them to protect themselves from the threat.”
Brighde stood. “Keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep better at night. I didn’t mind being used for the spell to create the tablet, but I will be watching. I am not as loose with my heart as our little sister is, Old One. I shall not be as forgiving if you try to interfere with my free will.”
Baba Yaga let out a snort of derision. “Don’t worry. I doubt there’s a man in the world who could thaw that block of ice in your chest.”
Brighde rolled her eyes. “You just keep thinking that you are the expert on love and loss and your hubris will get the better of you, sooner or later.” She wagged a warning finger at her older sister. “I will be watching.” With that, she disappeared.
Baba Yaga plated her meal, took it over to the counter, and stood there, eating. Her sister had no idea what she was talking about. She’d always been a cold, frigid bitch. Ironic, considering Cailleach’s usual domain of the icy realms.
It certainly wasn’t her fault old Reygland, the Seer, couldn’t hold his mead very well back then, countless eons earlier. Or that he happened to plagiarize the poem she recited to him.
Never mind. Her job steering the course of events had ended. She felt a lot of guilt over Bertholde’s death, but she had placed more than enough warnings in her old friend’s path that the Seer could have chosen not to go to Yellowstone.
Lucky humans. They could die and pass on to new lives, usually with no memory of their past hurts or joy. A fresh slate.
She was granted no such reprieve. No way to forget the pain of loss, to erase the picture of her lover’s body ripped to pieces.
No way to erase the longing for a love she would never again know.
Lucky humans.
Chapter Two
Lina stared out the passenger window of the rental car. She’d never been to Washington State before. Despite the grey and dreary day, the green, lush landscape they passed struck a resonant chord in her.
She didn’t know if she’d ever find the nerve to deeply explore all of her past lives.
She didn’t know if she truly wanted to, despite Baba Yaga and Bertholde’s warnings that she’d have to if they were ever to defeat the bastards wanting to destroy all of them. Although things had quieted down in the two years since their big showdown and cockatrice ass-kicking in Brussels, Lina knew it was only a matter of time before it heated up again in a big way.
She could see it.
In fact, the irony wasn’t lost on her that she was the flagyer’s Seer, and had grown more comfortable with the job in the past couple of years, yet she still resisted looking at her own past. That’s why she’d asked Zack to bring her here. To face things, one small step at a time so she could learn to be brave enough to look at all of it.
Zack reached across the seat and laced his fingers through hers. “You okay, sweetie?”
“Yeah.” The landscape fascinated her. She’d spent her life in Florida, and topography such as this helped keep her mind off the building sadness within her.
“Listen,” he softly said. “We do this my way. And if I decide this is too much for you, then we stop. Understood?”
She nodded. She wouldn’t fight him.
He pulled off the interstate outside of Seattle and wound through hilly neighborhoods until they pulled into the cemetery. When he parked and shut the car off, she looked at him.
“How do you know this is the place?”
He shrugged. “I looked up the obits. It had the info.”
Without further conversation, they both exited the car. She waited for him outside the office. When he emerged a moment later, they joined hands again, and she let him lead her down a path that wound through the rolling cemetery. A few minutes later, he turned left and slowed as they walked down a row of headstones.
Then he stopped in front of a double one.
Lina took a deep breath and looked.
Martin and Amelia Fisher - Beloved Parents
Their dates of death listed a day apart but over forty years earlier.
“How many?” she softly asked. She knew she could search her memories and find out for herself, but she wasn’t ready to do that yet.
He didn’t give her any grief about it. “Three. Two boys and a girl. One son still alive. He lives here in Seattle.”
It didn’t feel real. Her and Zack, from their former lives, dead and buried before her.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “I…I can’t explain it. I just needed to see.”
“I know. It’s okay. I’ve never wanted to, but I had all my memories. I didn’t need the concrete proof.”
She took a deep breath before slowly blowing it out. “Tell me this gets easier. That I’ll be able to look back.”
He pulled her to him and hugged her. “I’m sure you will, sweetie. In your own time and way. It doesn’t have to be right now.”
The events of the past couple of years threatened to swamp her as it was. “I hope it doesn’t. There’s still a lot to do. They won’t stop until we stop them. They’re just laying low and regrouping.”