The forest floor was bitterly cold, and her toes were touched by frostbite by the time she arrived at the foot of the Great Oak Tree. Its ash-white trunk and golden leaves were luminous in the darkness, blazing like a pale beacon in the moonlight. It was the king of the forest; tall and proud, its branches all-encompassing.
The woman knelt at its base and lay the babe on the forest floor. Then she lifted her head to gaze upon the power of the majestic Oak. Her hands, exposed from within the folds of her robe, were moving quickly and skillfully in a series of ancient runic symbols that she’d long ago learned. Her voice trembled in time to the movements, murmuring the words that had become as familiar to her as the common tongue. Then, finally, her hands ceased their movements and she cried into the still air, “I invoke thee!”
There was a blazing flash of light, so golden and pure that it seared her eyes, but she refused to lower her head against its harsh onslaught. Now was not the time to cower; now was the time to be strong.
As if from the tree itself, there appeared a huge, dark-haired man. Her heart compressed with hope when she spied his leather boots and plain rustic tunic. He’d come!
“Who calls me from my slumber?” the god intoned in a voice as deadly as it was melodious.
The woman trembled, her breath catching as she gazed upon the ancient deity. “It is Brenna, my lord Dagda. Your brother’s lover.”
The Dagda, also known as the King of the Druids or The Good God, became perfectly still and his form blazed with a coldness that was unnatural. “Look at me,” he breathed in a voice bitten by ice.
Brenna had no choice but to raise her eyes; her gaze immediately captured by Dagda’s. She felt the full effect of his attention as if it were a physical blow. Her breath constricted in her chest, and her eyes streamed with tears as she tried to maintain her hold on his visage without blinking. He would not respect weakness.
Dagda’s visage was a frozen mask as he gazed upon her face. “My brother is dead, killed for his treachery. And you”—he said softly, the tone belying the intensity of his words—“you are to blame for that.”
The words burned. They were a weight Brenna had borne for the past nine months. But she was unable to deny his statement, had never been one to run from the truth. “Yes,” she breathed. “I was to blame.”
Their dalliance had been forbidden.
Cernunnos had warned her that their union would court death; his and her own. And even though they both knew, they took the risk anyway. Eighteen months they’d had. Eighteen blissful months to enjoy each other, love each other. But in the end, he paid the ultimate price, and she’d been punished, left to die.
Except that she hadn’t—she’d defied all odds and survived.
And so had the babe.
Brenna’s chest was tight as she continued in a broken voice, “He was mine, and I was his. Can you blame me for holding onto him?”
“There’s no denying you were meant for each other,” Dagda said heavily, considering her as she knelt before him, taut and grieving. “But it was a cruelty to be together when your union was destined to end right from the start.”
“It was still enough!” shouted Brenna, her voice hoarse with emotion. “And I would not take it back for anything. Those moments we had together are worth a lifetime of heartache!”
A heavy silence fell. The babe mewled softly. At the sound, Dagda froze, his eyes dropping unerringly to the bundle on the ground. He began to shake his head from side to side. “No,” he whispered.
Witnessing the indecision that warred on his face, Brenna understood with frightening clarity that he was not pleased. Not willing to let fate play her hand, she reached down and whipped the fur away from the bundle at her feet. “It is true—look!” she insisted, stabbing a finger at the child’s head, or more specifically at what nestled among its dark curls. “He is Cernunnos’s son!”
The dark-haired god hissed. “Why?” he demanded harshly. “Why birth this child? You know a half-breed has no place in this world or the Other!”
As his blazing eyes struck hers, Brenna felt the full-honed blade of his anger, and her breath scorched in her lungs. “The babe came of its own accord,” she gasped, pushing past the force propelling down her ravaged throat. “You know what was done to me afterward, the punishment that was carried out—the torture, the rape! It should have killed me. It should have killed whatever life I had inside me!” She paused, eyes dropping to that innocent form as she whispered, “But it didn’t. The babe survived. And I believe he was meant to survive for a reason.”
“What reason?” Dagda snarled, “What reason is so great that you have cursed his life from birth?”
Brenna paled in the face of his wrath but answered quietly, “Cernunnos’s legacy.”
Dagda froze as her words punctuated through the veil of his anger. Then moments later, his face changed, a cunning slant to it as he cocked his head to the side and considered her. Brenna choked as she felt flames inside her throat. Her fingers clawed up her chest, scrabbling for purchase to open her airway.
“Please,” she rasped desperately. “He is all that is left of your brother.”
Grief crossed Dagda’s features. He lifted a hand, palm out, and in response, Brenna felt the fire inside her throat flicker and recede.
Over her gasping, she heard him demand darkly, “Continue! Or what you felt just now will be a glimmer of what’s to come.”
Brenna was well aware she could turn to ash at a single discarded whim. But strangely enough, she didn’t feel afraid. The time for fear had been and gone. After her people found out that she’d lain with a god, she’d suffered unspeakably many times at their hands. The wrath of Cernunnos’s brother, albeit one of the oldest and strongest of the gods, was nothing compared to the hell that she was dragged into during the months preceding the child’s birth. If Dagda chose to end her life now, Brenna wouldn’t be upset. She would be content that her struggles had finally ended, and excited that she would eventually be reunited with her lover in the Other—whether they remembered one another or not. Because Brenna firmly believed they would find their way back to each other, in this life or the next.
With this conviction pressed close to her heart, she answered softly, “I accept what was done to me and the punishment that was carried out, but I do not accept this child’s death. Cernunnos’s son is innocent in all this. He should not be killed for our sins!”
Dagda dropped his gaze back to the infant squirming at his feet. The babe’s movements had caused the furs to slip, his mewling cries now insistent as his near-naked body lay exposed to the frigid temperatures of the dark forest. Dagda whispered as if to himself, “I see him in this boy. It’s as if my brother has been resurrected in the flesh.”