And she was too embarrassed to ask.
She was supposed to be the one leading them, the one pulling them all together, the one they looked up to.
Bat hugged the harp closer to her as Finn put an arm around her shoulders and tugged her into his side.
That was… new.
“I’ve told ya before, acushla. I am here for you, no matter what you need.” The red-gold-haired sidhe kept his gaze on the horizon, presenting her with the clean lines of his profile.
“I do not need that right now. I mean, I would surely welcome it, but after last night I do not think the others would appreciate me making so much noise again. Well, not so soon.” Although she did want to make Finn hers before they reached the island.
It might be her last chance. He may not want her after…
After he saw how weak she was. After she was unable to keep her friends alive.
Bat shivered.
“I did no’ mean that.” He paused. “At least not right now.”
“What do you mean, then?”
He responded with a question of his own. “Why are you sitting here alone?”
“I…”
He waited. When she didn’t continue, he nodded, as though coming to some sort of conclusion. “I know a thing or two about secrets.”
She jerked under the comforting weight of his arm and tried to pull away. He didn’t let her. “Were you listening in on my and Ailis’s girl talk yesterday?”
He chuckled and leaned into her. “Girl talk? I would never. I’ve heard it’s a sacred time for women that must never be trespassed upon.” He finally turned his head and peered down at her, his golden-hazel eyes gentle. “Like I said, I know a thing or two about secrets. I know how to spot someone who is keeping them, and I know how they can make someone feel, especially someone who is not used to keeping them.”
Or, someone who is not used to keeping them from those who trust and care for her, Bat amended. But she did not say the words aloud.
“Most gods and goddesses I have interacted with keep secrets only because they can,” he continued. “I know that if there is something you are not telling us, then you have a very good reason.” He leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.
What should she say? Should she admit there were pieces of her visions she was holding back from everyone? But then he would ask her what those were, and she would need to outright lie, and she did not want to do that with him.
She stayed silent.
But she did take his words to heart. There was a very good reason she did not share all she knew. And it had not been any easy decision to come to. It was just that…
She felt as though she’d betrayed them in some way. She’d promised no secrets after her night with Dub. This was a betrayal of that promise. Then there was Ailis. How could Bat possibly withhold the vision of her best friend’s lifeless body? Shouldn’t she be doing everything she could to ensure her survival? Bat should be refusing to allow her onto the island, or sending her back to Sligo and the guardi headquarters with strict orders that the green-haired fae not leave the premises.
But Ailis was a puzzle piece on the very narrow path she had to tread to see Balor defeated.
Bat had chosen the fate of thousands, if not millions, of people over that of her friend.
And what about the immortals who had accompanied them to Tir Hudi? Everyone said they were here because of her, because she had shown them warmth, had treated them with equality and with care.
Now here she sat, acting just like every other deity they had ever known. She was no different from the beings despised by her new friends.
How could they possibly trust her?
Bat sighed.
Finn’s phone beeped. He pulled it out and frowned down at the screen. “It seems you are projecting, acushla.”
“What?”
“Mell just messaged me, asking what I was doing to you and why you were spiraling into ‘a farking mass of despair.’” His words were easy, conversational. His arm remained firm over her shoulder. “So, tell me, why the despair? Is it Balor?”
Bat let out a humorless laugh. The fae around them cast her concerned looks. Killer made his way to her and laid over her feet, pressing his side into her legs with a faint whine.
“How about I tell you a little story?” Finn said, ignoring her non-response. “Once upon a time, there was a little Egyptian goddess. Everyone who ever knew her had forgotten her. One day, she decided to go find a new home, and traveled the lands searching.”
Bat snuck a look at him. Where is he going with this?
“One damp and rainy night, she came upon a pub. It was a special place, one filled with magical beings, both beautiful and dangerous.”
He should have been a storyteller instead of a warrior. The tales he spins…
“This goddess knew nothing about the land she was in, or the people she had found. Nevertheless, she decided to help them where she could. These people welcomed her in their own way, giving her gifts and treating her with song and drink.”
Bat couldn’t hold back her smile at his rendition of her coming to Ireland. It sounded like a fairy tale.
“The goddess remained distant, though, for she did no’ trust these new friends. The goddess had no’ fully trusted anyone for millennia, for she had once been hurt by the people she cared for the most. She was not yet ready to hand over the last part of herself into the care of her new friends.”
“Over time she revealed herself bit by bit. She shared her past, and her worries and fears. She lived among these new people, not as a goddess, but as one of them. And they loved her for it.”
Tears gathered in Bat’s eyes as emotion welled. It was not sorrow, nor was it happiness. It was just… a big ball of emotion.
“One day, a new danger came to this land. It came in the guise of an ancient enemy, someone who was also connected to that goddess’s past. Old secrets were revealed, and these secrets threatened the new trust the goddess had built piece by piece.
“She overcame this trial, though. She was determined to guide her new friends though this troubling time, for she could see the path they would need to take to defeat this evil. She gathered them together, and gave them a purpose.
“Now, these friends were not warriors. Well, most of them were not. The goddess worried for their safety during the coming battle. What she did not realize was, they worried just as much about her.”
His words were low, meant for her ears only. Bat fell into the rhythm of them as pictures formed in her mind. The way he told it, she could imagine this goddess was not her, but someone else. The story unfolded before her.
“One day, the goddess received word from her old home. Whatever she had been told changed her. She once more grew distant, and distracted. Her friends wondered what she had been told that would change her back into the distant goddess who first set foot on their land. They missed her laughter, the smiles she would freely share, and the songs she would sing them.
“One of her new friends, a very close friend, saw what was happening. He had come to know this goddess very well, and knew she longed to share with someone what her old family told her. But he also knew she could not. It was perhaps not her secret to tell.”
Bat swallowed. “No,” she whispered. “It was not her secret to tell.” How could he cut to the quick of the situation so accurately? The way he stated the situation also gave her a new perspective. What had happened to Osiris, the fact the Egg of Creation could birth seeds of godhood. These were not her secrets.
“This goddess also received visions that she used to guide her companions,” Finn said, his words coming slower now. Not hesitant, but as though he was testing each word on his tongue before speaking it aloud. “One day she saw something that made her blood run cold. And she had a new decision to make. She could tell her friends what she saw and attempt to alter it, or she could keep it to herself and continue to guide them on the path she knew they needed to take to defeat this
evil.”
“The goddess must have been so sad,” she murmured, fully caught up in the tale.
“She was,” Finn agreed. “You see, she was no longer a distant goddess. She had formed bonds with those she lived with, had begun to care for them more than a deity should. For, she had forgotten something in her happiness and joy at finding her new family. She had forgotten that gods and goddesses remain distant from the lives of their followers and supplicants for a reason.” His hand ran up and down her arm. “Sometimes, those gods and goddesses must make sacrifices of their own, as much as it pains them, in order to protect the world around them.”
“It would not be her sacrifice.” The words slipped from Bat before she could stop them.
Finn ignored her. “This close friend of hers was not worried, though, for he remembered that she was still a goddess—and he had learned something about her while she lived among them. He had learned just how much this goddess valued their friendship and loyalty, and he knew she would do everything in her power to save her friends—even if she could not tell them, even if she pulled away from them, even if they did not understand.”
“She would,” Bat told him. “She would do everything she possibly could to alter what she had seen.” A tear slipped down her cheek and she reached up to wipe it away.
“I know.” The confidence in his voice settled Bat. Everything he had said was true. She had hated needing to keep things from everyone. It had felt as though she betrayed them, and she had withdrawn, the guilt piling up on her.
She wiped her eyes again and looked around her, truly looked at the mellow wood of the deck, the white painted bulwarks and rails, the brass trim and fittings. She looked at the hazy blue sky, and the blue-gray waves that swelled under the boat. She looked at the fae gathered around her, and the sneaking looks they sent her. She looked at Killer sprawled over her feet.
Then she looked at the man beside her. “When did you get to be such a wise man?”
Finn shrugged, his hand rubbing small circles over her upper arm. “It is always easier to see a situation when you are not the one in it.” The corners of his eyes pinched as something dark moved through them. “And as much as I dislike it, I really do know that sometimes there are things you cannot share, even with allies and lovers.”
I wonder what secrets he holds? Bat did not ask, though.
His words echoed Ailis’s from yesterday. Everyone has secrets, and some things were not meant to be known. She understood that, of course. But somehow Finn’s story let her know the truth of it.
Determination filled her. She may not be able to share the entirety of what she knew, but she would find a way to amend that last vision. She would find a way to prevent the end of Ailis’s and Daniel’s lives as she’d been shown.
“How about a song?” Finn suggested after a few more minutes of silence.
Yes, Finn somehow always knows what to say. Bat smiled up at him and he flushed.
“There it is,” he whispered, almost to himself.
Bat stretched up and laid a light kiss on his lips. A promise for later.
Then she pulled the harp from its pack. She fingered the strings for a few beats, searching for the song this moment needed.
She found it. Bat played them a song that spoke of losing and finding home. The fae listened, some tapping their feet, others dancing a few measures. But most of them simply listened as the goddess, their friend, let them know exactly how she felt about them.
“Goddess?” Ari stopped beside her, his needle teeth showing and claws tapping against each other.
“Yes?”
“We have finished searching the souls of those on the boat. I apologize that it took us so long. We needed to rest properly and regain our strength to ensure nothing was missed.”
“That is perfectly understandable, Ari.” Bat sat back in the chair she’d claimed as her own during dinner. It had been lively, bodies coming and going from the salon—Ciara trying to keep everyone from the galley, laughter from the pixies as they tampered with people’s food then flitted out of reach of swinging hands and fists.
The atmosphere had been very much like a night at the pub, only with less space and no way to kick anyone out. Or so Dub had grumbled when he left the bridge to gulp down his own meal.
“Did you find anything?” Bat asked Ari.
“No, goddess. We even checked twice, just to be sure. The human is deteriorating, though the portion of Balor’s soul housed within him has not fully taken over.” Ari’s lips pulled back in an instinctive snarl.
“Is the dream-guardian amulet helping?”
“I believe so. But, I do not think it is wholly effective. The human has not woken, and he continues to speak nonsense words in his sleep. I suspect Balor has some ability to see through him. I sense the faintest connection, similar to what we have with the cauldron, but much darker.” Ari’s gaze drifted to the half full bowl of crisps in the middle of the table.
Bat handed it to the man of ba who gripped it tight within his too-many-knuckled fingers.
The conversation of the few fae still gathered in the salon faded away.
“I am not worried about this. He has been removed from any conversations regarding our strategies, and will continue to be so. There are certain things both sides need to have happen, and one of them is arriving at Tir Hudi. We will simply need to move very quickly in our first few steps of surveillance.” Bat sent a smile toward the pink and red glows that hovered within one of the potted plants that had been placed in the main salon.
“Of course, goddess,” Daire declared, his red glow flaring. “We Smalls are much better than the Bigs at spying.” His little voice swelled with pride.
Bat’s smile stayed firmly in place, and it wasn’t forced. Or, mostly. After her conversation with Finn, and her song, something had clicked into place within her. She was a goddess, she could not change that. She was also a friend and a lover to the beings on this boat. She wouldn’t change that. The responsibilities inherent to each aspect of her would just need to learn to get along.
She may not be able to share everything she knew, but she would no longer distance herself from her companions, and she would find a way to alter the final outcome she had seen.
She yawned.
“Bat, ye’re still worn.” Ailis reached over the table and gave her a gentle shove. “Go sleep.” The green-haired fae slid a sly glance at Finn, who could just be seen though the windows of the salon. “Or, do something else to gain energy. Didn’t you once mention how… effective certain types of sacrifice were?” The wicked woman sent her brows up and down in a comically suggestive gesture.
It was too silly, and it should have made her laugh. Instead, it sent Bat’s mind in a direction it had been skirting around all day. She did want to make Finn hers, and tonight would be her last chance before the confrontation with Balor.
She rose from her seat. One last chance to live in the moment. It was time for her to grab another piece of happiness.
Chapter 19
Darkness. It surrounded him, cradled him, soothed him to sleep. He had been lost in it for centuries, he learned.
Even now it called to him.
He had to ignore it.
He stretched out his senses. Flashes and snippets greeted him, coming from each soul he’d reached out to in his slumber—each soul that had pledged itself to him.
One in particular shone brighter than the others. He followed the strand and found himself in a darkened room, swaying with the motion of a ship.
Ah, there it was, hidden in the crannies of a puny human’s mind. It was the piece of his soul that he had already embedded in an effigy even before Nuada’s blade had pierced his belly and stolen his life. This little bit of himself had been his tie to the world, and was what had finally allowed him to escape the darkness.
Soon, he whispered to that fragment of himself. We will be together soon.
The enemy was less than a day away. He would play with them, allow t
hem to believe they were the ones in control. That little goddess would not be able to thwart him.
After all, he’d had millennia to prepare for this day. Millennia since he overheard a whispered conversation between Osiris and Isis, and the seeds of his plan had been planted.
It was coming together. He’d needed the original vessel of creation out from under the watchful eye of Seth. He’d needed to die. He’d needed to gather his forces in secret, and what better way to do that than if everyone thought you were no longer there. He had needed someone who could speak with the vessel, who could persuade it into an act of creation one last time.
And she had come. A goddess from the homeland. A goddess who was no more than an ignorant girl, abused and alone. A goddess too innocent to ignore his whispers.
A goddess too in love with life to be able to ignore the seduction of The Final Melody. The song that would herald the end of the Egg of Creation, and the beginning of the world’s destruction.
She would play it, if only to save those around her.
Yes, all the pieces were coming together…
Chapter 20
Bastie,
If you were me, you would be purring…
Damn it is good to be a worshipped goddess.
- Bat, the very satisfied goddess
BAT
Bat faced Finn. Up on deck, he’d allowed her to take his hand. He’d allowed her to lead him belowdecks and down the passageway. He’d allowed her to take him inside her cabin.
Now he stood, feet apart and arms crossed, a stubborn look on his face.
What had happened to the tender man of that afternoon?
“Finn. Please. I… despite my visions, I do not know what will happen tomorrow, or the day after. I do not know if we will have this moment again. And…” She disliked the pleading note in her voice. Stopping, she firmed her resolve and met his hazel gaze. “And I am not interested in having regrets. I will regret it if we do not come together, if I do not grab this bit of happiness for myself, and for you.”
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