Rafe’s voice came out cold. “She’s talking about Rowle. He was our common ancestor.”
Chapter 10
RAPHAEL
Verðandi didn’t have to confirm my announcement. I could see the truth in her face. Jesus, no wonder Rowle had tried so hard to get me to join him rather than killing me as he had the other Wanderers. He must have known. Why didn’t he say anything to me? Would it have made a difference in whether I stuck by Verðandi’s side instead of joining him? I didn’t think so, but then I’d never been given the opportunity to decide.
“No way!” Tess said. “He’s Darth Vader to our Skywalker? That’s just unbelievable.”
“Darth Vader?” Verðandi asked.
“It’s a human reference. You have no reason to understand it,” I said.
Tess was animated and more excited than I’d seen her in weeks. Her hands started waving in the air. The little wyvern had its tail wrapped around her wrist as if he was afraid of being slung off.
“This is too much. I mean, telling me that Rafe is a distant cousin. Okay, I can accept that, even if I don’t know if I can get over that ick factor–”
“Ick factor?” I interrupted.
Her arms stopped wind milling long enough for her to stare at me. “Hello, we’re cousins and we’re doing things cousins shouldn’t be doing together.”
“Therese,” Verðandi said. “There’s nothing wrong with distant cousins–”
“Wrong has nothing to do with it. It’s just icky. I mean, it’s too late now to worry about ick, but if I had known…”
I chuckled; Tess could always phrase the most serious of circumstances into a triviality.
Tess glared at me. “It’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny,” I said.
She rolled her eyes at me. “All right, it’s a little funny, but just a little. A mote in God’s eye kind of little. I mean it’s weird enough that I’m shacked up with a man who is older than my mother, by a lot, but now Verðandi says that we’re also related. Sheesh! And to top it off, Rowle is like our great-great-grandpappy!”
“You can see why I had trouble telling you,” Verðandi said.
Tess slapped her forehead with her empty hand. “Oh, hell, that means Alex and I…”
Tess dropped her head into her hands, forgetting about the wyvern and the little beast squealed. “Oh, sorry, Bruno.”
I was amused by Tess’s reaction to Verðandi’s announcement, but my own reaction was just as strong. However, being distantly related to Tess was not troubling me. Being a direct descendant of the rogue Wanderer we had killed was troubling. Regardless of his attempting to start Ragnarök, he was still an ancestor. Someone that I owed my very existence to and we’d killed him. Damn.
I realized I’d been quiet long enough for both women to eye me.
“What’s troubling you, Raphael?” Verðandi asked.
“I’m thinking that it would have been useful to have this information before Walt and I first encountered Rowle. Things might have played out differently.”
Verðandi stared at me without any sign of emotion.
“What do you mean, Rafe?” Tess asked.
“I mean, if we’d talked it out with Rowle as kin, Walt might have survived, and none of this would have come about.”
Verðandi shook her head. “Walt was not a descendant of Rowle. None of the other Wanderers he killed were his descendants. He must have felt some familial bond with you, but he displayed no reluctance to kill when he confronted the other Wanderers.”
“Still, if I’d known–”
“You think you could have stopped him from killing your mentor by beseeching his feelings for you? You give yourself and Rowle too much credit, Raphael. Walter had disrupted one of Rowle’s plans and thus he had to die.”
I frowned, not wanting to believe her. “You can’t know that.”
“Have you forgotten who you speak to? I am Fate. I know what events will unfold.”
“But you aren’t infallible. You miss things. You missed telling me that Rowle was killing the other Wanderers when we could have stopped him if we’d combined our power. All the other Wanderers are dead because you failed to tell us that you saw their deaths.” My voice was scornful, but my throat was tighter than any time in recent memory. What had me so upset? Was it the other Wanderers’ deaths or was it just that it had all led up to my killing Laura?
Verðandi moved her gaze from me to the fire. For long seconds, she didn’t speak and when she did, her voice was as tight as mine. “I can see the threads that make up the lives of man and gods, but I cannot change them without affecting many of the other threads. If I’d interfered to stop Rowle earlier, then Therese would not have become a Wanderer.”
“Me?” Tess said. “That’s what troubles you? Damn, I would rather not be a Wanderer than have so many deaths on my head. Laura, Joe, those gods who died on the battlefield while helping against Rowle’s horde. What is my fate compared to those lives?”
“You are necessary for the future of the Wanderers. It’s not good for man to know of his fate.”
“But–” Tess began.
“That’s all I will say!” Verðandi snapped.
She stood up quickly. With a wave of her hand, the fire and rocks disappeared back into wherever they’d come from.
Tess and I dropped onto our butts in the snow that had suddenly returned.
The wyvern squawked a complaint as Tess dropped her hands into the snow to catch herself.
When I looked up, Verðandi was gone.
“Damn it,” I snarled scrambling back to my feet and kicking the snow out from in front of me. I wanted to lash out, to strike something, to vent the frustration I felt dealing with the goddess. Why did the damn gods have to be so condescending, so inscrutable?
Tess
