I sat up, finding myself on a wide and extravagant bed. The room was white and gilt, elaborate and rich.
A room for an Empress.
Claudius was off his head. The words ran around and around my mind. There was no way I was a goddess. If I was, why the hell was I here on earth? Why didn’t I know who I was? And most importantly, how did I have one hundred and ten children, all of whom had elements of my power?
Utter madness.
Insanity.
So why was the gold, locked in its secret hiding place, begging me to let it out? What the hell was the gold?
Were the men of red seeking me because they were the gods of war? Holy crap. Was that my destiny?
I shook my head resolutely. No. Tristram, he hadn’t been of the red, and yet I loved him more than anything, more than I’d thought possible. We’d been happy in our little settlement until I’d turned eighteen and the march of the red army ruined everything.
At Fire Stone, we’d hated one another because we were cursed. Then we’d loved without question…
There had been no red army there.
No god of war… had there?
No, just the Mage and my father, who wanted my power for his own.
The power of a goddess.
What could a person do with the power of a goddess?
What could I do?
“You are thinking very deeply there.” I jumped as the voice interrupted my thoughts. Glancing to the side, I found a servant woman bent over a bowl of steaming water. “The Emperor wants you fit for dinner at the palace tonight.”
“No. No, I can’t do that.” I shook my head. I could not sit there as the godly or earthly wife to the god of war. No. It was an insanity I couldn’t comprehend. And then what if after dinner he planned to find a way to get the power he needed? His right as my husband.
I needed to get to the girls. They’d help me. I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew it. I’d felt no fear with them, only settled familiarity and comfort.
“Because they are your children, of a kind.” The servant woman said, answering my thought even though I hadn’t said it out loud.
She lifted her face and as she did, the steam from the water drifted across her face. I stared harder at her. She looked like I’d expect any older Roman Mediterranean woman to look: dark olive skin, streaked white hair. Her dress was a dark material, her hair plaited down one shoulder. But if I looked through the steam…
I let out a gasp. “Heather?”
“I had a feeling you would come here, so I took a head start.”
I stared at the kneeling woman who had spoken so many riddles to me. I stared at Mrs Cox who had guided me to Fire Stone, back to the land of the stones, back to Tristan and my memories.
“You look different, again.”
She tilted her head slightly again but then held her hand up. “I’m not the only one who is different.” Her shrewd gaze swept over me. “Tell me nothing of the future. I don’t want to know.”
“Is it true what he said, that I’m a goddess? I can’t be. What about Tristram? Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” I cut myself off from asking why she didn’t tell me any of this when she revealed herself in the sick bay at Fire Stone. She could have helped me beyond measure.
“It’s true. Mae, my sweet child, you are Maia, the goddess of nature and fertility. But your life is a curse, a burden you must always bear.”
“No.” I folded my arms over my chest. “No. I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true.”
“So why am I on earth? Why aren’t I up there?” I pointed at the ceiling. “Doing goddess things.”
“The ancient gods don’t sit up in a fictional heaven. They live down on the earth here, with the mortals. It’s what they are for.”
“For what?”
“To guide the mortal plane, to shape the destiny of existence.”
“Fuck.”
Heather scowled at my curse. “And to be seemly in everything they do.”
“So, I’m a goddess. And I’m to be married to that brute who wants to conquer the whole world?”
“No, although I guessed he would try that on you.”
I waited for her to elaborate. With a sigh she leant closer.
“The god of war always wants you. In every cycle of life, he searches for you. He needs you. Sometimes you help; sometimes you can heal and soothe the scars of the land.”
“Other times?”
“Other times you flee from him.”
“He told me the other girls were my children. How can that be? I’m eighteen.”
Heather laughed. “They are the bloodline of your children. Your skill gets passed on, but it dilutes over time.”
“How could you leave them down there like that? Why haven’t you helped them?”
“Mae, I’m a conduit. I told you that far back in the forest when you were just awakening to who you are. I sense you.”
“Why me? What about the other gods? Couldn’t you sense the god of war instead and stop him?”
“You don’t understand, child. You are the most important one. Without you there would be no trees, no forests, no plants, no insect or birds to live in them. No men to walk in them.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that instead of talking in riddles and giving me this?” I pointed to the necklace still hanging at my throat. It had been idle for weeks, ever since Tristram had died. “You told me it was to connect me. At first, I thought with Tristram, but then…” I stopped. She said she didn’t want to know about the future. Would she want to know I’d stepped back through the stones? Or maybe she knew? Right now, my understanding of
