“What I know, girl, is that I’m the last one you should think about getting uppity with. I ain’t one of them precious aunts of yours. I ain’t got no real use for you, so stomping on you until you’re nothing but shit on me claw won’t mean nothin’ to me.”
With a slight shake of her head and a deep intake of breath, the girl sighed out, “Fine.”
Then the girl slapped her hand against Brigida’s forearm, pressing her fingers against the scales. And, in that instant, Brigida knew the girl was in her head! Physically inside her mind. Looking around, examining shit. Being nosey, Brigida’s mum used to call it.
Shocked and annoyed, Brigida tossed her out, but when the girl’s eyes snapped open, there was nothing there but cold rage.
“You bitch,” the brat growled, her voice low. No longer the sweet darling of the Cadwaladr Clan. “You know what they’re looking for. What they’ve been torturing and killing for all these months. You know!”
“Don’t bellow at me, little bitch! I’ll rip that puny soul right out of you and drink it down like wine.”
She faced Brigida head-on. “Then do it.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Take my soul. Drink it down like wine. Do it.”
Brigida reared back a bit. “What is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?” Rhianwen asked. “I’m tired of your shit.”
“You’ve lost your mind, little girl, if you think you can take me on.” Brigida flicked her claws. “Get from my sight until you get control of yourself.”
Then Brigida turned to go, but she reared back and, for the first time in eons, she gazed in horror around her. For she was no longer in her cave. But in a field of vast green, with trees and lakes and mountains as far as her old eyes could see.
“What the . . . what the fuck have you done?”
“What’s going on?”
Brigida looked over her shoulder and saw the twins. They were both here. Physically. Although she knew for a fact that the boy had been far outside her cave with the other Abominations and the girl had been with her mother leagues away at Garbhán Isle.
“What’s happening?” Brigida demanded. “Where am I?”
“She knows,” Rhianwen told the twins. “She knows and she hasn’t said a word.”
The boy “tsk-tsk’d” her. “Oh, Auntie Brigida. Still choosing sides?”
“The only side I have is me own. Thought you knew that.”
“We’re beyond your side,” Talwyn told her. “Right now, there’s only two. Ours. And his.”
She was talking about Chramnesind.
“So if you’re not helping us,” Talwyn went on, “you’re helping him. And we can’t have that.”
“You lot think you can take me down? Me?”
“Take you down?” Rhianwen asked. “No. Leave you here to rot? That we can do.”
“See over there?” Talwyn asked, pointing. “Those three?” Brigida glanced over and spotted the souls of three shamans. They looked like Riders of the Western Mountains. Unlike the Riders of the Outerplains, these Riders were slave traders and Queen Annwyl had made it her business to destroy them. A war that had come right to Annwyl’s door when the children were still very young. “They tried to kill us when we were . . . eight?”
“Nine,” Talan corrected.
“We’ve had their souls here ever since. When I need a little extra oomph, I feed off them. Which Rhi hates.”
“It’s one thing to keep them here, because what they did was wrong. But to feed off them is tacky.” Abruptly those silver eyes locked on Brigida. “But with you, Auntie, we’ll do it.”
“You see,” Talan explained, “our mother gave up her life for us. And now she risks her life, every day, not just for us, but for her entire queendom. The least we can do is help her succeed. Not only to keep her reign, but to keep her people safe.”
“And if that means,” Talwyn went on, “that we need to drink from you like a piglet draining its mum’s teat, we will. Leaving nothing but your fucked-up eye and your tail. So whatever you know, bitch—”
“—you better fucking tell us!” Rhianwen finished on a bellow.
Brigida studied the three of them and realized that she’d underestimated the little shit stains.
“Yeah,” Brigida finally admitted, “I know what they’re looking for.”
“Tell us and we’ll go get it first.”
“Do you think if it was that easy, I wouldn’t have done it by now? Even just to have that power in me claws. But we can’t. No witch or shaman or priest can. It would just absorb our magick, trap us. Kind of like you’ve done to them over there.” She pointed at the shamans, who were reaching out to Brigida, begging for help. Any other time, she’d drain the bastards dry. But this place, with all its beautiful greenery, wasn’t a safe place for her. It was a safe place for these three. Created by these three.