I smiled, although it broke my heart to think of what my words had done. I formed the next few words carefully. “For you, Ailill, lord of the village, for you alone, I have another command.”
Ailill’s shallow breathing slowed somewhat, and his face grew less terrified. His eyes dared not blink and would not move from mine.
My words meant for Lord Elric, backed by the ferocity of the abused women among my ancestors, had been too powerful to undo. I couldn’t speak a countermand directly, for I had passed my power to all of the village’s women, and they knew nothing but contempt for their abusers. I had forbidden the lord company in his castle, I knew, but I wondered if Ailill would still get around my words by seeking company elsewhere. Avery, her hands now so soaked in blood, would be unlikely to put much thought into saving Ailill so fresh after her victory. If he ran to someone like Livia, to whom he was not blood related, Ailill could vanish from existence. Long before I could meet him.
But how could I save him? I felt the hot sting of my foolishness, for even if I had intended the worst for Elric and the rest of the men, even those words rightfully placed would have harmed this poor, dear boy before me. I thought, too, of the men I knew from my time. I thought of Father and the shade he became following Mother’s illness. I thought of Master Tailor and Jaron, stuck loving two women whose hearts would never Return to them—and also, by forcing them each to bear responsibility for a man’s misery, what my words would do to rend Alvilda and Mistress Tailor unhappy. I thought of Mother and all of those who loved where love was not wanted. I thought of Nissa and Luuk and all the rest—children who grew up overnight because of the love I forced upon them. I thought of friends lost to love, and love lost to friends. I thought of Jurij, and all the lost hope of love I would come to know because I myself willed it.
There was no deep malice in my village’s men. What disdain there was only existed because I had forced them to think of none other than their goddesses. Perhaps my words this day had made that happen, but they had doomed the men of my village, too. They had doomed us all.
“Ailill, though you may be bound by words already spoken, hide away and banish women and girls from your castle. Do not allow them even to look upon the castle, so that they may forget it and leave you alone. Treat the villagers well, but do not, if you can help it, walk among them—if you do, the earth will tremble, and the skies will rumble to scare the villagers away from you, to protect you from harm. The same will happen if a woman lays her eyes upon your abode. Await your goddess safely within your castle. She will find you.”
The words came freely to me, but without the force I’d felt before. It was like these were my own words, and those others were someone else’s.
The tears slowed their descent down Ailill’s trembling cheeks. A snowflake appeared on his dark eyelashes, but the flame within his eyes couldn’t melt it. Snow was falling, despite the previously temperate weather, threatening to blanket us in white.
“You will feel compelled to love your goddess, but do as your heart tells you. If you are ever to vanish at her direct gaze, you alone shall have the power to return.”
I bent forward and kissed him atop the forehead. The frigid snow that peppered his scalp chilled my lips.
The roses beside us were blanketed in snow, hardly a trace of their red petals to be found. Letting go of Ailill’s face, I yanked at a snow-covered blossom, not caring that a thorn poked my finger as I did. I tore out the thorn and placed the newly white rose in Ailill’s open palm, giving his hand a tight squeeze with both of mine.
“Return back to life in your own time, if you alone will it. Return as if you had merely spent a time sleeping. And free yourself of woman’s power upon your return.” I bit my lip. “I command you to overcome the power of women at last upon your return.”
I stood and pulled the shawl down over his face. A braver woman, a nobler woman, would stay and help the boy through the fate I had given him, but that woman was not me. There was no place for the kind of woman I was here, a pretender. The violet glow of the cavern was already calling for me.
Still, as I turned to go, I paused at the fountain, remembering the crying boy who would one day be entombed atop of its cascade of water. The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that the statue was of Ailill as a boy, now that I knew how he looked then. Had Ailill had that statue carved? Did it remind him of what I’d done to him, of what I’d done to all men, to women, too? What I wanted to do now was selfish, and I had been selfish enough to doom all of our kind. But still, my mouth opened.