Cate Tiernan - Origins

Oh, Goddess, how could he be so disloyal? Disappointment overwhelmed me as I fell into a dark state, my hand resting upon the child within my belly.

The creak of a door. A sliver of light.

Someone was entering my chamber.

“Hark!” he said, peering over the flame of the candle.

I sat up on the dirt floor. “Diarmuid?” My head was clogged from sleep, but indeed it was him, coming into the cell.

“Where are the guards?” I asked in surprise.

“They are blind to me,” he said as the door creaked closed behind him. “I cast a see-me-not spell, rather successfully, I might add. And those bumblers are spelled deep asleep.”

How could he joke at a time like this? I turned my face away, not willing to meet his eyes. “Have you come to gloat over my demise?” I asked.

“Of course not. I’ve come to extract one last promise. I was pleased by the way you held your tongue today, not mentioning my name. I trust you’ll keep silent till the end.”

I spun around to glare at him. “Silent!” I shouted. “Silence is the reason I am here! Why did you not answer my messages?” I stamped the ground with my foot. “Why did you not come forward to defend me and claim your child?”

He lowered his chin, his blue eyes abrasive. “How am I to know the bairn is mine?”

Furious, I took a swing at him, but he bobbed so that my fist caught only air. As I stumbled back, he caught my arms and held me in place. His eyes swept down my body to my breasts, my swollen belly. “And you thought I would claim your child?” he said with sudden disdain. “Knowing your wanton ways, you’ve probably bedded dozens like me.”

His words infuriated me, but my fury was checked by my revelation. The man standing before me was not noble nor true nor even kind. And he had never been the sweet perfection I’d glimpsed under the Goddess’s sky.

His pentagram dangled at his neck, glinting mockingly.

Suddenly I wanted to scratch out his glittering eyes and smite the grin from his pretty face. I did not love this man. How had I ever loved one who so cagily used me, took of my body and my heart, then abandoned me for dead?

“Get out!” I growled. I kicked at his legs, aiming high but just glancing off the top of his thigh.

Still, it was enough to scare him off. He released my hands as he doubled over.

Reaching out, I grabbed at his pentagram and pulled. He did not deserve to wear this! He did not deserve to pay homage to the Goddess! He made a little choking sound as it snapped off. With a feeling of righteousness I dropped the pentagram to the ground.

Diarmuid rubbed his neck. “You’re rather feisty for a condemned woman,” he said. “And I should be the one throwing punches, what with the way you charmed me. I found the rose stone in your pocket. Powerful magick you make. ’Twas lovely while it lasted, but love soon fades to lust and needs. And my needs are well fulfilled by my own coven.”

Fury burned inside me. “And Siobhan,” I said. “You have lain with her because. because ’tis the easiest path to take.”

He shrugged. “A man has certain obligations to his clan, and to marry a Wodebayne, I would have been falling short of everyone’s expectations. You truly caught my eye. Even when Siobhan undid the power of your charmed stone, my desire to take you did not abate. Even now. I long to hold you one last time...” He reached for me hungrily.

“In a pig’s eye!” I shouted, pushing him away. “Begone from here, Diarmuid! For our passion was not about lust nor favor! Did you not stand in the circle with me and summon the Goddess? Did we not pledge our love under her sky and promise to—”

“A witch says many things, chants many things,” he said. “Often we say words we do not comprehend. ’Tis part of the—”

“I knew what I was saying!” Hatred swelled within me as all illusions of beauty and goodness melted away from him, revealing a diabolical monster. I pointed to the door. “Begone from here before I have at you, for I swear, I will tear the hair from your lovely head.”

“Don’t you threaten me, Rose!” Diarmuid lunged at me, backing me against the wall. “For despite your powers with the Goddess, I have the physical power to overcome you, and aye, I am stirring at the very touch of you, wench!” His eyes sparkled deviously. I felt stunned, unable to move. Was it possible that this boy—this boy I had seen as the answer to all of my prayers—would ravish me by force?

I struggled to get away, but he only tightened his grip.

“I will have you, Rose, for who will stop me? You are locked in prison, completely alone. Do you think the guards will answer your cries? The pleas of a witch sentenced to die?” He pressed his hips against me, pushing me into the cold stone wall.

I felt sickened by his touch, furious at his determination to overcome me. And I had loved him! How had I ever loved this cruel, conniving beast? Feeling it was hopeless to fight him, I collapsed against the wall. He was stronger than I. I knew I had to summon magick, but my mind was wild and scattered.

Seeing me relax, he released my hands and lifted my skirts. “Come on, Rose,” he said, fingering my thighs. “I shall make it painful if you fight me.”

Seizing the freedom of my hands, I grasped his face and pressed my nails in, hoping to scratch his pretty blue eyes out. “Aye, then let’s make it painful!”

He gasped as my fingers penetrated his skin. His hands quickly encircled my wrists and pried me off, but not before I’d managed to scratch his cheeks. “Are you mad?”

“So they say!” I wrenched my hands free of him and backed away, rubbing my wrists. “But I’ll not spend my last night on earth being defiled by the lust of a lying coward.”

He pressed his fingers to his cheek and saw the crimson smear there. “You drew blood,” he said in horror. For a moment I thought he would weep with despair.

Focusing my mind, I held up my hands to ward him off. “Next time I’ll use dealan-dé ,” I told him. “And if I had an athame, I would plunge it right through your festering heart.”

Holding a hand against his cheek, he sucked in his breath. “I cannot wait till the morrow.” His face was hollow and angular in the candlelight, a hideous, hateful specter. “I will relish the moment of your death.”

Before I could respond, he fled from the cell, leaving only a lit candle behind.

A lit candle. Fire of the Goddess.

Diarmuid had left behind the one element I needed to balance out my circle. I had earth, wind, water, air. and now, despite all the attempts of the guards to keep it away from me, I had fire.

My fists clenched, I stared at the flame as fury raged within me. I burned for all the Wodebaynes who had suffered injustice at the hands of rival witches. Fire raged within me for Diarmuid—not the fires of passion, but the fires of hatred and fury. I burned with vengeance for Siobhan, who had stolen my place as Diarmuid’s wife and sentenced me to death, who had tried to take my mother’s life, too. And above all I was afire with love and sorrow for the babe in my belly, the child who had been condemned before she’d had a chance to take her first breath.

Sweat beaded on my forehead and dripped down my neck. What was happening? Pressing my hands to my cheeks, I found that my skin was sizzling hot to the touch, feverish despite the cool night air.

A fire raged within me, a fire from the Goddess, and I realized she was summoning me to a mystickal destiny. What? I asked. Where shall I go? Which way to turn? I felt pent up and trapped, unable to commune with her. I needed to see the moon.

Glancing up at the thatched roof, I realized that I could probably reach it with the help of the one chair in my prison. I pulled the chair to the highest spot and climbed up. Aye, my fingertips pressed against the thatching. I pulled at the straw, tugging it loose. I would claw and scrape until my fingers bled if it meant reaching out to the Goddess on my last night upon this earth.