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That Mallory could have her burned at the stake should no longer matter. She was powerful and was letting Mallory, a human, keep her from everything she could be.

Come to me then,something inside of Bryn whispered, and she knew deep down this was the part of her that was the Morrigan.

The tingling along her skin, the headaches that pushed at her since the sandstorm, all the sensations that she fought, she gave in to.

To take out all the rage on Mallory as her aunt had done to her so many times when Bryn was young. When she was so small and unable to defend herself.

While her mother lived up north, blissfully unaware of the pain Bryn lived through every day.

“Bryndis.” Her aunt seethed as Bryn watched Mallory move closer.

The woman narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out why Bryn wasn’t cowering back yet, but there was a promise there that Mallory would find a way to make it happen eventually.

Bryn started laughing as she looked at Mallory posturing and the subsequent confusion when it didn’t work as it once had.

“Think about what you are doing, Bryn. You can’t take every decision back,”Kian growled in her ear from where he had formed next to her. She spun, pointing a finger at his chest.

“Says the Fomori assassin,” she growled.

“What in the name of all that is holy do you think you’re doing?” Mallory found her voice finally as Bryn stood there, her fist clenched, her eyes moving from Kian to lock on the woman who had spent Bryn’s childhood lying to her about her mother.

“My mother is alive, and you never told me!” Bryn yelled, slamming her fist into the wall, breaking through the plaster as white rained down from the spot she’d hit.

With wide eyes, Mallory turned and ran back to her room, but Bryn was quick to grab the edge of the door, pushing it open as Mallory tried, and failed again, to close it.

“Get out!”

“No,” Bryn growled, pushing her way into Mallory’s apartment. The entire place smoky from the incense she lit during prayers. The walls covered in propaganda to her false god. Balor was everywhere in this apartment, and some place deep inside of Bryn seethed at a level she didn’t know existed inside of herself.

For once, Bryn did not feel judged or intimidated being here. She did not feel powerless.

Bryn turned to Mallory and waved the burning sage into her own face as Mallory watched.

“Guess it does nothing to repel the demons like you thought, huh?” Bryn laughed, sure that she sounded deranged.

Bryn was sure shewasderanged at this point.

Mallory was a human who worshipped a deity that had ruined their world. That would see Bryn dead if she didn’t take hold of the power she had been given.

Bryn’s vision reddened, and Mallory’s eyes widened. As if Bryn was physically different now, her anger changing her.

“Witch!” Mallory stumbled back, her eyes wide. “I always knew you were made of the dark magic!”

Bryn smiled until she thought her face might split. Oh, how close Mallory was to the actual dark magic and yet she had no clue.

A primal part of Bryn loved that Mallory flinched when she took a step toward her aunt.

“Bryn, keep it together and remember she is human,”Kian’s voice cut in, but Bryn was done trying to fit into a world that had chosen long before she had ever stepped foot in this callous town that they would not accept her.

Finally, Bryn chose to no longer acceptthem.

“My mother is alive!” Bryn’s voice boomed, the echo of it filled with a power that Bryn was sure made the tiny hairs on the nape of her prey stand up.

Mallory shook her head, her fingers going into her ears as if trying to get something out, unable to hear.

“As far as any of us were concerned, she was dead! She was full of sin, and we had hoped you would overcome your sinful heritage,” Mallory replied in a voice far too loud.

“My sinful heritage? And who is ‘we,’ because as far as I knew, my father loved me as I was.”