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Fand retrieved the blade from Emer's back. The power of the cauldron, it was already starting to work... only I'd never seen what it would do when someone yet to die was exposed to the potion brewed from the cauldron. She wasn't dead yet. The cut was shallow enough that it would still take some time to work. How much time, I couldn't say.

Fand placed her hand over the would and channeled faerie magic into Emer's body. A golden glow enveloped Emer's body. She healed her before the poison and the blade took her life.

Emer screamed. "But I wanted to die! Without my love, without Cú Chulainn, what is left of this life worth living!"

"You!" Cú Chulainn shouted when he spotted Doidrich. "You come to kill me at the Faerie King's behest?"

Cú Chulainn was overcome with rage. He charged Doidrich as the ríastrad began to emerge.

Doidrich quickly lifted his hand and shot Cú Chulainn with a bolt of energy, the same lightning he'd cast before. My beloved fell, his body convulsing, on the floor.

Fand charged the blade that I'd given to Emer, the one infused with the cauldron's power, and overwhelmed it with power until it dissolved into thin air.

"It was her!" Doidrich said, pointing at me. "She was the one who did all of this!"

"I only came that true love might be realized..."

"That you would make the warrior loveyou,you mean," Doidrich said, sneering through his cowl. "That you might dissuade his heart away from either of these noble women!"

"I confess," I said. "I do love Cú Chulainn."

"She was the one who gave me the blade!" Emer added. "She told me to kill the faerie."

Doidrich smirked as he released Cú Chulainn from his spell. Now that Cú Chulainn knew the truth, Doidrich had no reason to kill him. Now, in his jealousy, Doidrich was going to torment me by letting him live, by making me watch as Cú Chulainn chose the woman he'd love.

"And my husband..." Fand said.

I lowered my gaze to the ground. "He loves you still. It was I who set the Fomorians against you."

"You what!" Cú Chulainn shouted as he approached me, clenching his fists in rage.

"I was setting you up that you might be her hero... that you two might be together."

"Only you had other plans after that, did you not, Morrigan?" Doidrich asked.

"What Emer said is true. I am the one who gave her the blade."

"I can't believe this!" Cú Chulainn shouted, his eyes piercing me like daggers. I couldn't even bear to return his stare with a glance.

"I only wanted you to love me, Cú Chulainn. To love me as I love you..."

"These plans of yours... if you loved me you wouldn't try to have the one I love murdered and turn the other woman whom I love into a murderer, in turn!"

Fand cocked her head slightly. She'd heard what I heard. He confessed he loved them both. Either way, my plan had been foiled.

"My plans were misguided, I see that now."

"Misguided?" Cú Chulainn rolled his eyes. "You are a goddess... how can you be so misguided?"

"I was but a girl once," I said. "Three girls in fact. And you are the only one—mortal or god alike—whom I ever saw who could claim all of our hearts. But your heart, it always belonged to others..."

"If my husband loves me still," Fand said, taking Cú Chulainn's hand. "I must return to him."

"You what?" Cú Chulainn asked, his rage against me quickly changing to disbelief.

"The love Emer has for you... she was ready to give her life to save you from the blade. The depth of love she has for you, Sétanta... it's the sort of love that can only be consecrated by a vow. It is a vow you've taken for her as I took one like it for my husband. Consummated or not, your words and promises were spoken. It was wrong for me to come here to be with you. You should be with Emer."

"Fand... I don't know what to say..." Emer said, shaking her head. "I do not know if I can move forward with my husband knowing his heart was so easily swayed from his vows once before. So long as that memory haunts me, I don't know that I can ever love him again in quite the same way."