Page 33 of The Gods Time Forgot

Thirty-Three

By the time Finn arrived in Conleth Falls, it was after three in the afternoon. He might’ve gotten here quicker had he waited for the next train, but he couldn’t sit and do nothing all night. He needed to be moving toward Rua.

The quintessential summer town was glum and unwelcoming, and it had nothing to do with the grim light of day.

The moment he passed the WELCOME sign, he felt the subtle change in the air. He was an outsider intruding on well-kept secrets, secrets that would kill to be kept hidden.

There was no need for him to inquire about the hellmouth’s location. Its presence loomed ominous over the sleepy little town. The distant howls carried on the wind, whipping through the trees, telling him exactly where he needed to go.

There wasn’t a soul to be found on the cobbled streets. As he left Main Street, he made his way toward the forbidding woods. Beyond the graveyard beside the church, he could see the trail.

He hesitated at the cemetery’s entrance. There was no way but through. The idea of having one’s remains buried underground for all eternity had never much grown on him.

He took a deep breath, reminded of his own gruesome death, and crossed under the archway. He tried not to think about it as his horse’s hooves sunk into the uneven, spongy ground.

The headstones and grave markers were broken and splintered, growing more neglected with every step closer to the woods. These souls had long been forgotten, lost to the darkness that reached out from beyond the trees.

As the woods grew around them and the light from the afternoon faded, he could sense the tension in his horse. His own lantern did little to light their way as the sun began to dip behind the trees. He ignored the voice screaming in his head, telling him there was danger all around him. His only focus was on finding Rua.

He was forever chasing after her, and she was always just out of reach. But even with all the uncertainty, he had hope. Maybe it was a weakness, but he would not betray her by giving up.

There was good in Rua. The Rua from today was not the same Rua from his past.

“But we are together now. There is nothing more she can do,” he said, stoking the fire. The night was cold and full of stars.

“Nothing more she can do?” Rua’s voice broke. “She will not let us be.”

He sat down on the stone beside her.

“Run away with me.” She looked at him in earnest. “We could roam the world, do whatever we please, and truly be together.” She rose, a faceless shadow before the firelight, then bent down before him. Her eyes were level with his as she whispered, “We could finally live.”

“We would not live. We would be running for eternity.”

He watched the rage in her eyes come and go—a burst of light, then sudden darkness. She’d spent too long with her sisters. Scheming and killing.

He was going to have to draw out the good—he just hoped he could do it in time.

She was, after all, just like the others.

Three sisters with a penchant for killing tamed only by their link to one another.

To expect her to do the right thing simply because it was right was too big a risk. It wasn’t worth it to put forth the temptation.

Dread was the common thread woven throughout his broken memories. No matter which way he looked at them or how he tried to remember it all differently, disaster waited around every turn.

It was an eerie sense of recognition, the kind that made his heart stop and made him wish he could go back to how it was before, when he was unaware.

Slowly, he traversed the uneven ground. The landscape was unfamiliar, but he felt a familiar buzz in the air. A warning that he was somewhere he shouldn’t be.

“Help!” He heard a shout.

“Rua?” he called, riding faster.

“Please, help!”

He followed the woman’s cries deeper into the woods. Every part of him was on edge.

“Where are you?” Finn called, but as he approached the basin of water nestled among the rocks, he recognized it immediately. He slowed his horse.

The hellmouth.

“I’m over here,” the voice called, spurring him to action.

He tied his horse and ran to the mossy mound with the triangular hole cut in the center, revulsion coursing through him. He hated this place and every other one like it.

“Who’s there?” the woman shouted from the inside of the cave. He recognized the voice.

“The Lord of Donore,” he answered. Cú Chulainn , he thought.

“My lord, oh, thank goodness. It’s Mara, Emma’s maid.”

So they were both keeping up pretenses. For whom, he didn’t know. They were in the middle of the woods at hell’s door.

“Please, pull me out, my lord,” she begged.

“How did you get in here?” he asked, noticing a terrible odor.

“Emma. She’s gone mad. When she learned where her mother was taking her, she forced me out of the house and brought us straight up here.”

Finn’s stomach dropped knowing the maid meant Rua.

“Where has she gone?”

“I don’t know, my lord. Please make haste.”

Against his better judgment, he knelt before the hole to offer Mara his arm. Gods above, he didn’t want to go inside. He couldn’t. He just hoped his arm was long enough to reach hers.

As his hand crossed the threshold, between the world he knew and the darkness below, he felt an unfamiliar rumble in his chest. A frenzied vibration that sent his heartbeat racing and his world spinning. As his vision began to blur, clouded by rage, he yanked his hand back before it could go any farther.

“My lord?” Mara called for him.

Chest heaving, he looked down at the opening and the stone resting atop it. This was the Morr í gan’s lair, an invisible gate to hell, and it had unlocked something primeval inside him.

“My lord, are you still there?”

“I’m sorry, Mara, I can’t pull you out.”

Startled to find a woman in a hole who needed help, he was too quick to take Mara at her word. But what if Rua had put Mara in this hole for good reason?

Mara was the enemy. The enemy of a killer, he reminded himself.

The path to warping his morality, all in service of Rua’s interest, was swift, to say the least. So blinded was he by his passion that he’d forgotten what she’d done.

He might not remember the life he used to live, but she certainly was the one who had taken it from him. Speared and beheaded at the hands of Rua and her bloodthirsty sisters. And it seemed Rua was going to take this life away from him too.

Gone was his contentment; in its place was intense yearning. Longing for the truth, and for justice, but most of all for her.

He cursed, knowing that in this life and the next, he would love her. No matter the pain she inflicted, intentional or not, he would be hers, always.

“Where is Rua?” he shouted down to Mara.

“I don’t know where she’s gone. Probably to the house to gather a bag. She’s running away.”

“Running away?”

“She’s not Emma, you know.” Mara’s voice changed.

He knew this.

“Emma’s right here, beside me, dead.”

Finn swallowed the lump in his throat, noting the tightening in his chest. He’d danced around the possibility for ages, but he’d never allowed himself to fully consider it.

“Your precious Rua cut her throat.” The last word came out like sob, but he had heard enough.

With almighty speed, Finn tore through the trees. Somehow he knew exactly where to go. He could sense Rua and the darkness hovering, leading her astray. She was fighting it, but he could never be sure what part of her was winning.

If only he had listened to her when she asked him to run.