Page 25 of The Winter Goddess

The Sixth Death

When I woke next, I felt different. I was no longer hot, and for a moment I was relieved, thinking the fever had finally broken.

But I was cold, too cold and…I sat up in shock and fear, looking down at my blue skin.

I was sitting on one of Tara’s cold marble floors. And I was immortal once again.

I bit my lip to keep myself from crying out, my mind swirling. This would not be the end of my time with Fionn. I would not let it be. My eyes narrowed as I heard a gale of laughter coming from the other room. They were here and had not even noticed that I had died. But no matter. I closed my blue hands into fists. I knew Danu’s secrets. It was time to wield them.

When I’d first been given a mortal body, it had been confusing, clumsy, and weak, and now I felt the same way in this immortal one. As I walked through the palace, my skin shifted once more to different shades of blue with each shadow, but as I watched it transform, my gorge rose, as though I were witnessing something unnatural. The power in my body made me uneasy. It had been a long time since I’d walked the world as a god, and my stride was so powerful that when I looked back, I could see imprints of my feet in the marble. I thought of how I would tell Fionn about that, how I would describe it for him; I was sure I would return to him—I would make it so.

I was still thinking of Fionn when I reached the dining room. They were all there, eating a feast. Or perhaps it was a normal meal; I could no longer tell what they would consider abundance. I looked on everything with mortal eyes now.

At first they didn’t even notice me enter the room. Then Lug looked up. He swore, dropping the small bird he’d been holding, which bounced on the floor but didn’t leave greasy prints on the marble, didn’t even leave an imprint of its ruby sauce.

Danu waved her hand, gesturing for one of her great cats to pick up the bird, and then her eyes met mine. Her mouth opened in an absurd O and there was an explosion of sound as they all rose to their feet and began shouting.

“How did you get here?”

“You can’t kill yourself. It’s impossible.”

Danu waved her hand once more, and silence fell over all of them. They looked so foolish, standing there. Their bodies were simultaneously powerful and indolent, and though they had all been eating, you would not have been able to tell. Their lips did not hold a shine of grease and their fingers were clean, though they had just been dipping them into a sauce as red as blood. There were no crumbs on their table or in their beards. They looked so…false. As though they were playing at eating, at living. I could not help but laugh.

“How are you here?” Danu cut through my mocking. “What did you do?”

“I died, Danu.” I bit the words out.

“But how?” Danu demanded. “Did you fall? Did you…meet a wolf in the wood?” I laughed again, and the sound was so bitter, so harsh, echoing through the hall, that Morrígan flinched and Dagda covered his ears. “But you weren’t…you weren’t ill,” Danu said. “I looked in on you the other night and you were just…asleep, with that man in your bed.” Her eyes were wide, bewildered.

I held up my hand, my perfect, whole hand. “I cut myself,” I said. “I was cooking and Fionn surprised me.”

Lug laughed. “A mortal cannot die from a cut. They are so clumsy they would be falling over dead every hour, every moment.”

I stared at him. “They do die every moment.”

Lug opened his mouth but then closed it again at the look on my face.

“I’m sorry,” Danu finally said. “I know—”

I raised my chin. I did not want her sorrow. “I must speak with you alone, Danu.”

The other gods began to protest but Danu looked at me with fear and anger in her eyes. “Leave,” she said finally. “I would speak with my daughter alone.”

I only spoke when they had left and the hall was empty, and I chose my words carefully.

“I wanted to thank you.”

Danu’s hands clenched. This was not, I knew, what she expected me to say.

“I understand why you gave me mortality,” I continued. “I understand now what I never could have before—that mortals are more than the gods. That they experience more in a single day than we do in a lifetime. I’m—grateful to you, for this gift. For the lives that I have lived.”

Something softened in Danu then, something eased, and a person who did not know her might have seen it as benevolence. I saw it for what it was: self-satisfaction. A goddess receiving what she thought was her due. This was good. I needed her to feel thus.

“Cailleach, I’m so glad to hear—”

“And”—I spoke over her—“I do not want to return here, to this unbounded decadence.” The walls of the throne room were glowing with color, the feast of fat things spread out on the long table. “I want to remain a mortal, and I want to die as one.”

Danu looked at the table and then back at me, her eyes wary but curious as though she truly wanted to know. “Why would you wish such a thing?” Her voice was soft as the wind through a golden field of grain. “You would never again see your skin change color.” She stretched out her hand and cast shadows that brought out the blue. “You would never again walk the world or sleep in a snowbank or swim in icy seas. Why would you give up all your power?”

“I want to see my family again.” My voice was almost a whisper. Danu opened her mouth to speak, but I raised my hand. I had one more request. “I want to go back to Fionn,” I said. “I want to wake up in his arms and I want him to remember me.”

“We promised not to interfere.” Danu frowned.

“Danu.” I took a step toward her, my eyes intent on hers. “I know your secret. And you know what will happen if I speak it.”

At that, her eyes widened, then narrowed. “Are you threatening me, daughter?” Her voice was a hiss.

“It is not a threat.” Even in the face of her ire, I stood calm. “It is just the truth. There are limits to all things. Even to your power. Even to you.”

“How dare—”

“I will not fight with you again, Danu. I am here to bargain.” I took a breath. “I want Fionn. I want him to remember me.”

I saw the fight in her face, the frustration with the game I played with her— my game, for once. The rising hope in her eyes, the desire to simply sweep her hand and return to her feast, to her gods, to those who believed in the fullness of her power. And after a long moment of looking at me, fear and curiosity and anger still tangled up in her expression, she took the easy, gentle path. As I’d known she would.

She pointed a finger at me. “Return.”