25. Rodan

25

Rodan

A t first, Rodan wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. And then he had the thought, did Maeve ever bear a child? Before there was the two of us?

But there had been no sign of childbirth upon her body and, once he glanced at Lydia, his gaze stuck. There was— no. No, it can't be.

They had not had children yet. The potion, he took it each morning, and he was diligent in its application. He would not stop taking it until Maeve said it was time. Her father had said?—

Said what, exactly?

This is immutable.

Maeve , he called through the bond, which had shuttered as the words impacted her. This cannot be. He did not know if she could hear him.

She stayed where she was, staring straight at Thea, her body so still it was hard to tell if she was breathing. When next he heard her words, they were aloud, and threaded with her father's borrowed power. "Explain."

Everyone in the room shuddered, Elias took a step back, as though he were attempting to fade into the background, and Lydia lost the ash her cigarette had burned down to.

Rodan could barely keep his eyes off her. She was—different, yes, but somehow still so familiar. He could catalogue nearly everything and attribute it to himself, his mother, or Maeve by his side.

High Priestess Thea was talking, and he let the words wash over him while Lydia locked dark— black —eyes with him. "I am a conduit to the gods, my Queen, and I can see their marks. Just as I can see that of Lutem on Jennifer Casper, I see the mark of Tegal and Lutem on miss LaBlanc. It is near impossible to carry two marks, but those two? Life and death? It should never be."

"That's not what I need explained," Maeve growled.

Easy, my love , he whispered through the bond, sensing her psychic powers unfurling.

"The mark of Lutem is one of kinship, my liege, and ownership." Thea murmured, bowing low to the ground once more. "You are his only child. I need only look at her, and I can see she is yours."

Maeve's voice was still dangerously low. "I've never borne a child."

"Not yet, your highness," Thea corrected softly. "And time is the plaything of the gods."

Maeve pulled in a breath.

Rodan was still locked in a stare down with their hostess, and he thought his heart might explode, it was beating so fast. Look at her, he said to Maeve through the bond.

I can't, he heard back, soft as a whisper. If I do—if it's truly our daughter… kinship and ownership, Rodan, that's the mark Ankou bestowed upon Lydia. That would make this the third child. If I look, if she's real? I seal her fate.

She's already here, love. I have looked, and I see her as she is. It is enough.

Everyone was silent, watching either Lydia, the High Priestess, or Maeve, who turned and took Rodan's hand, her fingers squeezing in a white-knuckled grip.

Lydia closed her robe further, crossing her arms over her chest and her legs at the knee. "Yes, I knew," she said, defiance in her voice. "I have had dealings with Maeve in my other lives as my—as a mother. But I've never met you," she said, looking at Rodan. "This is different."

He blinked, then remembered Maeve's tale of the woman she had spoken to before coming back to Visantium where he had been waiting for her. The one who had convinced her to come back to the Realms. She said she was a woman out of time. She was living a life, her own life, repeatedly. That had been Lydia. She had been talking about his daughter. "You've never met me?" he asked, his voice a rasp.

Lydia lifted her chin, which wobbled a little. Maeve's fingers convulsed around his. "No. Sometimes you'd—I've gotten letters from you. I don't have them anymore, obviously. When my life resets, everything goes with it."

"Gods," Jen said softly behind them.

"How…" Maeve started, then trailed off, pulling her hand from Rodan's so she could clasp hers together, bringing them before her face as though she were in prayer. "Have you ever seen Ankou? Lutem?"

"No," Lydia said, and raised a hand. "We decided a long time ago that would be a poor idea. I may have a bizarre life?—"

Rodan made an involuntary, distressed noise, drawing her attention.

— "But it's mine. If he finds me, I go to the underworld. I go into death. You can't stay a living thing down there, not unless you're the god of the place." Her voice was rising near the end, and Rodan's stomach twisted. She was afraid of her grandfather, of Ankou and the culmination of the deal he had struck.

He moved forward, going to one knee before Lydia's chair, still far enough from her she could leave if she so chose, but close enough, perhaps, they might touch. He bowed his head. "Forgive me," he said. "I?—"

"You saved the woman you loved above all," his daughter— daughter! —said quickly, looking ill at ease. "Please get off the floor."

"He does this sort of thing," Maeve said directly behind him, her hand coming down on his shoulder. "I think it's a Realms thing." She hesitated for a moment and then asked, "But are you well, Lydia?"

Jen's voice rose behind him. "Hey, I know where the guest rooms are. Let me show you all around! Guys, come holler if you need me!"

Rodan wanted to prostrate himself, but he was paralyzed, looking into eyes that were his own. Flecks of silver stars swirled near her pupils. He barely heard the group of people leave the room, barely registered they were alone. Even Elias gave them the space they needed to be by themselves.

The three of them. A strange sort of family.

"Do you know how it began?" Maeve asked gently. "Your journey in time?"

Lydia shook her head, then took a deep breath and reached for another of her white tobacco cigarettes. She lit the tip and inhaled deeply before she answered, her foot bouncing a bit with nerves. "My time always begins when I am five years old, which I'm told is when the exchange was supposed to take place. Only I am here, on Earth. I have—there are those on this world who call me daughter. I let them, even though I know it's a lie. I know you're my parents," she said the last on a sigh. "It's all I know for a certainty aside from how I die. That's the same every time."

Rodan sucked in a breath, the shock of her words like a lightning strike to his core. "Die?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, tone soft, eyes unfocused now, seeming to watch the smoke curling out through the window. "Every one of my lives has ended the same way."

He did not want to know, but, "How?"

Maeve's grip on his shoulder was so tight he could feel the bones beginning to protest.

Be gentle with me, love , he said through the bond, and she eased.

Lydia was looking between the two of them. "I don't tell that story to many people."

"We're not just anyone," Maeve whispered.

Stamping out her cigarette, Lydia sighed, then said, "Asphyxiation. It's about as painful as you might imagine—" she paused, "Well, you would know," she said, nodding toward Maeve. "But mine is because someone—because I'm strangled to death."

Rodan closed his eyes.

He heard Maeve asking more questions, her tone gentle, but he could also sense her own horror through the bond. They were both trying to keep it from Lydia, because how could they show her? When it was so terrible?

Damn it all to hell , he swore to himself, coming off the floor and standing before her. She was looking up at him with wide eyes, and he could see all of them in her. All his ancestors, Maeve, Titania, and Ankou, even. All mixed up into this person who meant everything.

He held out his hands. "Please."

Lydia hesitated for a moment, then put her small hand into his, letting him step back and pull her to a stand at the same time. "What—" she started.

He pulled her into an embrace, his arms tight, his head tilted down so he could feel her dark, curling hair against his cheek. "I am so sorry, Lydia. For everything. I will not ask for your forgiveness again, but you… should never have faced any of this alone. All those lifetimes. I cannot imagine."

Her breathing hitched, and then thin arms were wrapped around him, and she was trembling, and almost certainly crying, though he could not see her face.

Maeve came over and put her arms around them both. She was silent for a time, and then began to hum gently, and whatever melody it was, Lydia must have known it for she began to laugh, and soon pulled away a little, wiping her eyes. She was still shaking, but she looked a little more composed than she must have been moments before. "Sweet Child of Mine?"

Rodan tilted his head, curious, and Maeve smiled, shrugging. "It was the first thing that came to mind. I always found it soothing, growing up."

"I know," Lydia said. "I know a lot about you, Mae?—"

"If you want," she interrupted, lowering her voice. "You do not need to call me by my birth name. You can call me what I am to you."

Their daughter smiled. "Okay." She cleared her throat. "I do know a lot about you, mother. I have multiple lifetimes of memories to fall back on. This one, though?" she nodded toward Rodan. "I only have those letters of his, from several lifetimes ago, and they were addressed to someone he knew nothing of."

"Do you know why it's happening?" Maeve asked. "Your lives?"

She shook her head. "I think it has something to do with Tegal's mark. We found it a few rounds back, you and I, but I do not know what it does. Only I have it. Maybe your priestess will have more answers for us."

"But this has never happened before," Rodan said, moving away and looking out over a city spread like nothing he had ever seen. Rows upon rows of towering structures. One into the next. Few breaks, little to ease the eye except a massive stretching rectangle of greenery slapped right before them. "All of us showing up."

"No," Lydia agreed. "It's curious. Everything remains fairly similar, or has ever since I found out about the two of you."

"How did you find out?" Maeve asked.

"You told me," she said. "You sought me out perhaps a hundred, two hundred lifetimes ago. It took some convincing, but I believe you."

"Hundreds?" Rodan asked, turning away from the window. It was a grander city than any he had been in during his short stint on Earth. "You've lived hundreds of times?"

"To the best of my recollection. Closer to a thousand, by now," said Lydia, her voice soft. As though she knew she was disclosing something that would cause incredible pain. "It's very difficult, cramming all the memories of a lifetime into a five-year-old brain, especially when it keeps happening. And I don't exactly—it's a bit traumatizing, how they end."

Maeve reached out and took her hand. Lydia stared at where their fingers interlocked. Her voice was still soft-spoken, but hollow. "I know it's a man who kills me, but I never see his face. I don't know if he's someone close to me, or if he's a stranger. I know it's the same one. He smells the same. He feels the same, he—" she stopped, swallowing hard. "He gets excited."

Rodan thought he might come apart. He looked to Maeve, and knew there was a feral wildness to his gaze. She shook her head minutely, eyes flicking to their daughter, who stood there clutching Maeve's hand, her body trembling.

"What can we do?" Maeve asked quietly. "We are here for a reason, but you are—there is nothing else so important as this."

"I don't know," Lydia said, and he saw tears track down her cheeks. "I surrendered to my fate, many lifetimes ago."

Rodan crossed to them and touched her chin, seeing more tears fall as he lifted her face. "I do not accept this." He wiped her cheeks with his thumbs, and she let him. "You have powerful parents. Let us help you."

Now her face crumpled, and Lydia stepped forward, embracing him again, hard enough to knock some of the air from his lungs. "Forgive me, father," she said against him. "If I do not dare hope."

He held her, and looked over her head at Maeve, who appeared stricken, now Lydia could not see her expression. Through the bond he heard her voice, thick with emotion. We have to stop this. It's torture.

He nodded, unable to form the words.

Whoever had done this to their daughter, they would pay.