Page 76 of What Sleeps Within the Cove

“How am I supposed to prove my worth if I don’t even know who I am?” I asked, studying the way Caldris wandered closer to the river. He didn’t touch it, simply staring at it in a daze. I watched as the surface rippled in small areas, like footprints appearing on the surface of the water as they came downstream. I blinked, squeezing Caldris’s hand in my own and trying to pull him back.

He stumbled into me, blinking back confusion as he sighed. Following his gaze back to the river, we watched figures form on the surface. They were bathed in white, sheer cloths covering them from head to toe but there was no mistaking the humanoid form to them.

“What are they?” I asked as Medusa stepped forward, positioning herself between Caldris and the river—interfering should he choose to succumb to the eerie temptation the river presented.

“The memories of those who lost themselves to this river. They were never reunited with the physical form they belonged to, so they take on a half-life of their own. Tied to this place, and unable to move on,” Macha answered. “Not all of them underwent the trials, some unfortunate souls have simply wandered too close and lost themselves. You are less susceptible since you have a physical form in this plane. Your mate, however…”

That explained the fuzzy look in Caldris’s eyes, the distinct lack of his usually commanding presence. It was as if someone had watered him down, stripped out the power and personality that made him sohim.

How could I wander into the river and leave him here, knowing he was susceptible to a fate so cruel?

“I’ll look after him, Estrella,” Medusa said, her green, serpentine eyes clear and uninfluenced by the power of the river. This place had been her home for so long, I wondered if the magic had any effect on her anymore. “I won’t let anything happen to him in your absence. You can trust me to keep him safe, and I hope that gives you the strength to focus on your task.”

“Can I focus on it at all though? I won’t even remember that it’s a trial, will I?” I asked, looking to the Morrigan for clarification.

“No, you will not remember why you have entered the river. According to those who have survived, you won’t remember you’re in a river at all. You will have to sort through what you are told to be truth for yourself, and I believe the aim will be for you to demonstrate who you are without your formative memories. Who you are at the very core of your being. Some may say that nothing is born good or evil, that life determines those things through circumstances and experiences, the Fates believe differently. They believe that one experience can alter two unique people in such profoundly different ways, changing one for the better and altering the other for the worst,” Medusa explained, speaking far more freely than the Morrigan could. She reached out and brushed a stray hair behind my ear with the affection of a mother, and the intimacy of the moment reminded me of everything we’d been deprived of. All those moments we hadn’t been allowed to have.

Formative moments.

“You will have to show them whether you are good or bad beneath your human desires. Without the emotions and relationships that have formed you as a human, who will you be if you become immortal?” she asked, the knowing look on her face making everything in me still. I was already not quite human but always partially human, but the way she said those words filled me with apprehension.

I had no desire to lose all traces of what made me human, to become as cold and calculating as I’d seen in so many Fae who were desensitized to the emotion that defined me as a person.

Still, I gave Caldris’s hand one last squeeze and pulled free from his hold. Stepping up to the river, I stared down into the still abyss, attempting to see through the foggy waters to the bottom. My steps were slow and calculated, a complete shudder wracking my body as I watched the white swirls of memory spiral away from my body. They spread through the river as I forced myself to sink deeper, my mind a whirl of emotions as I searched for what I had already lost. I looked for gaps in my memory, holes that were not filled where they once had been. I couldn’t even detect them, couldn’t find what they surrounded to piece it all together. I strode into the river until all but my head was submerged, watching memories slowly fade away.

A woman stood at the edge of the riverbank, serpents writhing where hair should have been. I recoiled, stumbling back farther into the river until my chin sank into the warmth of it. It was preferable to the sadness in her green gaze as she watched me, far more comforting than the blank stare on the handsome, formidable male where he lingered behind the woman.

It was definitely preferable to the three other women lurking off to the side with eerie eyes, or the massive wolves lingering behind all of them.

I sank deeper, letting the water consume me. Letting it surround me. White wisps floated around me, like a veil swaying in the wind. I sank lower, leaving the surface high above me as I followed those tendrils as they sank to the bottom of the river.

Until I knew nothing at all.

The forest surrounding me was lush and vibrant, with trees so large they felt like they touched the sky. A rabbit hopped through the underbrush, the rustling of the dried leaves snapping my attention to the tiny ball of fur and the fluffy tail. It vanished into the tree line, bypassing feet that wore a pair of clean boots, the laces neatly tied. I followed the laces up over ankles, taking in the sight of the man before me. He was dressed all in black, his lithe form carefully still.

His eyes shone with gold as he stared down at me, an aura of the deepest midnight blue lingering around him like dark fragments. They shifted in the air, moving with the wind and revealing tiny, glimmering stars that matched his stare.

“What are you doing, silly girl?” he asked, the deep tone of his voice like a shock to my system.

Silly?I thought, reaching for the words to argue. I wasn’t silly. I was…

My thoughts trailed off as I searched for what I was, for the empty pit of nothing that stared back at me. I looked down my body, jumping back from the bow I found my hand wrapped around. It shone with that same golden color, the thread somehow barely there as I trailed a single finger over the length of it and shuddered.

“I… I don’t know,” I said, shaking off my own confusion as I turned my attention back to the man studying me intently. He held my gaze for only a moment before he gave me a disinterested smile, nodding his head to the woods behind me. I turned to follow his stare, vaguely aware of figures I hadn’t seen working in the distance. The people around me worked to make camp, fed and watered horses, and readied a fire, but they never quite came into view. They didn’t fully form, as if only vestiges of something better forgotten.

I spun fully, staring at the hind that waited in the distance. She bent her head to eat the grass at her feet as her body twitched to flick off the flies bothering her. Her tail flicked to dispel them, a long feather-like thing that shimmered with the same gold as my bow. She was bright and vibrant in the green that surrounded her, standing out completely and not even bothering to hide.

The man with the golden eyes reached around me to grasp my bow, raising it. My own hands moved to follow, raising it to position as he placed a single arrow in my other hand. I notched it, guiding the string to my cheek and letting myself feel the brush of it against my skin as I breathed, trying to understand what was expected of me.

Trying to understand why.

“Our people are hungry. It is your responsibility to see them fed, huntress,” he said, taking a step back. His hands fell away from me, the weight of his stare heavy on my spine. I sighed, glancing to my periphery of the people depending on me to provide them with meat for the night.

My stomach felt full and satisfied, no trace of hunger in it. I felt like I would know if I was hungry. I would know if I needed food, even though I couldn’t ever remember a time when I’d been hungry.

I lowered the bow, turning to look at the man over my shoulder. “Feed them!” the man shouted, the command in that voice forcing me to turn back around and stare at the hind I was expected to kill.

I let out a deep exhale, preparing myself for what I had to do. It was the way of the world, the way of nature, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to believe that this death was necessary.

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