Page 77 of Rise of the Morrigan

"He accepted you. He agreed to marry you on account of his love for his son. But he did not love you."

"What is love," Cú Chulainn asked, "if not a choice?"

The Dagda huffed. "Cursed be both of you!"

A bright cone of light flashed in front of me. Fear Doidrich emerged from the portal. How did he do it? Could a mortal dare enter the otherworld?

"What are you doing here!" I demanded.

Doidrich didn't answer. He turned and threw a bolt of magic, striking Cú Chulainn in the chest and binding him in place.

"Let him go!" I shouted.

Cú Chulainn screamed. I dove after him, but the magic Doidrich wielded repelled even me. I looked at the Dagda. "Please, good god, don't let him harm him!"

The Dagda nodded at Doidrich. Was this what they'd planned all along? Doidrich lifted his arm and threw Cú Chulainn's body into the cauldron of rebirth.

I clenched my fists and charged Doidrich a second time. But two strong arms pulled me off of him even as I attempted to rip the sorcerer's head from his body.

"It is too late, my phantom queen. Your beloved has passed through the cycle and awaits his rebirth."

"Might the vengeance of his blood curse you, too, Dagda!"

The Dagda shook his head. "You still will not take your place at my side?"

"Never!" I declared. "He has entered the cauldron. He will be reborn. I will wait for my beloved..."

"You know as well as I do, my queen, that we cannot determine when the cauldron will see him born again."

"I'll wait an eternity if need be! Better an eternity waiting for my love than one spent at your side, Dagda."

The Dagda dropped his head. Doidrich, standing behind him, smirked. He apparently found all of this amusing.

I diverted my eyes. The only thing that disgusted me more than the Dagda was Doidrich and his smugness. But I would not exact vengeance upon him. I would not make of myself the very thing my beloved hated the most. When he returned, I'd find him. Whenever that might be. Even if it be a thousand years or more.

He'd have the chance at a new life no longer burdened by the mistakes of the one he's just lost. I couldn't be reborn, but that didn't mean I couldn't learn. It didn't mean I couldn't be a better deity, a more benevolent goddess, who worked to make the sort of world Cú Chulainn had always wished it was.

"Even as you wait for him," the Dagda said, interrupting my thoughts. "I will wait for you."

"Then we wait together, but still apart."

The Dagda took a deep breath. "Until then, you may rule as the Queen of Samhuinn. This place, the place of death. For you are still the goddess of death and war."

I nodded. Perhaps, even if just the goddess of death and war, I could do something to change the world... perhaps I could intervene in the affairs of mankind and pacify their lust for war. I'd do whatever I could to make a new world that didn't demand my beloved be a warrior whenever he emerged from the cauldron and into another woman's womb. I wanted to make the world a place that would praise him for his gifts of verse rather than compel him to fight. A place that allowed him to be the bard he'd always wanted to become.

And if vengeance cried out through his blood, if it cried out on behalf of the earth, I would respond and answer its cry with wisdom. A wisdom I'd never had if I had not learned the meaning of love, the meaning of real sacrifice, exhibited by my Cú Chulainn who gave up everything for love. Not for the love of me. I didn't deserve that. But for the love of his son.

And the Dagda was right—the sort of love he'd tried to offer me in the end, it wasn't the kind of love that satisfies. I'd have my chance to earn that love, I hoped, in the future. His rebirth gave me another chance, still... a chance I'd spoiled two times before. But now I knew what love was—more than ever before. It was more than a feeling. More than even a choice. It was sacrifice. The willingness to put the welfare of whomever you love above your own.

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