Page 10 of The Washwoman at the River’s End

Nausea churns in my stomach at her taunting. “What do you want?” I ask, wrapping my arms around myself. I do not want her puzzles. Her riddles.

She takes a single step forward. “I come with a warning. Be ready—for he’s coming.”

“Who?” I ask, my heart racing. “Who’s coming? Who sent you?”

The goddess's smile widens, showing too many impossibly white teeth. “Why, the one who will remember, of course.” Her voice drops to a cold whisper. “The one who will end the tale of your murderous reign.”

“I’ve murdered no one. Not since...” I can’t bring myself to say the word aloud. Vengach. The village where I committed my crimes the day my mind broke.

She throws her head back with laughter, and in an instant, the color of her dress shifts from black to…

Green.

The same dress as the woman from my vision.

My legs nearly give out. “No. I didn’t murder her.”

The goddess’s brows furrow with confusion. “And yet, is she not dead?” she asks, confirming my fears. “It is, after all, what has set everything in motion. He’s coming.”

“Who is he?” I shout, blood roaring in my ears.

“The one who will remember.” She tilts her head. “The one you destroyed.”

My blood runs cold. The one I destroyed? I’ve destroyed no one, other than those I killed. Their deaths may stain my soul, but they are gone. They cannot come for me.

Can they?

“You and I are not so different,” she says again, tilting her head, and my stomach lurches.

The vision. The dragon.

“Is it madness, then? Is my mind betraying me once again?”

“We’re all a bit mad, my dear," she says, her eyes twinkling. She giggles, the sound growing almost manic as she lowers herself into the water.

“He’s coming! He’s com—” her words choke out as she fully submerges. I stumble forward to grab her, but… She isn’t drowning at all. She’s fading. The white of her hair turns translucent, her body disappearing into curls of bubbles that drift into the After.

The current pulls at my legs, and I dive into the water to search for her, desperate to find the woman and demand she tell me more, but my hands touch only the stony riverbed.

I freeze, the goddess’s words circling in my mind.

The one who will remember.

The one you destroyed.

The wind goes unnaturally still, and in the eerie silence, I am left knowing only two things.

The goddess is gone.

And he is coming.

4

BRENNEN

I'm only partially certain I’m not walking into my own execution, though I cannae imagine what my crime would be. Not that Cailleach, the Cutter, needs a reason. Should she or her sisters, the Weaver and Measurer, have seen anything within my thread they didnae like, I’m as good as dead.

I find some comfort in the fact the branch-shaped dàn on the inside of my bicep that warns me of danger hasnae flashed with heat. Still, a shudder slides down my spine as I approach the enormous arched doors of the Cutter’s cottage. That’s what she calls it, but it's a castle, plain and simple, the “cottage” so large, it could house every villager within a thousand bowshots.