Page 107 of Woods of the Raven

“Yes.”

“What did she do?”

“When I fled, she followed me here.”

“And then?”

“Attacked me so I was forced to kill her.” She stated and her voice was devoid of emotion.

Mattie wasn’t fooling me. I knew she wanted to kill Libitina for murdering Spencer. But her hands were clean because technically, it wasn’t revenge. She’d killed out of necessity. Mattie was defending Corvus once she was back on our land. That made sense. I had no quarrel with her over that. But other things still weren’t adding up. “I’m sorry for everything you went through, but that doesn’t answer the question about the threat I’m facing now. Because if you killed Libitina, then––”

“There was another with her whom I missed,” she confessed. “She was one with the shadows until the end when I was too weak, after fighting with Libitina, to rise and follow where she went.”

I was quiet, waiting to hear more.

“She didn’t aid the sorceress, even when she knew I was killing her, but when I was lying on the ground, she came and told me her name.”

That made no sense.

“I didn’t understand then, why not kill me? Why reveal her identity?”

“Yes,” I prodded her. “Why?”

“Because her plan, unlike Threun’s, would take time,” she replied sadly. “She wasn’t in a hurry, and she wasn’t afraid of me, not then, in my current state, and certainly, if she’d killed me, the land would have been on guard against anything and everything and that wasn’t what she wanted, or needed.”

“If she killed the guardian, the land would have closed itself off.”

“Yes. It’s only logical.”

It was. “But closed itself off to what?” I asked her.

“Threun is the death bringer,” she said flatly. “Gaeidhel, his wife, is the sower.”

“His wife?”

She nodded.

“Threun’s wife was there with you that night?”

“She was.”

“Okay, but what do you mean by sower?”

“She sows the earth, plants…that is her.”

I had to get my mind to work faster. “So she was also planning to build a bridge so Threun could cross.”

“Yes. It’s the only way an uninvited god may come through.”

It was one of those odd things. The crossing through was the issue, not being on the land afterward. Because if you were able to cross, clearly you were welcome.

“A bridge of what though?” I questioned her.

“Not bodies.”

“No,” I agreed.

“Threun’s way is to pave the way in blood and death. That only works, as you know, on unprotected, unconsecrated ground. Corvus is warded and imbued with powerful magic. All you have to do is sanctify it and there’s not enough blood in the world to taint it.”