I'm not going to cry. The love this woman felt makes my pain over Jason seem petty. Brushing my thumb over symbols too faded to be read, I wonder for the first time what is written on the medallion. A poem from a man to the woman he loved?
Her final, horrific curse that condemned an entire world to war for a thousand years?
"Hell hath no fury," I recite. I kind of envy her, the depth of her emotion, the love of a man that powerful, the fact she was his equal. It's perfect.
It's also not remotely real, and that makes me so much sadder for her and me.
The last great battle-witch of my world . . . I can't get those words out of my head. Replacing the medallion, I chew on my lower lip, thinking hard. The woman, the warrior queen Naia, was from another world. Mine?
If my dream was . . . well, inspired or maybe even written by LF, does that mean everything in it was true? Did this happen a thousand years ago and was she talking about me coming here? I've been called the last great battle-witch by the Red Knight and the Shadow Knight.
"Sorry, but you'd be way disappointed, sister," I murmur, upset that I can't even live up to a dead woman's expectations. If there's magic in the medallion, I can't feel it, and I'm not about to start killing people out of vengeance for an event that never really happened.
Yet it's really hard to dismiss the dream and the emotions that went through me when I was living it.
With a sigh, I rub my face. If I'm supposed to make things right, I'm failing miserably. Another thought makes me blush hot.
. . . the most sacred act between a man and woman in a world where a name gave someone else great power . . .
Is that why the Shadow Knight reacted strangely when I told him I had a name instead of calling me witch? Did he think I was hitting on him or more embarrassing - proposing? I didn't mean to act like I was coming between him and his woman.
He later asked me what my name was, but he seemed very grave about it. What about the Red Knight? He seems like the kind who would ask to blackmail me later for political reasons.
Both hid the full truth that a woman and man exchanging names was a helluva lot more meaningful here than it is in my world.
The Shadow Knight didn't reveal his name. I don't know why that bums me out, unless it's because of my self-esteem issue. Not that I want to be married to a mass-murdering knight from a fantasy book . . . but . . .