Free Divine by Choice by P.C. Cast Page A

he stayed silent. I knew we were both thinking back to that terrible last battle when Nuada, the leader of the Fomorians, almost killed ClanFintan. I had been knocked unconscious, and my Goddess had called my spirit free from my body so that I could distract Nuada. ClanFintan had killed the creature, causing the Fomorians to react in confused panic, and the tide of the battle toturn in our favor. Before then, Epona had used my dreams to call me out of my body and send me on what amounted to spiritual reconnaissance trips to spy on our enemies and taunt them into falling into our traps.
    But since the Fomorians had been vanquished, I had not been called by Epona to go on any nighttime spirit trips, even when I had tried to will myself on one after ClanFintan left. Nor had I heard the whisper of her voice, which I had become strangely accustomed to hearing, until today when she had breathed into my mind the words You are not playing, Beloved. It took hearing her voice again for me to realize how much her silence had bothered me.
    â€œI tried to send my spirit out of my body to visit you, but it didn’t happen. I asked Epona to let me visit you. It was such an easy thing before—I even traveled so much that I got really tired of it.”
    â€œYes, I remember.” I felt him nod his head.
    â€œAnd she hasn’t been talking to me, either,” I said in a small voice.
    â€œRhea, your Goddess would not leave you. You must believe that.”
    â€œI don’t know, ClanFintan. I don’t really know anything about this Goddess Incarnate stuff. Remember, I’m not Rhiannon.”
    â€œYes, and I thank your Goddess daily that you are not.” His voice was firm. The truth was, no one had liked Rhiannon. Okay, more accurately, most people who had known her had loathed her, which was—at first—an almost constant source of irritation to me. Plus, it was confusing to look like someone who had evolved into such a different kind of person.
    â€œSometimes I wonder if I just imagined that I was meant to be Epona’s Chosen.”
    â€œDo you think so little of Epona?” He didn’t sound angry, just questioning.
    â€œNo.” My answer came easily. “I’ve felt her presence and experienced her power.”
    â€œThen it must be yourself of whom you think so little.”
    I couldn’t answer that. I had always believed I was a strong woman with a healthy ego and excellent self-esteem. But maybe my husband was right. Maybe I needed to look inside myself for doubt and weakness, and not Epona.
    Could that be part of why Rhiannon and I were so different? I knew self-doubt could be destructive and life altering, but wasn’t some self-reflection healthy? Had Rhiannon become so spoiled and willful that she was immune to any kind of self-questioning? Mix that with the power that went along with being Epona’s Beloved and maybe, like Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, she had become “as a serpent’s egg which hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous.” Had Epona done what Brutus contemplated, and by switching me with Rhiannon, smashed her shell before her hatched evilness could destroy Partholon?
    Or was I just letting the useless literature that tended to clutter my English teacher brain freak me out?
    â€œRest now.” Once again his hand began a hypnotic caress, and ClanFintan’s familiar touch helped to quiet my jabbering mind. “Your Goddess will answer your doubts.”
    â€œI love you,” I murmured as a wave of weariness closed my eyelids and I fell softly into a deep sleep.
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    I was nibbling Godiva dark chocolates while I lounged on a downfilled, violet-colored divan, which was situated in the middle of a field of waving wheat. At the end of the divan sat Sean Connery (dressed in 007-era black tie). My feet were in his lap, and with one strong, firm hand he rubbed erotic swirls across my instep, and with the other he held open a