NOAH SPEAKS

There was a corner turned that day. I finally decided I could trust Weyland, and I finally decided I could trust myself. I had stepped down the right path, even if it was a strange, sometimes frightening, and totally unknowable one.

I learned also, however, that Weyland had hidden depths. That somehow he also had the Faerie in him, and that likely it had come from his strange father. A bull? Truly? Or had it been a god disguised as a bull, which would explain why Asterion’s mother had been so severely smitten? (I mean, a bull?) The heavens alone knew how much those impractical Aegean gods liked to cavort about in animal form, seducing women here and there.

I also decided, finally, that the Troy Game was, in all likelihood, far more malevolent than Asterion had ever been. We had all been trapped by it, deluded into thinking that it would defend us and be some great protective amulet from all manner of evil.

Instead, the Game was all manner of evil, and the land’s alliance with it had been a sad mistake, and one we might yet all live to regret.

Still further, I learned something more from that day, but it took a few weeks for the lesson to sink in.

I learned that going to Weyland, opening myself to him, had been no mistake. It had been something that I had needed to do.

It had been the right thing to do.

Three weeks after we had made love in the gatehouse in Petersham, I realised I was carrying his child. I realised not through any physical symptoms, but because, unlike my experience with Catling, I was able to communicate with the growing life within me. One day, a day so extraordinary I shall never forget it, the new soul reached out to me, and spoke.

A daughter.

I wept. I wept for joy, and for all the pain I knew I would cause to those I loved, because suddenly my path opened up before me with an intense clarity that left me reeling, and because, finally, I would have my daughter.

Not she who I had lost as Cornelia—I knew and accepted now that she would never come back to me—but a daughter conceived with a man I loved.

That shocked me. I think I must have loved Weyland for months, but had never dared admit it to myself.

Weyland, Weyland, what are we doing? Why can’t we stop? Why can’t we stop?

I was a goddess, I was Eaving, and I understood from the very depths of my soul that I did not ever conceive by accident or whim, but because it was something I wanted.

And I only ever wanted to conceive with a man I loved.

For the first time in three thousand years I felt at peace, and it was a wonderful place to be.

Two days after I realised I was pregnant I found my way out of the Idyll by myself for the first time. This had little to do with my approaching maternity, and everything to do with my growing skills in the way of the labyrinth.

Weyland watched me, a little concerned, but proud also. Pride—not satisfaction.

That made me happy, but I did not yet tell him of my pregnancy. For the time being I wanted to enjoy it for myself.

“Noah the mother,” I murmured to myself that evening.

Noah the destroyer, for that was the only way I could ever protect my daughter, and the land.