Augusta awoke to the sound of blood rushing around in her head.

  Something like that had only happened once before in her life—when she was younger and her father had swung his wooden sword at her a little too hard during playfighting.

  He quickly realised his mistake and ran over to her, desperate to see if she was still alive, still breathing, still in that world she’d so meticulously stepped out into beneath the Hibernian mountains with Eithne moments ago.

  No matter; her mother had always slapped her harder than the end of a wooden hilt, and soon Valerius was relieved to find his daughter nestled face-first among daisies and grasses.

  But this was not daisies or grasses. Instead, Augusta realised she was lying on an endless sandy dune and that the rush of blood to her head was actually the crashing of seawater dredging up alongside her frail body.

  She was on a beach in the Hibernian underworld. Well, she felt it must be the underworld, even if Eithne had always referred to it as “elsewhere.” She couldn’t map sand to any place in the Roman myths that involved Hades, Pluto, or Proserpina, but she could at least picture waves being part of an underworld.

  Maybe she had just fallen off the Hibernian equivalent of Charon’s boat and had washed ashore for all eternity. Eithne should’ve warned her about that, all things considered. They were planning to have a child together to defeat another dead-eyed lord of the underworld, and it wouldn’t be a good look in the eyes of Brigid and the other deities to discover Eithne was still searching for her after all this time.

  A lot of time had passed too. She was drowsy, and her legs had stiffened from jumping from one world to another. What’s more, once Augusta had finally stumbled up a bit to take in this new world around her, she saw it was pitch-black, save for the brief ethereal light that shone from a lighthouse on steps nearby.

  She’d never seen a lighthouse before, but knew that’s what it was. It was oval, cylinder-shaped, more like a Gaulish vase than anything resembling a watchtower, and its light coalesced brightly out of it in a continuous, rotating arrangement.

  Augusta had never seen a lighthouse do that. She’d never seen anything in the Roman world work the way that it did. She was not sure if such an engineering feat was possible in her old world, or even if it ever would be without the magical strings of a god to pull it along. With much pain, she steadied herself on both legs and slowly stepped forward every time the light landed upon her and shone on the path ahead.

  She averted her gaze in discomfort whenever it beamed down at her—far too bright. She was going to complain to Eithne once she found her in that lighthouse, hammering away at the cauldron that she kept glowing with her magic. Good intentions, but Augusta’s eyes had always just been so sensitive to discomfort. And yes, she knew for sure Eithne was lying in that watchtower, drifting her way through to bring her along.

  She followed the trail, moving through black sands and coming across a settlement of large, sombre rocks she was supposed to jump to and fro over like they were simple steps to be traversed. She let the light come and go three times for each before she worked up the courage to jump.

  She felt her ankles might snap like brittle twigs when she leapt. She wondered if there was a spell that Eithne had cast on her to prevent the most serious of injuries—aches and little nibbles were okay, but nothing that would leave her unable to raise a child.

  A child. Yes, that was still to happen. No way she could duck her way out now once she’d followed Eithne into her own world, even if it was more cold, dark, and miserable than the human one she’d left.

  The first two went without a hitch, then she slipped and grazed her knee against the third. “Minerva’s tits,” she screeched—all words which were perfect for the homecoming of a Roman centurion into a land of myth and legend. She straddled her waist against the edges of the curve, then pulled herself up and came upon the lighthouse door.

  It was carved from the darkest wood Augusta had ever seen. She had never seen wood drenched in so much darkness. She couldn’t even compare it to the pitch-blackness that was all around her—its shade went even beyond that. A pale darkness overcame Augusta, and she knew whoever had crafted this was a pale, sombre creature itself.

  She shivered. It had been used to lock up another pale creature of darkness—of its own kin—but she knew this one was good. And a bit odd. Eithne, in her other words. Whom she missed everything about that redhead and her strange, eccentric ways.

  She trailed her hands along the rough edges, then pushed, then barged her way in when the gentle way didn’t win out.

  Inside, the pitch darkness had given way to a shadowy light. There wasn’t much within, but she found colour everywhere. Fading colours, yes, but still colour. She was never as happy to be in the presence of dulled out crimsons in her life.

  Then she saw it. A creature. Massive. With horns on its head and sharp teeth that were ready to sink themselves into Augusta’s neck like an executioner’s blade. She had come across this creature before—not in her nightmares, but briefly, etched on the walls of Eithne’s cave.

  It should’ve stayed there, not come alive right in front of her.

  Augusta screeched at that dreadful thing, then it doubled down in size until all the twigs of it were gone and she found that there was something more at the centre.

  Something human.

  Something divine.

  Something that looked a lot like Eithne.

  “Sláinte,” she whispered in that irresistible Hibernian dulcet of hers, “Cad é mar atá tú?”

  The words were not Latin, but Augusta seemed to understand the language and what these words really meant already.

  “Cónas a raibh tú abal—” Augusta held her hands over her mouth in a panic. No, that wasn’t Latin either. But she meant to speak Latin to Eithne; she wanted to say—how were you able to transform into that?—but instead Eithne’s language came rolling out of her mouth.

  The red-headed Hibernian goddess giggled. “Still getting the hang of Goídelc, I see?” Those words were Latin. Familiar. Augusta was so thankful that Eithne was speaking Latin in that irresistible voice of hers again.

  “I thought the language of your—”

  “Yes?” Eithne whispered between half-curved smiles, watching as Augusta recomposed herself, trying to get used to speaking Latin once again.

  “Your people,” Augusta was exasperated, “I thought the language of your people was called Hibernian!” That was the least of Augusta’s worries, but it was a good place to start and sort out her headaches, one by one.

  Eithne raised an eyebrow. “What would they call it that?”

  Right, Augusta thought, Eithne isn’t one of her people. Her people worship her, being a goddess after all.

  “It’s just all so confusing.”

  “Why would it be confusing?” Eithne said.

  “Hibernians speaking Hibernian,” Augusta answered, “doesn’t sound right to me.”

  “Well, the Romans don’t speak Roman, do they?” Eithne’s own Roman had suddenly improved. How?

  “Well, no, but…”

  “But?”

  Augusta shrugged her shoulders. “You’re speaking Goídelc now, aren’t you?”

  Eithne was proud that Augusta had figured it out. “Yes, I am. I’ve been speaking the language of my followers since you came crashing through my door.”

  “But it sounds like Latin to me,” Augusta murmured, then a spark the size of the lighthouse of Alexandria went off over her head, “I’m speaking Goídelc right now, aren’t I?”

  “Yes and no,” Eithne explained, “you’re speaking Latin right now, but it sounds like Goídelc to me.”

  Augusta’s world was spinning again. This always happened when she was in Eithne’s company. She reached around to grab something, only to find herself collapsing upon a bed in the back of the centre. It was the only piece of furniture in the lighthouse, aside from a small cauldron which Augusta assumed was used to light the fire.

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  “Too much?” Eithne asked.

  Augusta’s heart started thumping heavily. “That monster I saw was you.”

  “It was me, yes.”

  “The same one on the cave? On the Hibernian mountains?”

  “The same one, yes,” Eithne said, trailing her hands down her tunic. “This is not really me. The me that I am is the monster.”

  This blindsided Augusta, who was used to her gods and goddesses in Rome looking very marble and human-like. She hid underneath the covers, just as Eithne was rummaging through her mixed, distraught feelings.

  “Don’t like it?”

  No, she had been scared. That didn’t mean she didn’t like it. She liked being scared when she had cuddled up to Valerius on long, stormy nights and listened to him tell her all about the mythical monsters that crept in the shadows of bold young girls who wanted to snatch her.

  Eithne was not one of those monsters, no matter how she might’ve presented herself. She would never be one.

  “Show me,” Augusta whispered. “Again.”

  So Eithne did, letting her unkempt, red-headed human form fall away so Augusta could see another glance of her as she truly was. The same large monster that Eithne had carved onto the cave really had been her, complete with the dark willow that made up the scales of her skin.

  Augusta didn’t feel the deafening fright come for her again. She didn’t want to run. Instead, she just wanted to be lost among that endless willow that Eithne reached. She reached out for a twig of it, and Eithne quickly moved beside her to wrap her up in those large arms of hers.

  “Like it?” Eithne asked.

  “I do,” Augusta said. “I really like it, yes.”

  She felt Eithne’s large snout begin to plant all manner of kisses upon her neck like a rabid animal. She didn’t mind. Being pounced upon by a wild mythical creature had never been something she’d fantasised about, but she was thoroughly enjoying it now as they went along.

  She didn’t need to ask this either, but she knew this to be Eithne’s Fomorian form as well. Her father, Balor—the one who’d locked her up in this tower and hidden her in the Hibernian mountains—would be the one Augusta was actually frightened to look at.

  Balor and his evil eye were the cause of all this darkness around them as well. Her and Eithne’s child would be the only person capable of stopping such a terrible being.

  Then she felt Eithne’s Fomorian skin melting away behind her. Her arms were still wrapped around Augusta, but her clothes had dissipated away with the roots.

  “I still want to have my child, you know,” Eithne whispered into her ear, “when you are ready, of course.”

  Augusta reddened. She was still only eighteen—far too young to have a child. She knew they could have a child, yes, Eithne being divine after all, but had she ever truly wanted one? Only now, when she was on the cusp of becoming a mother, did Augusta realise that the question had eluded her until now.

  “Which of us will carry?” she whispered. She hoped Eithne’s powers were so abundant that neither of them would have a use for phalli.

  “We don’t have to carry,” she answered with a giggle. “That’s not how it works here—in elsewhere.”

  She felt the breath of the Hibernian goddess grow hungry. It was a vast, overwhelming hungriness that made Augusta timid. She wondered just how long Eithne had been hiding up in those mountains. Maybe it hadn’t been days or months or even years—perhaps it was centuries. All that time spent by herself with only Brigid and the rest of her divine peers as company—that hungriness must’ve stirred over and over again without relief.

  “Do you know how we create our young?”

  Augusta shivered.

  “How, Eithne?”

  Eithne’s hands trailed down the curves of Augusta’s back before taking handfuls of her firm ass.

  “Sex. Lots and lots of sex.”

  Eithne moved too fast at first for Augusta. The centurion panicked, clenching her teeth in pain just as her lover trailed her hands upward to grab hold of Augusta’s left breast.

  No—too fast. Augusta nearly kicked at Eithne’s face to get away from her groping hands and move back to the end of the bed. Her heart started to palpitate. She felt Knotty’s dark shadow fall upon her once again, along with the lecherous gazes and rummaging hands of the other men who’d tried to gang-rape her.

  Her eyes started to burn. She had been wrong. She wasn’t ready to have sex yet. She wasn’t ready to bear a child with Eithne, and save Eithne’s home from the same cascading darkness that had nearly swallowed her alive in her old one.

  For a moment, all Eithne did was sit silent in the faint darkness. Then, with gentle care, she started to kneel her way forward to be with Augusta once again. Her fingertips trailed up the curvature of Augusta’s slim legs, but stopped once she reached the centurion’s chest. Her lust softened, and she held out her own wrists for Augusta to take hold of as her shallow breaths filled the space between them.

  Augusta, for all her panicking, didn’t want to give up on Eithne. It was only when she closed her dampened eyes that she felt the strength to grab hold of Eithne’s wrists and lead the Hibernian girl to her shoulders, where a loose strap would undo all her robes.

  Eithne took her time as she meddled with all the wet, stringy straps that held Augusta’s chest in place. It came undone, and then Augusta felt Eithne gently prying away all the dark, crimson clothing that separated her ample breasts from the lecherous gaze of a goddess.

  Then they too were cast aside, and it was only then that Augusta felt comfortable enough to open her eyes and find Eithne’s pale face looking back at her.

  She took more shallow breaths before leaning her forehead against Augusta’s, who waited on her lust to form. It seemingly eluded her, even while Eithne was naked. Had it been too much? Too soon? She wanted that same lustful craze that Eithne had felt, that Knotty had felt, that so many men who’d gazed upon her in the past had felt, but it still seemed out of grasp.

  Then she realised lust could never be in someone’s grasp. It came spinning out when a person could never hope to take control of it, and Augusta knew she had to let go of control—of everything—to find it.

  She kissed Eithne, letting her teeth dig into the depths of the Hibernian girl’s lower lip, then moved her hands down to her waist where Eithne started to undo those pesky straps with much lust too.

  The crimson vestments fell upon the darkened floors, and Eithne was on top, gasping lustful cries of pleasure as the two of them started to roll around in mounds of lukewarm bed covers, all the while as Augusta thought she could see faint, bright colours forming from outside the tower walls.

  It was the sound of a snout billowing out air that awoke Augusta at first, and not the cries of her child in the tower. Eithne had gone back to her Fomorian ways once she and Augusta had finished sleeping together, and she watched as Augusta snoozed heartily upon her dark chest.

  She was thankful Augusta didn’t cry out in fear when she looked up and saw her beastly head. Instead, with the shoulder blade that Augusta’s head rested on, she nudged the Roman girl to look ahead to the centre of the room.

  There was a child there. A child, not a baby as it usually went in Augusta’s old world, kicking and screaming as she got used to the new body she was to live within. She was blonde too, unlike Augusta’s dark strands or Eithne’s ginger curls, and her hair seemingly stretched from one end of the room to the other.

  Augusta started to fret. She might get tangled up in all that hair. She could strangle herself as she played around in it. Then Augusta realised that her child had actually turned out to be a girl, and that she herself, at eighteen, was now a mother.

  “She’s Lú,” Eithne whispered.

  “Lú?” Augusta asked. Then that horrible, bitter cold drifted its way through the cracks of the tower, and Augusta shuddered herself closer to Eithne’s hairy bosom to keep warm.

  “The smallest among us,” Eithne explained. “That’s what Lú means.” She was radiant. Stretching on the ground, Augusta could see that she was quietly scampering on her knees and trying to stand by pushing off on her palms. She would be walking soon enough.

  Parenthood for Augusta wasn’t going to be filled with the usual bumps and roadblocks as she learnt to raise a child.

  “I don’t like it.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t like Lú as a name.”

  Eithne grew a bit confused, then her reaction softened.

  “I didn’t mean it as a name,” she replied, “but it doesn’t sound so bad to me.”

  “It’s too small,” Augusta murmured, “as a name, I mean. And too much like a man’s.”

  She sensed Eithne starting to huff. She hated it when anyone started to huff at all. It made them feel like a child, and Augusta would have her hands full with one already.

  This was not what she expected her first few moments of motherhood to be like: arguing over the meaning of words and the name for the child they’d already had. They should’ve picked it out beforehand like the women in her old world used to do.

  “My daughter is not going to be called Lú, Eithne.”

  There was already a goddess called Luna in Roman myth. In the off chance that they too were real, Augusta didn’t want to run into any thunderous headaches from Jupiter asking why she’d named her goddess daughter after a Roman one.

  She started to think. Lú. Lúna. There had to be something else she could tack on that would make her safe from thunderous headaches down the line. She started threading her mind through all the myths she’d been told and the stories she’d read about, but nothing seemed to line up perfectly for her.

  Then she thought of the verb nāscor — and realised she was on the right track. It meant “to be born” or “to arise” in Latin, and Augusta started to toy with the endings.

  Lúnascor.

  Lúnasco.

  Lúnaso.

  “How about Lúnasa?” Augusta whispered. She didn’t even need to look up at Eithne’s large eyes to know the verdict. From the tremors in her hairy chest, Augusta felt the goddess shaking in excitement.

  “Yes, yes, that’s perfect, Augusta,” Eithne beamed. Eithne and her sexy, monstrous face just had to be the only thing in life that could distract Augusta from her new daughter.

  There were more cries, and Augusta realised then she didn’t know the first thing about motherhood. She had been kept busy for most of her youth as a commander’s daughter — always on the move — and she hadn’t any siblings to raise alongside her own mother, nor dolls to dote upon and play madre with.

  Even then, there were signs she was interested in things far more befitting the rough-and-tumble world of Mars than the simple, homely life that Vesta was patron of. Augusta’s own mother didn’t understand why her daughter’s room was littered with all sorts of swords and shields until she got older, and suddenly she was racing to be part of that soldiering world.

  She was racing now too. Alongside Eithne, who’d shifted back into her human form, as the two of them suddenly moved out of their bed to pick Lúnasa up. She was a big girl, though not all of her weight came down to the strands of blonde hair that Augusta found herself trailing through to see her daughter’s face.

  “She’s beautiful,” Eithne whispered. “Can I hold her?”

  Augusta wanted to give, but then she saw the faint light from outside the tower. Come to think of it now, this whole room had suddenly gotten a lot brighter since Lúnasa came into their lives.

  She moved past Eithne, holding Lúnasa all the same, and carefully grabbed hold of the latch to peer into the outside world.

  There was colour now. Lots of it. All the darkness that had enveloped her had suddenly been cast away, and now Augusta felt there was a sense of hope again in this world. In this other place. In this Otherworld.

  All of it down to the child that she was carrying in her arms.