Empress of the Gods

Atarah

Galad joined her after William left her. He let her rest her head on his back.

The first time she saw Galad was when she was barely four winters old, and the only thing she remembered was being curious about the huge tiger that took care of her while her mother collected flowers and herbs in their garden. In Khrysaor, it was a different story. Every time anyone saw him, they ran away terrified while others tried to attack him, thinking he wanted to hurt them. Because of that, he had been rarely seen in those lands. And to avoid trouble with the Witch council, Rhiannon tried to put a spell on him so he could stay hidden inside her until she was old enough to control him. But she barely had control over him. He came in and out whenever he pleased.

The only power she had seen her protector have was the one related to the wind when Galad threw a threatening growl, tossing everything in his path.

Having him by her side made her feel like she had a shoulder she could cry on and a friend she could trust. He couldn’t speak, but with his gaze, he expressed enough, and she managed to understand him. He was always close whenever she needed him. Sometimes she felt he had a part of her soul.

Galad watched William when he brought the firewood. She volunteered to help him light the fire, but he didn’t let her. So, they observed him while he tried to light it. She couldn’t believe how incredibly stubborn he was, so she lit it up anyway. It only took her a small part of her gifts to do it.

Atarah’s eyes were fighting to stay open, but the cold, being close to a hunter, and being in a forest far from home where some other hunter who worked for Melione could be close, made her stay awake.

Campfires soothed her to the point that the crackling sound of the wood, while it was burning, calmed her at some level, and as soon as she was comfortable enough, she usually closed her eyes, enjoying those sounds that lulled her. Perhaps it had something to do with her gift, although she did not feel she had fire inside her. She felt a storm that had not seen the sunrise in a long time.

Atarah’s gaze got lost in the dancing flames. That led her to remember Rhiannon and the coven fighting with those soldiers as Aeron suddenly said goodbye when he tried to stop the soldiers who followed them. Without forgetting how the flames consumed what had been her home, reducing it to nothing more than ashes, rubble, and memories.

Pain. She felt so much pain inside, and the storm seemed to grow over time. She even wondered how she kept moving. It felt like she was drowning while trying to swim to the surface—as if the water pushed her to the bottom.

You are my daughter. She remembered every single word Rhiannon said and the pain she felt when she lowered her mental shield. All that time, she waited for her mother to come back when Rhiannon had always been her mother. Rhiannon might have taken her out of that forest, but Atarah remained there, waiting for the nymph who abandoned her. She’d never stopped thinking about Gianna since then, feeling as though she could never call Rhiannon her mother. She didn’t feel she deserved to, much like in that moment.

Gianna. The only thing that remained clear in her head and the only thing she would never forget. Her mother’s name.

For as long as she remembered, it had always been Gianna and her in a place that seemed to be far from everything, but something told her it hadn’t always been like that. Something told her there was more she didn’t remember.

One of the memories she had was when they’d gone out into the woods gathering flowers to make crowns on the summer solstice. Her mother made some petals fly in the wind, which always left her amazed, making her impatient with her own powers.

She didn’t remember having a father, but sometimes she used to imagine the man she saw in her dreams was her father. Not the man who held her in her nightmares, but the man in his fifties who had a few wrinkles on his face and whose kind chestnut eyes were like hers. Although most of the time his face looked blurry, his eyes were the only thing she had been able to see well, and every time he appeared in her dreams, she felt protected and loved.

Aeron and Rhiannon had always been the parent figures she needed when she was growing up, but she couldn’t help feel a stab of pain in her chest every time she saw Gianna’s face in her dreams because she still hoped her mother would return for her. In the same way, she hoped she would see her father again, if the man she saw in her dreams was her father. Every memory she had of her mother —as if her own head protected her from it— was locked in a chest in the back of her mind, but she did remember asking Rhiannon about them. Only it was a topic Rhiannon avoided. Of course, there came a time when she stopped questioning her about them. She didn’t know if they’d died, abandoned her, or whether Rhiannon knew anything about them or not. She only knew the emptiness that dwelled within her that felt like the immensity of a forest or the darkness that patiently waited to consume her.

With the attack on Khrysaor, she didn’t know if anyone had survived because if they had, she knew they would be looking for her. At least the coven would. But she had to accept that Rhiannon and her coven were gone. They had died protecting the city, Myrah and her. Especially her. She also needed to think about the possibility that Myrah might not be alive.

No. Atarah refused to think that. She is alive.

She didn’t know how Myrah would be processing Rhiannon’s death. The worst part of it was that her sister was living her grief completely alone. She felt so guilty about it.

Myrah is alive, she repeated to herself, and she felt it was like that because if she wasn’t, then she’d failed Rhiannon, and she was completely alone.

She needed to avoid thoughts that would drown her in that mental storm. But she couldn’t forget how the coven had been killed so mercilessly and easily. It made her wonder how they had managed to annihilate lethal witch clans from the south. How had they managed to kill well-trained soldiers? Something wasn’t right, she thought. Even if the warlock told them when to strike, it still didn’t make sense.

She placed her hands near the fire to warm herself when she felt the hunter’s gaze on her. “What?” She didn’t ask nicely. She was far from being kind to the hunter.

“It’s curious that you would try to warm up with fire when one of your powers is fire. Shouldn’t you not feel cold?” he asked as he peeled the skin of his apple with his knife.

“Curious in the same way that those men shouldn’t have captured you because you’re a hunter?” She rose her eyebrow, and he stopped peeling his apple. “It doesn’t work that way,” she acknowledged.

“They outnumbered me,” he protested with a frown on his forehead.

“What about the creature in the Eirian Forest?” she questioned, but when Atarah didn’t hear an answer, she added, “but, yeah. How curious it is.”

William seemed to be cursing her in a low voice because she didn’t understand anything he was saying as he continued peeling his apple. “It had more than two arms, but enough about me. I thought you were a driadae who had been trained by witches, were you not? Yet you ended up being captured by a hunter and his men despite having gifts and training,” he said in the same tone she used.

Atarah rolled her eyes. Then she saw William close his eyes tightly when he moved his shoulder back and hovered his hand over his wounded shoulder.

“You should take care of that wound.” She pointed to William’s injured shoulder. He had probably hurt more when he collected the wood for the fire. “We don’t want it to get infected, and you die halfway through, do we?”

“Because you would love that,” he asserted in a tone she clearly heard.

Atarah stood up and walked towards him. “What did you just say?” she questioned him, taking the lapel of his leather jacket at the same time as he put a hand on her wrist. “I’m not like you. Also, I can’t lose my guide, can I?” she teased, the corner of her lip turned up. “I need to see the wound,” she told him, locking up her gaze with him to let him know she wasn’t going to hurt him.

“I can mend it myself,” he objected with his ocean eyes. It was funny how he called her stubborn when he was the same.

“And why haven’t you done it?” Atarah didn’t take her hand away from him, and he let go of her wrist. She lifted the fold of his shirt along with the lapel of his leather jacket, seeing the wound still open that needed to be closed. Otherwise, he would bleed to death in that place. When the creature bit him, it slightly moved his teeth into his shoulder, deepening the wound.

“It looks worse than it is,” he assured.

Atarah didn’t know if he was saying it to convince himself or to convince her, but it was clear to her that it was worse than it looked, and he insisted on hiding his pain.

“There are ants in these woods with which you can suture the wound, and you better hurry if you don’t want to bleed to death,” she said without a hint of teasing in her voice. She wasn’t in the mood for it. If she wanted to find Myrah, she needed the hunter to help her with it. Plus, he knew the way to Euthoria, and he was the only one who could take them to that place as soon as they found her sister. “I’m going to find some herbs to make a salve to cover your wound,” she announced, and William looked at her as if he didn’t trust her. The feeling was mutual. But when he noticed the seriousness of her voice, he nodded.

“Don’t get too far away,” he told her when she turned her back to him.

It amazed Atarah at how she could remember the herbs her mother taught her to use to heal a wound. Even which ones to combine and which ones to avoid mixing. She remembered how she’d cried to her mother when she returned home, showing her the cuts from when she tried to walk on the trunk of a tree that a thunder had knocked down. Her mother had been gentle when she healed her wounds and had been patient when she showed her each one of the herbs she used to prepare the salve. She always made sure Atarah paid attention to every step. Gianna made sure her daughter didn’t forget it as if she foresaw she would one day have to leave her.

There were times she wondered if her mother ever cared for her, but if she hadn’t done so, then she wouldn’t make sure she learned and remembered how to heal her wounds so she could do it herself.

As soon as the salve was ready, William took off his leather jacket and lifted the lapel from his shoulder. She placed the salve on his wound that was closed when she saw him wrinkle his nose.

“It smells like shit,” William complained as she carefully spread the salve.

“That’s because it is,” she replied, trying to sound serious. She wanted to make him suffer. At least just a little for acting like a prick with her. When she looked at him sideways, it seemed like he had stopped breathing while he stared at her. “Has healing properties,” she teased him.

“You are joking, right?” he asked in a serious tone, looking at Galad who was on the other side of the campfire, watching him.

“Why would I lie to you?” she asked innocently, trying to remain stolid as she walked away from him to sit next to Galad. She didn’t rest her head on Galad’s back until she saw William’s reaction, who seemed to be holding his breath as he tried not to throw up from the hideous smell. “If it was shit, I wouldn’t dare to put it in my hand. So, you can stop trying to take it off the wound. The white root makes it smell like that and helps to prevent infection,” she explained with a smile growing on her face when she looked at him. William didn’t take his eyes off her for a moment while she looked at the stars.

“You think you’re funny?” He glared at her.

“Hilarious, darling,” she replied nonchalantly with a half-smile, glancing at him.

“Did you learn it from the Witches?”

“To make a hilarious joke?” she asked, knowing what he was really asking. “No, I’ve always been funny.”

He gave her a knowing look and said: “The ointment.”

“Just because your life is linked to mine doesn’t mean I should share information with you,” she said, her tone matching his. William looked elsewhere and took a deep breath. It looked like he was having an internal conversation, scolding himself for asking. “And to answer your question. No, my mother was the one who taught me,” she replied in a doleful voice.

He looked at her, his expression softening. “What about your father?”

“I’ve never met him,” she confessed before turning her back to him, ending the conversation while she settled her head on Galad’s back, who would stay up all night to watch over her as she rested. Still, she knew she’d struggle to sleep. Even though the link protected her from being stabbed by the hunter, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t try something else. And something told her William thought the same, with the only difference being that she needed him to find her sister and to get to Euthoria citadel, one of the dark walker’s territories.