Empress of the Gods

Atarah

Atarah woke up covered in sweat in the bed.

That nightmare made her believe she had a brother and a father out there. That perhaps Myrah wasn’t her only living relative.

At first, she thought she was having a premonition, which was impossible, because she wasn’t a seer. It felt so that it made her wonder, though.

She sat on one of the armchairs with her back on one side of the forearms and her legs on the other forearm, with her feet facing the fire. Then she leaned her head on the back of the armchair. She opened the first page of the book she took from one of the dusty drawers that someone had left behind, trying to read it, but she ended up looking at the ceiling of the room, thinking about the last words spoken in her nightmare.

She woke up before the sunlight peeked through the window, noticing a blanket that covered her from shoulders to toes. She didn’t know when she fell asleep and didn’t remember covering herself with a blanket. Then, when she looked for William in the room, she found him sleeping on the other armchair instead of the bed. She couldn’t help to stare at him. How could a hunter that killed creatures care if she was cold in the middle of the night? What kind of hunter did that?

When they went down to have breakfast, they ate in silence. William seemed to be lost in his thoughts in the same way she was.

He told her he would go fetch a few things for their trip to Ekkirah, which she was grateful for, because if she didn’t put distance between them, too many things could happen. For instance, she would start to feel attached to him, and that couldn’t happen. She needed to focus on her priorities.

They agreed to meet Robbie near to one of the stalls of the market. The bard didn’t want to stay any longer in the village and preferred to visit driadae lands. She didn’t blame him for wanting to visit a realm with sunlight.

William protested, but Atarah had no problem with it.

The time they spent in that human village, she didn’t hear the songs of the birds, only the hiss of snakes haunting outside of the inn. There was too much light, but not the warm light of the sunlight. In the short time they had been there, she hadn’t seen the sun, only shades of grey in the sky. The streets looked full of monotony, and it was rare to find a smile on the faces of the people who lived there. It was a place that felt haunted.

A kid ran past Atarah and into an alley a few streets ahead from where she was standing. Then a fae guard wearing a silver armor followed him. She felt the hairs on the back of her head bristle. Something seemed weird about that fae. When she followed him, she watched him drag the kid by the arm and then hold him by the neck of his shirt as the kid kicked in the air, trying to get away. She quickly felt the power tingle at her fingertips.

Will asked her to keep a low profile and avoid getting into trouble, but she was not going to allow that soldier to hurt that kid.

“I finally caught you, thief,” said the fae soldier, laughing strangely.

“Hey! Put the kid down,” she yelled at the soldier that wouldn’t even turn to look at her until she got close enough. The boy let the bread fall to the ground.

“Mind your own business,” he muttered, pushing her lightly with his hand. A gesture that she wouldn’t overlook. The boy hit the soldier’s wrist and tried to kick him to get down.

“I said leave him,” she repeated, managing to light the fire in her hand. The boy looked at her hand and paid attention to what was about to happen.

The soldier turned to see her irritated at her, but his gaze changed when he saw the fire in her hand. “You’re not from here,” he said with a smile on his face.

“Let. The. Kid. Go,” she said again, ignoring the soldier.

As soon as he left the kid on the ground, she watched him run, while she grabbed the soldier’s attention. She was aware she would face the music with that soldier that doubled her size and her strength.

Atarah knew she would listen to Will’s grumbling later, but for now she managed to get that kid away from the soldier, whose silver armor was opaque and covered in mud.

In case anything happened to her, she knew William would find her. The moment she didn’t appear in the place they agreed to meet with Robbie he would look for her.

She took two steps back when the fire evaporated from her hand, but she moved as if she was seizing her opponent and preparing for a fight, which made the soldier laugh at her when he saw her intentions. She hated being underestimated. She hated being seen as fragile when, in fact, she was quite the opposite. The fire inside began to rise in response.

“This is going to be fun, driadae,” he said when he approached her.

“Indeed, it will be,” she replied when she saw that he put away his blade and approached to her, striking first. She managed to dodge him, but when she was about to respond to the attack, she received a punch in the stomach, making her bend at the waist. Then he took her from the nape of her neck, lifting her up so she could look at him. Atarah kicked him and managed to escape him. That fae tripled her strength. She was closer to being a mortal than fae without using her gifts. So, she ran. Only she forgot her speed was equal to a mortal’s. In a blink of an eye, the soldier was next to her, throwing her back into the alley. She fell on her side on the cold stone floor, securing a few more bruises on her body. She tried to get up with her other hand, but she was having trouble doing so.

“Now you have my full attention, driadae. If that’s what you really are,” the fae said with a rough voice. He slowly walked to where she was as she tried to move back like a crab. The fae had a strange stain on his jaw, and his eyes seemed to darken. Something was not right with him. He easily picked her up, squeezing her arms tightly with a mocking smile on his face while he faced her. Atarah’s feet were in the air, and she was trying to get away from his horrible hands that were putting more and more pressure on her. “You smell different.” He approached to smell her, which made her turn her face sideways. He had an unpleasant smell that she would remember for days. She hit him with her foot, but it didn’t seem to affect him. He was smiling from ear to ear, and that made her angry. She began to feel the fire inside her that rose to the surface, making her skin burn his hands as if he had put them into the fire. As he screamed in pain, he abruptly let her go, throwing her at the wall of a house. She tried to find a way out, but he was blocking her exit. She was about to surround him when two more soldiers spotted them and began to walk towards them.

Shit.

Suddenly, she heard a familiar voice. “Atarah. William needs you to ...” Robbie’s voice began to fade away when he saw the three soldiers in front of her. “Shiiit,” he uttered when the soldiers turned to him. “Wrong person. Got it,” he stated, pretending to look somewhere else, and the soldiers followed him with their eyes until he left.

“Over here,” whispered the voice of a boy that came from one of the doors that was ajar behind her. Without thinking it twice and before they reacted, she followed the kid. The boy closed the door and put a chair as if that could stop those soldiers.

They were in what seemed to be a laundry. Bedsheets hung from the ceiling, moving with the wind that came through the windows and steam that came out from the hot water they used to wash clothes. She smelled a hint of lavender and soap as they ran among the people who were working in there.

They went through another door that faced an open street, and she looked at both sides of the street. She could see the wheels of the carts and hear the pounding of the horses’ hooves against the stone.

“Here!” yelled the fae soldier.

She heard one of the guards behind her as they ran. For a moment, she thought she saw Will when she passed next to him, but she didn’t stop to see if he was. She just kept running with the boy until they turned around in another street and she crashed into Robbie.

“What the hell?” she asked when she wide-eyed him.

“We better leave,” he replied, taking her by the arm so they could keep moving.

“Do you care to explain?”

“Not right now,” he said, looking behind them.

They were getting close to them, and she didn’t know what to do or if Will would arrive on time, so when she spotted a horse outside a house, she went to place the boy on it.

“Get on the horse, Robbie,” she ordered him.

Robbie looked towards the noises where the soldiers were going to appear at any moment. “You first,” he said with a tremulous voice.

As soon as she did, Robbie untied the horse with his trembling hands and climbed onto it.

“Hold on tight, okay?” she asked the kid as they saw the soldiers that reached the street they were on. She squeezed a bit strong on the sides of the horse so it would start moving faster. She didn’t know which way she was going, only that she was trying to find a way out of that place. Atarah took a path that seemed to lead to the outskirts of the village as people on the streets walked away to let them pass and even others pulled those distracted ones she was about to run over on the road. She shouted a couple of apologies as they passed, and some of them replied with a curse word. She tried to get away from the village as far as she could, leaving Will behind.

William will know where to find me. She thought. In fact, she begged for that to happen.

Atarah wondered where the kid’s parents were. They were going to look for them as soon as they got to a safe place. Preferably away from those soldiers.

She was counting on Will, valuing his life more than anything else.

Atarah tried not to attract the attention of other soldiers, so she tried to drive away those who followed them.

They passed the last houses that were at sight of the village, and they rode on a road marked by carts that were in an open field, while on one side the forest could be seen.

“Did we lose them?” she asked Robbie.

“Do you want me to lie to you?” he replied to her.

“So, they are still following us.”

“Yes, they are.”

From one moment to another, they went from being on top of the horse to the ground with the horse on top of them. Somehow Atarah managed to protect the boy, who easily stood up, while one of her legs was stuck under the horse. Robbie and the boy tried to lift the horse so she could get out, but the soldiers were getting closer and closer. “Run,” she told them.

“Go,” Robbie told the kid who ran into the forest.

“You can’t leave him alone. Go with him,” she ordered him. “I’m right behind you.”

Robbie nodded before he followed the kid. The two soldiers who had been in the alley and the one with the stain on the jaw were coming towards her. She tried to push herself back so she could pull out her leg, but the horse was too heavy. She was starting to regret making Robbie leave before he got her out. She tried to turn over her chest and crawl when she heard the horses jogging on both sides, making her bury her nails in the ground so she could get out.

Then Galad came out of her interior, emanating a loud roar in warning, trying to cover her as she managed to pull out her leg. Even if she couldn’t control what Galad did, she hated risking him that way because he seemed to be an easy target. That fae soldier smiled as if he had discovered pure gold. And the other one next to him, who she recognized, said, “It’s her.” The fae that she stopped William from killing.

They stopped at a reasonable distance from her. “Go for the boy and the half-breed,” he ordered to the soldier on his left, while he was still looking at her. But she wasn’t going to let them catch them. The other soldier, who was still on the horse, looked static until blood began to come out of his mouth. As he swayed forward, he fell off his horse with an ax buried in his back. She couldn’t help to feel relief when she saw William in the distance riding quickly so he could get to where she was. She took advantage of that moment and ran into the forest along with Galad so they could help the kid and Robbie.

Atarah could hear the rustling of the leaves and feel the roots under her feet move the moment she entered to the forest. Somehow that place increased her power, as if her energy renewed when she set foot in there. She also felt the presence of creatures hiding in that forest, watching every move she made. She could swear she saw some trees move around her, making her skin bristle. The songs of the birds filled her ears and with every step she gave, her power began to tingle at her fingertips. She couldn’t believe that a place could be beautiful and at the same time full of secrets. It was like she could feel what guarded that place, as if she was part of it. She didn’t feel insecure there, quite the opposite, but that didn’t mean she stopped being in danger.

Galad jogged in front of her as if he expected her to follow him.

“Kid,” she screamed a couple of times, feeling watched, and couldn’t help to look around a couple of times, but no one was there. “Robbie!” she yelled, feeling movement under the ground that forced her to stop, waiting to see something appear, but when she stopped, it stopped moving too. She felt she was running out of time because she didn’t know what was going on, but it didn’t seem to be a good thing, so she had to hurry up if she wanted to save the child’s life. “Kid,” she shouted again. Atarah was getting deeper and deeper, running through the trees, seeing different shades of green and brown around her.

She heard steps towards her, and her gifts answered her, ready to attack anything that came in her direction, when Robbie appeared with his hands raised in front of his face.

“Are you alright?” she asked, lowering her hands. Robbie nodded with his head while he tried to calm his breath. “The kid?” she asked when she didn’t see him around them.

Robbie shook his head in denial. “I couldn’t find him.”

They heard someone scream, and she assumed it came from the fae soldier who was following them.

“We need to find him fast,” she told Robbie, who looked towards where they heard the screams.

Robbie moved quickly in the direction of the scream, and Atarah followed him. They found the fae soldier pointing his sword around him as if he was fighting with an enemy that only he could see.

She didn’t see anyone else around him.

“What the hell is going on?” Robbie asked as he watched the fae soldier whose eyes had turned red.

Atarah put her index finger close to her lip when Robbie looked at her. “The kid,” she mouthed to him, and she knew he understood thanks to his fae vision and excellent ear. She slowly walked, trying to surround him so she could look for the boy, when she noticed him hiding inside the trunk of one of the trees. He was shaking, hugging his legs, and trying to hide his head.

As soon as she took another step, the wind began to move the leaves of the trees and some of them began to move, which made her wonder if there was something in the air that made her hallucinate or if she had hit her head when they fell off the horse, because something was definitely moving fast that she could barely perceive it.

Robbie froze as if he had seen that too.

Her skin bristled, and the soldier no longer seemed to be fighting an invisible enemy. The roots of the trees slowly curled up on his feet as if they had a life of their own, just as she had done it in Khrysaor, only this time she wasn’t doing it. She looked around, expecting to find someone like her, but there was no one else. Robbie must have thought the same when he glanced at her and then around them.

She tried to approach the kid, but the soldier looked at her with bloodied eyes. He was panting for air from the pressure with which the roots and the branches squeezed him. It made her take a step back, and Robbie followed.

Atarah heard stories about the creatures that lived deep inside the forest, but she thought they were nothing more than stories adults told children when they misbehaved. She remembered hearing them from one of the men in the tavern of the village too. How he saw young men venturing through the woods in search of beautiful maidens who seemed to be lost, never to return.

They seemed to be swallowed by the ground. She recalled the exact words she heard.

She heard a deafening scream that made her put her hands to her ears that did not come from the soldier, which made her move faster and get to where the kid was hiding. She could feel and hear the ground moving under her feet.

“Please hurry up,” Robbie whispered to her.

“Come on,” she whispered to the kid, gently taking his arm. “Please get out of there,” she pleaded, but when he looked at her, his face paled and he was starting to tremble again. Not because of her. Whatever he was seeing behind her made him cling to his hiding place. She could hear the screams of the fae, but she couldn’t panic if the boy seemed terrified of what was going on behind her back. The kid couldn’t look away. “Look at me,” she gently ordered, but he didn’t do it instantly. “Look at me,” she repeated a little louder to get him out of the trance he was in. He startled, as if she’d shaken him. When she got his attention, looking at her with his silver eyes, she asked, “Do you trust me?” He didn’t say a word, only nodded. “Close your eyes,” she asked, and he immediately obeyed, which helped her to get him out of the hole in the trunk. She carried him and put a hand on his head so he wouldn’t turn to where the soldier was.

The strange thing about it all was that Galad was nowhere to be seen. He was not protecting her as he should have been. She tried not to look, but she realized that what appeared to be trees had human silhouettes. Instead of hair, they had branches that seemed to move as if it were snakes. They had human features, only that the skin seemed to be made of wood. They buried their sharp fangs and claws were above that fae that was no longer visible.

The terrifying screams the fae emitted signaled what was happening. Not to mention the amount of blood that jumped to the sides. She seemed to be hypnotized by that scene, unable to move, and if it weren’t for Robbie and the boy who hugged her neck, squeezing her, because of how scared he was, she would have been paralyzed. Robbie slowly helped her move without taking their eyes off what was happening when a branch of a tree broke under her feet and one of the creatures fixed its golden eyes on her while blood slipped from its mouth.

“Don’t look,” she whispered to the kid. The look of the creature passed from Robbie to the child in her arms, showing him its sharp teeth and when it was about to approach them Atarah instinctively raised her hand as if to stop it. The mark on her skin burned and change to the same color as the amber eyes of the creature, which made it stop and lose interest in them.

“That’s weird,” Robbie said behind her.

She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath while she expected the worst to happen. “Let’s get out of here,” she said to them.

They started walking backwards, trying not to stumble upon another branch, rock, or slope until it was far enough to turn around and jog. She looked for a way out of that place.

Atarah wasn’t going to be calm if they didn’t leave that place as soon as possible.

She couldn’t help but wonder what kind of place it was, why they had escaped unscathed, and, more importantly, what those creatures were.

She didn’t know if it had been luck or if the Gods had been benevolent by letting them out.

With each step they were getting closer to the exit of the forest, seeing an open field ahead of them and a little far from where they had entered, which made her feel relieved.

Nearby the entrance of the forest, she saw a few caravans along with some people that approached them when she slowed down.

She was willing to use her power that began to tingle at her fingertips, threatening to come out of her interior to do what was necessary to protect them when she recognized those chestnut curls in the distance. She recognized the man approaching them.