Empress of the Gods

Atarah

She could see the question in William’s eyes when he glanced at the seven-year-old boy she had in her arms. He surveyed her from head to toe as if he was checking for any signs of serious injury. When his eyes stopped on her leg, he didn’t seem as furious as when his eyes laid on her cut lip.

“You can open your eyes now,” she whispered to the little boy who clung to her neck. “You’re safe now,” she assured him, stroking his chestnut hair. “What’s your name?” she asked in a sweet and gentle tone.

“Theo,” he softly said, and they barely heard it.

“Theo,” she repeated. “I’m going to get you down, alright?”

Theo shook his head in answer and didn’t let her go.

Atarah felt William’s eyes on her. She thought he was about to lecture her for not keeping a low profile as he’d asked her to, but he didn’t say a word about it.

“What the hell was that?” Robbie loudly asked, while he touched his forehead with his palm, looking at the forest. She glared at him and then looked with wide eyes at the kid in her arms. She wanted to scold him for cursing in front of Theo. She even saw William trying to suppress his smile. “Sorry Theo. Please cover your ears,” he softly said to Theo, and then he looked at her again. “What the hell was that?” he asked again in the same tone he used.

“What happened in the forest?” Will asked.

“It’s difficult to explain. What happened to the soldier?”

“We surrounded him, but he escaped when we heard the screams in the forest,” Will explained to her before he glanced at the forest.

She looked at him, confused. And before she could say anything to him, a woman who seemed to be the leader of the people who were approaching them spoke with an accent from the highlands. “Someone in the palace of Asteria must be taking care of you, otherwise, you wouldn’t have left that place unscathed. Or perhaps you belong to this place like all those in the driadae kingdoms.” The woman who seemed to be in her fifties and had her chestnut dreadlocks tied back with a cloth on her head, from which hung a few silver charms, stopped walking. Atarah didn’t answer. “Tell me, what do you keep inside? Is there light or darkness in your heart?” The woman asked, as if she could see right through her.

She didn’t answer right away. “I don’t know,” she confessed, letting her gaze loose in the grass as her tears threatened to come out. “I know I have chaos inside my head. Sometimes I feel like I’m free falling. And I don’t know where I’m going or who I am. Maybe I belong to darkness because I’ve been feeling surrounded by it for a long time,” she added when she dared to look at her.

William’s eyes were on her when she said it. In fact, since she’d come out of the forest, he’d been staring at her differently. She even thought she was losing her mind or there was a chance something in the air in that forest made her hallucinate. She didn’t look away. They just stayed like that for a moment.

She felt naked after saying the words out loud that she’d never told anyone about it.

“That can’t be truth, Dhara. She saved my life,” Theo replied, dragging them out of the trance William and her were in. “She almost died saving me.” He turned around for Atarah to take him down. Theo was brave and too lively. When she put him down, she slightly tilted her head towards Will’s direction as if she was trying to understand his gaze, but he stopped looking at her as if he realized he had been staring too long.

“Seriously?” Dhara kindly replied as Theo nodded his head and left with the other people he seemed to know, so he could tell them what happened inside the forest. “We all have a part of darkness even when we don’t dare to recognize it. But more importantly, without darkness, you can’t see the moon and the stars,” she reflected with a warm smile.

“What about me? I almost died saving you too,” Robbie complained next to her in a low tone of voice.

“Hannele’s mountain people,” Will introduced to Dhara and her people.

Dhara shared the same surprised as the others.

Atarah saw a couple of smiles, as if they had heard a compliment.

“We haven’t been called that for a long time,” replied a burly old man with a grey mustache who had both hands on his belt and tattoos on his knuckles.

“Oh yes,” Dhara continued with a lost look, as if she could recall those days. “They usually call us by other not-so-friendly names,” she explained. She opened her arm, inviting them to walk with her to get out of that forest. “It was a bad idea to annoy Ragedion, and he is not likely to forget that easily. He might come back with more soldiers if you decide to stay in the city. He’s like a dog with a bone.”

“Then, it’s a good thing that we’re not going to stay in this place after all,” Robbie said when he put his hands behind his head.

“Where are you heading?” Dhara asked.

When William didn’t answer, she did. “To Ekkirah. Do you know the fastest way to get there?” Dhara pointed her finger behind Atarah, making her slip from her lips: “You have to be kidding me.” She glanced at Will, which meant they had to surround the forest and find a ship that would take them directly to Ekkirah.

“I’m not going in there again,” Robbie said.

Neither would Atarah. She was not going to tempt her luck again.

Galad appeared next to her, putting his head under her hand. Dhara didn’t so much as flinch, and Theo seemed in awe of the tiger while William and Robbie kept their distance from him.

Dhara offered them to stay with them as a thank you for saving Theo. Apparently, they were going with the Lord of the shapeshifters who was waiting for them in the port of Haliver so they could go to Northwest Harbor, which was where Hanniele’s people and the shapeshifters were from. It was right on the shores of the Kingdoms of Drykahria and Lyan.

Will rejected the offer, which made Atarah look at him as if they were going to start arguing about it.

“Thank you Dhara. We gladly accept your offer,” she contradicted him, giving him a fake smile.

Who put him in charge? She thought.

They looked at each other for a moment and, as if she had read his mind, she knew what he was about to tell her. She waited for him to say it, but they felt Dhara’s curious look, and he only gazed at Atarah with narrow eyes after he nodded his head to agree with her. Atarah could swear she saw a corner of Will’s lips turn up when she followed Dhara.

They were walking along the road marked by wagons that had passed for many years that kept a reasonable distance from the border of Ekkirah. Everything felt peaceful despite the murmur of Hannele’s people. She felt comfortable among them, as if she belonged.

Robbie started to play his mandolin as they walked, which started to irritate Will because some of the songs were about him as one of the great heroes who had seen these realms. It got to a point where Will threatened Robbie that if he kept singing songs about him, he would throw the mandolin to Galad, which made Robbie hug his mandolin and stop for a while.

Atarah understood why it annoyed him so much. Maybe in the human kingdoms he was a hero, but in there he wasn’t that different from an assassin. However, she could see goodness in him. After all, he saved her without knowing her and without knowing what she was.

Dhara told them that they would make a few stops near some villages for the carnival on wheels, and to trade some goods as well, since they were merchants. She volunteered to help them with whatever they needed for the carnival. Even if the only thing she could do was to read the palm of a hand thanks to Eudora who taught her a few basic things about it.

Something she hadn’t been able to think about had been the creatures she had seen on the border of Ekkirah. The way they attacked that fae and how one of them let them go when they saw her birthmark.

“What’s on your mind, lassie?” Dhara asked as they listened to the wheels of a caravan grind, and she felt the warm sunlight on her head that was at the highest point in the bright blue sky.

It was strange how easy it was to speak to this woman that she’d just met, but somehow, she knew she could trust her.

“The creatures on the border of Ekkirah.”

“Forgotten nymphs,” replied William next to her.

“Is that what they were?” Robbie asked when he looked at the forest as if he could see them.

Atarah couldn’t help to think about the appearance they had that looked nothing like her mother. “They are not ...” Atarah tried to find the right word to describe them. “I mean, I thought they were children’s stories.”

“Some of the stories say those nymphs that followed Erebus in battle were once beautiful like the other nymphs, but the Gods punished them, only allowing them to stay in that form as a reminder of what they had done. And once he was locked up on the Mannach mountain, the Gods decided to make the nymphs pay for their mistakes by leaving them in the forests surrounding each one of the borders of the driadae kingdoms to protect the territory of their people from intruders,” Dhara explained.

“The sacred mountain.”

Dhara nodded with her head. “Being close to the island of the infinite energies gives it more power to maintain him locked.”

“So, it’s true they can’t roam wherever they want?” asked Robbie.

“It is,” William answered for Dhara. “If someone wants to cross their borders, they need previous authorization from the palace so they can receive a specific route that they will open only once,” he added as if he had read her mind before she asked how they managed to get in and out.

“Some rumors say that as soon as someone enters their lands, they appear with the beauty that was once given, attracting their prey like flies to honey and once they have them cornered, they show them how they really look,” Dhara told them. “They recognize your people. To all the descendants of the nymphs or driadaes and to those who can step on those forests,” she pointed to the forest that was next to them. “If someone else tries to get inside their lands, they will only suffer a tragic fate,” she finished saying when the caravan wagons stopped moving.

“That explains why I’ve never come across any of them every time I entered the forests,” Robbie said.

“I thought you were fae,” Will replied.

“Willi, Willi. If that were the case, I wouldn’t have come out alive. I’m a half-fae and half-driadae. The best of both worlds,” Robbie proudly said about himself.

Atarah smirked at Will’s reaction to Robbie calling him Willi.

After everything that happened, Will didn’t let her out his sight and from time to time, he turned back to make sure no one was following them as if he sensed that Ragedion, the fae soldier, was following them.

Robbie leaved them to get food, while Dhara had gone to check a few things to camp there.

When she was about to help Dhara with whatever she needed, she saw how William stood in front of a wagon before he crouched down. She felt curious about what he was doing when she saw a small leg peeking through one of the wheels. “What are you doing down there?” William asked in a calm, sweet voice.

“There is a tiger out there.” She could barely hear the voice of a girl.

“The tiger is from a friend of mine, and he won’t hurt you,” he explained to her.

“How do you know that?”

“Well, my friend won’t let him harm you. He might look terrifying, but he won’t hurt you. Do you know how to make a scary face?”

“Yes.”

“Something like this.” She heard a strange sound coming from William like a roar. She could imagine his face, which made her smile. Then she heard a little one coming from the girl. “Just like that,” he said, while he helped her get out of there. And before he could see Atarah, she moved.

The colors of the sunset were about to appear at any time, while Hannele’s people moved the caravan wagons to form two circles side by side with a campfire in the center of each one of them and four small ones that formed the cardinal points.

Galad seemed to not like all the attention as the children ran around him and their laugher filled the air.

She saw Will leaning on a tree with his arms folded, while he listened to the stories someone told the kids about the forgotten naiads that were similar to the forgotten nymphs, only they lived under water and sometimes were confused with mermaids due to their beautiful voice. The lyrics on the songs the naiads sang most of the times were love stories, some about a broken heart, and others about the yearn of falling in love. The only difference between the naiads and the mermaids was that the mermaids could get out of the water and their tails transformed into legs. She heard stories about them when she was in Khrysaor as the stories of the nereids.

Atarah noticed how Will was uncomfortable when they named them, which made her suspect it had to do with what he did for a living.

It was strange she still was breathing due to the alliance she had with the hunter, which reminded her that the bond was what was keeping her alive, even though she wasn’t sure about it anymore. She saw a man that was forced to do terrible things. He grew older with pain and anger after he lost his loved ones. She couldn’t judge him for that.

Even if he was there hearing those stories, she knew he was deep in his thoughts. Something she did a lot lately too. She couldn’t help but wish she knew what he was thinking and what had changed between the two of them.

How it was that with one glance they could say so much and nothing at all? That question made her wonder if she was imagining things, or if something was really happening.

William was giving his back to her, and Atarah didn’t give another step towards him. She only stayed there. Only a few steps closer to him.

When Dhara approached her, she touched her arm and told her that she had a long journey ahead of her. She understood what she meant. Atarah felt a little exposed, as if she couldn’t lie to her.

Dhara seemed to be a woman with a lot of wisdom that she sometimes couldn’t help but suspect might be a seer. She had the words for the right moments and from her emanated a light that surrounded her the same way it did with her mother, only with less intensity. She seemed to be totally in tune with the Goddess Dryderia.

“You look a lot like her,” Dhara said. She thought she might be referring to her mother and felt tempted to ask her about her, but Atarah was afraid to do so because she knew the whole wave of emotions would drown her. If that happened, she wouldn’t be able to do what she had to do.

Galad walked to where they were with Theo, asleep on his back. Dhara put her hands on her chest at that sweet moment.

“He is a brave boy,” William said when he got to her side.

“Yes, he is,” Atarah agreed. Then she looked around them. “By the way, where are his parents?”

Will looked at her, shaking his head in denial. She wanted to bite her tongue, but it was too late for that.

Dhara sighed as she looked at Theo. “We could say that he is the son of Ayla, the Goddess of the moon that the Witches know as ...”

“Uphine.” Atarah ended for Dhara, who only nodded with her head.

“We found him looking at Ayla as we dismantled our tents after a carnival. He was completely alone and lost. And since that day, he has stayed with us. We became his family, as well as many others here who have lost their homes or their family. It doesn’t matter what they are, they are always welcome among us.”

Atarah kept thinking about what she said, as if she had guessed what had happened in Khrysaor.

Dhara took Theo in her arms, while Galad sat near where she was. Will leaned on one of the caravans with his arms and feet crossed, looking at the horizon.

“You’re quieter than usual and I’m starting to wonder if someone changed the grumpy hunter I was traveling with,” she mentioned to him.

He gave her a faint smile.

Atarah stood up next to him, but he didn’t take his sight away from the scenery. He let out a short sigh. She was beginning to become familiar with his sighs. “What is going on?” she asked, but when he didn’t answer, she thought he might want to be alone.

“Normally what I do is a bit lonely, and its being a long time since…,” he hesitated for a moment, tilting his head slightly to the side before she left. She stopped walking, waiting for him to continue. “It’s strange to be among my kind again.”

“I think I can imagine how you feel,” she replied, remembering the time she spent in Khrysaor.

“What you did could have ended badly,” he calmly said without raising his voice. She rolled her eyes because she’d been waiting for that moment, and she was ready to discuss it with him when he asked. “Why did you do it?”

“Why did I do what?” she asked, confused.

“Why did you save me that time in Khrysaor and why did you save the kid?”

“Do I need a reason for that?” she asked.

“It was reckless, and you risked yourself when I asked you to keep a low profile.” He stood up straight and faced her. When she was about to answer him, he didn’t let her. “I’m not done yet.” She glared at him with her hands on her waist and before she could interrupt him, he continued, “But if it weren’t for you, I don’t know what would have happened to that kid or what would have happened to me.” He softened his gaze. “You were brave,” he ended up saying when he got closer to her. She wanted to yell at him, but at the same time, she was shocked by what she was hearing.

“I’ve never been more amazed by a stubborn, reckless, strong, and brave woman.”

“I don’t know whether to feel flattered or insulted.” Atarah moved her head to the side.

“Let me protect you,” he declared to her. He was forced to do so, but the way he was looking at her suggest it wasn’t the bond talking.

“I thought you were already doing that,” she replied with a half-smile on her face, making herself a fool, but knowing what he meant. That he, not the bond they have or because of it, wanted to protect her. It was easy for her to ignore the situation, even when she wanted him to look at her differently. She wanted him to look at her as if she was the sun. His sun. But that was nothing more than a dream. One that could never be.

As if he knew what she was thinking, he got even closer to her. “You know what I mean,” he whispered.

“I can protect myself,” she whispered back before turning her back on him. She could feel how her cheeks blushed.

“You won’t make it easy for me, will you?”

“And where would the fun be if I did that?” she teased, before walking away from him.