Empress of the Gods

Atarah

Duncan left on a different ship in the direction to Northwest harbor. William didn’t talk to her when they got on the ship. He didn’t even glance at her. Why did she care what he thought of her? Yet she followed him. “Will.” She tried to call for his attention, but he kept ignoring her. “Will,” she repeated. “I thought we had a truce,” she said as she folded her arms. It was the only way she could think how to get his attention. He snorted and then continued on with what he was doing. He was moving some things into the cabin of the ship and then she got inside with him and close the door. He put a hand on the knob of the door, but she opened her arms so he couldn’t go out. “I’m sorry, I had no idea what would happen,” she confessed, but still he avoided looking her in the eyes and only folded his arms while his gaze was somewhere else. “I don’t know why I keep doing it,” she added. The truth was, she kept risking their lives without telling him when he had the right to know, since it was his life at stake too.

“You know why you keep doing it,” he replied angrily. “In the same way we both know what is happening between us that neither of us dare to say out loud. So, you avoid being close to me. You choose not to trust me, and you’d rather risk your life than face what is in front of you,” he angrily said. “I know you have your own plans as I have mine, but you know what I hate.” He gave a step closer to her, and she wanted to give a step back, only she couldn’t. “I hate having to think about you even when you’re next to me, wanting to know what it’s going on inside your head while you don’t care, because it’s easier for you to pretend it doesn’t exist when it does. You don’t have any idea what I’m willing to do for you and how much I care about you,” he added.

“Cared about me?” she let out a short laugh. “You ignored me. You went to watch the camp far away from me when we almost…” She stopped her words, wanting to bite her tongue.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”

She stared into his beautiful ocean eyes. She was speechless because part of what he said was true. William placed one of his hands next to her ear on the door and got closer to her to whisper in her ear. “I hate how much I want to kiss those lips when I see you biting them. I feel tempted to bite them myself.” His breath was warm on her skin and tickled her ear, causing her a pleasant sensation that ran through her spine, making her lift her toes. “I hate how much I want to count each one of the moles on your skin,” he whispered with a throaty voice, placing his other hand on the other side near her hip, never without touching it.

She was starting to breathe heavily, and her body was beginning to react to his. They were so close to each other that she could burn him alive if she didn’t want anything, only that she didn’t do it. She could feel his warm breath on her lips. “Please free me from this torture,” he said with his eyes closed. “I hate to feeling this compelled to be close to you, to want to become the air you breathe,” he whispered, leaning his head on the door, and next to her head. Atarah couldn’t think straight because he was so close to her and yet not enough. She hated how much she wanted to kiss him. “How could I make it stop?” His warm breath tickled over her neck, playing with her; tempting her. Then he looked at her. She noticed how they started breathing equally at the same rhythm. Her heart was beating as if it wanted to get out of her chest. “I’m no saint. I’m even close to being a daemon, but I never thought I wanted to be tortured by an angel without wanting to beg for mercy.”

Atarah closed her eyes, wanting more, but she needed to have a clear judgement which she wasn’t at that moment. She placed her hands on his chest, climbing up until she reached the back of his neck. And from one moment to the next, his lips were on hers, feeling how his hands went to her lower back, pulling her towards him. It was such a desperate kiss, but at the same time, so liberating. It felt so wrong and so good.

She didn’t care he was a hunter, but she worried that what he was feeling had something to do with the bond. How much could that last when he had to accomplish the task the last Silverclaw leader gave him? He was in Khrysaor to retrieve the dagger and she had to find out everything about that dagger and protect it from falling into the wrong hands. How will that work for them, when they were dedicated to their missions? That made her break the kiss and got out of there without looking back.

***

She saw the colors of the sunset in the sky. The ship was moving swiftly and had anchored a little further from where they had planned. Duncan wasn’t kidding when he said he wouldn’t risk his people and she couldn’t blame him for it.

The captain had given the order to lower a single boat that had little space.

She changed her clothes for others she found in one of the cabins. She was comfortable in grey cotton pants, knee-high boots, and a wine-red blouse.

Will was the first to go down on the rope stairs without saying a word, and when she was next, he extended his hand to help her get down to the boat. It was difficult for her to concentrate on that moment. When she almost fell into the water, he managed to hold her by the waist, pulling her towards him. Her heartbeats sounded like a drum, overlapping the water tapping on the boat as if it was heard in the distance. For a moment they looked at each other in silence without moving until they heard Robbie’s voice coming down the stairs, followed by Elysia. The boat seemed to be too small for the four of them, and especially for the two of them.

“Duncan seems to be quite a gentleman. Now I understand why there isn’t a huge queue of ladies waiting for him,” Robbie complained. “I thought he would take us directly to Ekkirah.”

“You know you can’t enter to a driadae territory without permission, plus he had to be somewhere else,” she explained as if she and Duncan were friends and he told her all his plans. And in response, Will snorted. The entire time they were in Duncan’s camp, they stayed away from each other. She wasn’t surprised that Will had been too serious when she said goodbye to Duncan on the beach. She thought it had to do with how the shapeshifter looked at her. In fact, every time Duncan approached her, Will didn’t stop looking at them, but especially at Duncan.

Elysia folded her arms as she let Robbie move the oars.

“I think we should have taken a merchant ship,” Robbie said. When she and Elysia realized that Robbie was putting his hand in the water.

“No,” she and Elysia said at the same time, while Robbie stopped moving instantly. “Don’t do that again,” Elysia scolded.

“Something protects the borders in the water,” Atarah said, looking at the water as if she could see what moved on the bottom. “Forgotten nereids,” she added, looking at Elysia, who didn’t say anything, but she could feel her nerves as if it confirmed what she thought.

“You have to be kidding.” Robbie looked at Elysia, frightened, as if he wanted to row in the opposite direction.

They rowed for a moment in silence, listening only to the movement of the water when the oars came out of it. The sun had already set, leaving them in the darkness of the night that was full of stars reflecting on the water like small lights.

She could feel Will’s gaze on her as he rowed, as if he wanted to tell her something, just as she wanted to tell him too. Elysia lit the torch that was on her side, when suddenly Atarah heard something moving under the water.

“Did you hear that?” she asked to the others that were watching the water. Will and Robbie stopped paddling instantly. Everything was silent. Robbie seemed unwilling to move, while Elysia was unsheathing one of her daggers. Will did the same as he had his eyes on the water.

“How far are we from the shore?” Will asked.

“I don’t know Willi. I can’t see through the haze. Without mentioning that we were left in the middle of the heartless sea, so I guess there is still too much left,” Robbie replied in a higher tone than he intended.

“Shh.” Elysia silenced him and hit him on the arm.

“Will, have you ever killed a forgotten nereid?” Atarah asked in a low tone, but loud enough for everyone to hear. Something was definitely moving under the boat.

Will continued looking at the water, preparing his ax. “Do you really want to know?” He whispered to her. Atarah leaned backwards, approaching the edge of the boat as she shook her head in denial. Everything was awfully quiet. When something pulled her into the water. She started kicking to rise to the surface, but something was holding her back without even touching her. She panicked when she saw something moving around her and every time she turned around, there was nothing there. She could see the torch on the surface, as well as the light of the moon piercing the water. A strange sound was heard under the water, and she lost control of her body. She was no longer in control of her movements. It was as if she was just an observer through her eyes. Little by little, her sight was adapting to the water and when she swam towards the surface, she could see the boat surrounded by forgotten nereids.

A legend said that sailors who ventured into their territory their ships ended up at the bottom of the sea.

From the top of their head to their waists, they had a female body with a long hair and their eyes were the same color as the forgotten nymphs in the woods. Instead of legs, they had the tail of a fish. Their whole body was covered in white scales. That was some way to differentiate them from driadae mermaids. None of them were rising to the surface, but they didn’t take their eyes off the boat. As soon as she got to the surface, the three of them turned to see her.

“There she is,” Robbie said, sounding relieved. “Nothing to fear. She already came to the surface. Now she just needs to come out of the water. Did you see anything down there?” Robbie asked, but Elysia and William were waiting for something else to happen.

“Atarah, you’d better get on the boat,” Will said to her as he tried to reach out, but she tilted her head. She could feel a smile on her face. “Come on,” he insisted, and she swam over there. As soon as he tried to grab her, she swam back.

“What are you doing?” Robbie asked. Elysia was analyzing her as if she felt something was wrong. She refocused her attention on Will and placed her arms on the edge of the boat, looking at him without saying a word as if it was the first time she saw the sun. “Come on Atarah, stop playing, get out of the water.” Robbie sounded worried.

Will stared at her.

“They say there are sailors who find love in these waters,” she said, resting her cheek on her arm. “There’s a song about a brave sailor who fought for his lover.”

“What are you talking about?” Robbie asked, but neither she nor Will looked away from each other as if they were under the same spell. She wanted to yell at him that she wasn’t the one talking, so he could find out sooner that she couldn’t control her movements.

“I thought my love was the sea until I got lost in those eyes that hypnotized me like a dream,” she sang in another tongue, understanding every word she said. All eyes were fixed on her, but she only saw Will, who seemed curious and slowly approached her, letting her put her hands on his arms, slowly reaching her elbows.

“Atarah, please climb into the boat,” he pleaded. She bit her lip as she tried to hold a smile on her face, internally fighting to reach him, to tell him it was a trap.

“Come with me,” she said in a sweet tone as she put her hands on his cheeks to bring him closer to her. Then she began to sing again.

“Please tell me this is not happening,” Robbie said, becoming frightened.

“Don’t let her finish the song,” Elysia said to William. In that moment, Will joined his lips with hers and pulled her out of the water.

She heard a scream that was not human and still she couldn’t control her movements or her words. “You can’t be here,” she said. “Only the descendants of our sisters can pass. And tonight, we will feast,” she hissed.

Robbie held her on the wooden floor of the boat. “What do I do if she doesn’t react?” he asked with his hands on her wrists, keeping her from scratching him again. Elysia was trying to throw away the nereids with her spells and at the same time, she tried to use her dagger to defend herself. William did the same, only with his ax. “What do I do?” he screamed in despair again as she tried to kick him.

“We’re a bit busy right now,” Will said as he stopped a nereid who opened her sharp teeth and managed to return to the water.

“There are too many,” Elysia said to them, trying to dodge their claws.

Robbie slapped Atarah so she could react, but it didn’t work and only made her angry. She would remember that moment and as soon as she regained her body back, they would settle accounts. “It doesn’t work.”

Atarah was fighting. She had to do something so she could free herself from the control they had over her. Elysia put a hand on her head as she tried to move and repeated a few words in the old tongue of spells, letting her retrieve her body. The moment she felt that nothing controlled her, she took the edge of the boat, feeling the power tingling at her fingertips.

Atarah was not angry—she was furious. “Hold on to something now,” she ordered them as she stood up on the boat. With a simple movement of her hands, she threw a strong wind with fire towards the nereids, making them retreat. She heard the old language from Elysia’s mouth that made them move without having to row. She felt so tired that she thought she was going to fall into the water when William’s hands caught her from the waist, pulling her back to him. She tried to move towards Elysia to help her with the wind so she could move the boat faster.

“No,” Elysia yelled, knowing what she was trying to do. “What I need is fire to keep them away,” ordered the new Silverclaw leader. She nodded and let her fire flow freely through her hands. She saw the orange lines over her arms as if she was going to break like a flower base.

Some of the nereids who were too close to the boat submerged as soon as they saw the fire, and she continued freeing her fire until everything turned dark.

Part III

Only for a night.