Empress of the Gods

Atarah

The cottage was slightly away from the village. She was thankful it was closer to the stables and to the garden, where Atarah helped with her gifts to grow the herbs Rhiannon used for spells, and for her sister, who worked as an apprentice healer. It wasn’t a big cottage, but they had enough space to live the three of them.

Galad carefully climbed up the porch of the cottage, making the wood creak under his powerful paws, trying not to drop the injured stranger on his back. She took the stranger’s arm and passed it behind her shoulder so she could lift the stranger from the tiger’s back and lean him on the door frame when Myrah opened the door. Her sister stared at the stranger and then at her, waiting for an explanation about the man that was nearly dead on their front door.

“I can explain it, only not now,” Atarah said as she tried to move the stranger inside the house. “First, help me save his life.”

Myrah sighed in surrender at her request. She took the other arm and replicated the same movement Atarah made. Each of them had an arm of the stranger as they dragged his feet so they could put him on the table.

“Fine, but I need to know what we’re going to tell mother. How are we going to explain?” Myrah didn’t finish her question, only pointed with her hand at the barely living man they were carrying. She moved the things that got in the way from the table to the nearest chair. “Try to explain it while we help him.”

Then Atarah recalled what the Warlock had told her.

“Has Rhiannon come back yet?” She asked as she tried to place her savior on the table. She feared the next words Myrah would utter.

Atarah never referred to Rhiannon as ‘Mom’ or ‘Mother.’ A part of her felt strange doing so and more each time, she remembered her own mother.

“Not yet.”

Hearing those words out loud made her stomach churn. She tried not to say another word about what happened in the woods, considering her sister was worried enough. Upsetting her would only make things worse.

Myrah tied her chestnut hair in a ponytail. She always did that when she was trying to concentrate. “Lift his shirt so we can see how deep the wound is,” she ordered, looking at the stained part of the shirt. Atarah did as her sister requested while she observed how Myrah prepared a salve with a bunch of herbs they had hanging upside down from the cottage ceiling. She took them easily without hesitating, as if she had been born to be a healer. Everyone expected her to do that since each time they were healing someone from the coven, she always paid attention to every step. Plus, she had never been scared of blood.

Atarah only knew a few things that came in handy for her when she got into trouble. It was ironic how she knew how to heal wounds and could grow plants but never grew interest in it.

Whoever saw them could say Myrah was the one who had best adapted to that place, and not only because it was the only place she knew since she was a baby, but she perfectly blended in there. As if she was a witch despite of being a driadae with a gift related to water, which she only used freely when they were at home.

Myrah handed a bowl with water along with a cloth so she could clean the wound.

Atarah carefully took off the belt of the wound and when she lifted his shirt, he moved in pain. She tried to clean the wound as best as she could, noticing the strange tattoo he had on his chest and part of his arm. The wound needed stitches, so her sister took thread and needle and sutured the stranger. When he started moving, Atarah covered the hand of her savior with hers as she tried to transfer the calm she felt every time she used her gifts and when she ran with Galad by her side. The stranger immediately stopped moving and let Myrah work.

He would recover with the stitches and salve that had her blood in it, though a spell would get him back to health faster. She didn’t want Rhiannon to find him there.

“Do you plan on standing there awkwardly, or do you plan on telling me what happened?” Myrah asked while she cleaned her hands with a cloth. Sometimes, Myrah looked more like the older sister than the young one. “Why weren’t you in the house?” she asked as she folded her arms.

“Why weren’t you at home?” Atarah replied, remembering that she was at home when Myrah was gone. Despite living in the same house, they only saw each other when they went to sleep and sometimes when one of them was in the middle of their escape.

While her sister didn’t have the pressure of having all the eyes on her, nor needed to behave properly as the daughter of the General, her disappearances had everything to do with her friends. She was glad at least one of them was having fun. Maybe that was the reason she acted as her accomplice, because her sister was living for both.

“That’s not important, Atarah. We are talking about you,” Myrah replied, passing the bowl with the salve she had prepared.

Atarah rolled her eyes, knowing her sister always tried to deviate from the conversation.

“I went out before the sun rose when I heard the horn. I heard screams in the forest and ran to help,” she explained. But what she didn’t tell her was that she’d been trying to listen to the conversation Rhiannon had with the council leader of Khrysaor.

“And then?” She pointed with her hand at the wounded man. Not taking her sapphire eyes from her, which stood out thanks to her beautiful chestnut hair that looked lighter under the sun’s rays. Every time she used her gifts, her irises changed to a color similar to a silver moon in the same way hers did. “You know she is going to kill him when she sees him here, right?” Atarah stared at the stranger. She was well aware of that.

The southern kingdom shared a border with other realms, including the human ones, but the Witches’ realms were not the kind of places humans wished to visit. They were terrified of their inhabitants, as the creatures were terrified of the hunters. Some hunters even tried to trespass into witches’ realms to commit atrocities their kings and queens denied. Hunters were supposed to be a secret, but it was obvious it was no longer the case. All creatures had knowledge of them.

The coven managed to stop the ones who committed crimes against witches in their lands and sentenced them to die in the hands of the General. So, she knew what would happen if Rhiannon saw him there, only that wasn’t going to happen because he wasn’t a hunter. He couldn’t be. If he were a hunter, he wouldn’t have saved her life or been tied to a tree with her. But if he was, why would a hunter collect a bounty over another hunter? She wondered, trying to make sense of what happened.

Somehow, Rhiannon’s coven managed to drive the hunters away. After that, Atarah didn’t hear about them returning to the Witches’ realms.

“I know, but he is not a hunter,” Atarah replied without being certain about it. “Besides, I couldn’t leave him there to die. Not after he saved my life from a hunter and his men,” she added as she stared at his savior.

Myrah was shocked to hear her last words. “Another?”

“What do you mean with another? It’s been a long time since the last one.”

Myrah didn’t say another word, as if she had accidentally revealed something she wasn’t supposed to tell. Her sister took a slice of cheese from the kitchen as she avoided looking at her in the eyes. “No, it’s not.” Atarah looked at her sister, waiting for her to continue. “I accidentally overheard one of the informants mention they saw twelve last month. Do you think they are coming for us?” her sister asked, biting her nails. Atarah tried to look calm, but her sister needed to know the truth, even if she suspected it had nothing to do with her.

“They were looking for one of us,” she told her as she wiped her hands with a wet cloth.

“You think they were from Drykahria?”

Atarah shrugged her shoulders. “I only know that one of the warlocks in the council warned them about the attack on the borders and they took advantage of it.”

“But that must have been a coincidence. How would you know he was in the council?”

“The warlock appeared while I was tied to a tree. I’m sure it was not a coincidence,” she assured her. “I might not be certain if he was or wasn’t in the council, but the comment he made… he made me think at least he had influence in it. I couldn’t recall who he was. I don’t even remember crossing paths with him—ever,” she explained. She would have recognized his face. It was difficult for her to forget a face.

Atarah placed the bowl in the kitchen and looked at her dress that had blood in it that wasn’t even hers. As if Myrah could read her mind, she didn’t insist on the subject anymore and she was grateful for it. She wasn’t ready to talk about what happened in the forest.

She remembered how her gifts flowed so easily and how much she enjoyed using her earth power on those men.

“I’ll go to get chamomile for tea so he can drink it after he wakes up,” she said as she glanced at the stranger before laying eyes on her. “And you could use some too,” she suggested before she left the cottage.