Empress of the Gods

Atarah

As soon as she went down the stairs of the library, she walked without even knowing where she was going, feeling how her heartbeats increased, the palms of her hands sweating, and she could feel others’ emotions. She didn’t know how she got out of that place and ended up in the streets of Zehava. She was starting to breathe faster, and she kept feeling like she would faint at any moment. The fae directed their gaze toward her and she even collided with some of them while she continued walking without knowing where she was going. She just needed air and for all the noise to stop.

In that moment, she remembered when Rhiannon approached to her when she was only four winters old. Her clothes were dirty on one of her sides because she had been lying on the wet grass hugging her knees, trying not to be suffocated by the noise of the forest. Her adoptive mother put her hands on her hair after she carried her and sat her on the trunk of a fallen tree that was near the river. Listen how the water flows. She told her with a gentle voice, but she shook her head without saying a word. Focus only on the sound of water. Come on. She seemed to listen to her voice like that day while everyone around her was still walking. She tried to concentrate on the sound until she listened to the fall of the water in a fountain and focus on that sound till she found it. It was a few steps from where she was. It had the colors of the fae kingdom with a male statue in the center, wearing a soldier’s uniform.

She sat on the edge of the fountain with her gaze on the ground, trying to concentrate only on the sound of the water to calm her heartbeat and her breathing. She took a deep breath with her eyes closed and tried to concentrate only on her breathing.

When she opened her eyes, she looked at the sky. She was calm when she looked around them and realized she was close to a piazza that was full of fae.

“Atarah?” William asked, standing in front of her with a paper bag, its smell surprising her.

“Is that…?” she acknowledged the sweet aroma.

“A chocolate muffin,” William said, as he handed it over. When she opened it, she let the smell intoxicate her, making her mouth watered with the sweet chocolate aroma. It looked so fluffy and had large chocolate chunks on it. As soon as she took it out of the bag took a bite, making a sound that made William laugh. She had never heard his laugh until that moment. “I guess it’s delicious.”

Atarah nodded as she finished her bite. “You have no idea,” she replied, still with a piece of muffin in her mouth and her eyes closed while she enjoyed the sweetness of the chocolate. “You must seriously like me to buy me a chocolate muffin, or perhaps you are trying to poison me now that you know my weakness,” she said when she looked at him sideways.

William gave her a bright smile that she loved. Showing his dimples.

“It was mine,” he said with a straight face, which made her stop eating the muffin.

“I’m so sorry,” she said as she stretched it out to him, removing a few leftovers from her lips, but he didn’t accept it, and then he smiled again.

“I’m just kidding.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Was that a joke?” she asked, surprised by it. He was laughing, joking, and he bought her a chocolate muffin. “Who are you and what did you do to the grumpy man who is linked to my life?” she asked, taking another bite of her muffin with narrow eyes.

“Funny,” he said, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms, but still smiling, which was making her smile. When he looked at her, she was starting to blush. “Did you find Jack Grayson?” he asked, and she stopped smiling.

Atarah put the muffin into the paper bag when she heard her sister’s voice laughing with Robbie.

“Was that a chocolate muffin?” Myrah asked as soon as she saw the paper bag in her hands. Atarah shook her head in denial. “It is,” her sister replied in a high tone. “I want.” Atarah took out the last piece left and tried to put it in her mouth, but Myrah tried to pull the piece away from her. “Just one piece.” She was fighting with her sister for that last piece, but she managed to put it in her mouth, giving her a smile of satisfaction with the cheeks slightly inflated. Myrah put her hands on her hips with her mouth open.

“Let’s go to the inn to eat. That is where I got it,” Will said as he stood up and waited for her to do the same.

Myrah stuck out her tongue, and she matched the gesture.

“Sonneus. You really are a six-year-old.”

They ate in the tavern, but she didn’t pay attention to what they were talking about, thinking about her conversation with Jack. She could feel William staring at her while her gaze got lost somewhere in the room, and when he tried to take her out of the trance she was in, she only gave him a faint smile.