Empress of the Gods

Atarah

Atarah had no idea how to get out of that cell. She didn’t even feel like she wanted to get out of there. The gods had chosen her for a task that still needed to be completely revealed, and now the Dimneas’ dagger and the night flame were in Melione’s hands.

How much pain can a soul endure before corrupting it? Melione’s words were beginning to echo in her head, no matter how hard she tried to ignore them.

Atarah had trusted William. It was the worst mistake she ever made. She was a fool for thinking something could happen between them. Apparently, it was something only she felt. Only something she wanted to see. For a long time, she had longed to be loved. She wanted to live it. Experience it. She just wanted to be loved, so she let him in. Even when something told her she shouldn’t trust him and when she finally decided to trust him, he led them there.

Part of her was glad she was in a different cell from Myrah and Robbie, because she didn’t want anyone to see her that way. Completely destroyed with a broken heart and a tired soul. She didn’t have the energy to think of an escape plan.

The way William had seen Melione as soon as they arrived told her a lot.

Each one of her silent tears easily fell. She didn’t even bother to clean them, but simply felt the cold marks the tears left as they ran down her cheeks.

Her gaze was lost in the iron bars in front of her. How did I get here? She asked herself when her back rested on the wall.

She looked at the light coming through the small window of the cold wall she was leaning against. She let the darkness surround her as if she had stopped fighting. Atarah felt incredibly tired. So much that with the storm inside her, she did not want to swim towards the surface. She was letting the current of the water carry her.

“Atarah,” Myrah called her on the other side of the wall, but she didn’t answer. She tightly closed her eyes, feeling how her silent tears fell harder. “Atarah.” Her sister’s voice was sweet but insistent. She still didn’t answer. “Robbie, isn’t she in her cell?”

“Give her a moment, Myrah,” replied Robbie, who could clearly see her, but sat facing to a wall, letting her see only one side of his face so he could give her a sort of privacy.

“But we don’t have a moment. We must think of some way out,” Myrah replied, rising the tone of her voice. She could hear her sister move on her cell. “There will be a time to cry, but now we need to think.”

“Myrah,” scolded Robbie. She was grateful to him for doing so because, at that moment, everything inside her was falling apart.

There was a moment when she believed that she could see through William, only she didn’t. That kiss. That kiss he had given her made her think so many things, and when he asked her to stay in that field with him, it seemed as if he wanted to be with her. The man who hunted creatures wanted to share his life with one. Her head tortured her, remembering every kiss and every caress they had. Even every time he looked at her. It felt so real that it made her want to scream, and she did it inside her head while on the outside there was nothing but silence.

“I never thought William would plan something like this,” Robbie said from his cell as he looked at Myrah. “Not only do I have dry blood on my hands, but I stink as if I haven’t bathed for a month or more. I can’t believe I smell so bad,” he said after smelling his shirt.

“It’s not you, or maybe it’s you, but most of it is Melione’s dark magic,” replied her sister.

Atarah didn’t stop thinking about what Robbie had said. “What did you say?” She approached the bars of her cell.

“That I need to take a bath.”

“No, before. About Will.”

“That I never thought William would do that?” He asked, as if he was trying to understand what she was thinking.

“No, you said you never thought William would plan something like this,” she said, answering her question. But from what point did he plan it? She sat on her heels without letting go of the bars of her cell. She heard her sister ask what they were talking about, but no one answered. Robbie got a little closer to the bars of his cell. “What are you thinking, Tarah?”

“The first time I saw him, he was tied up with me in a tree when a hunter and his men caught me,” she said as if her voice had gone to that memory. “He helped me escape and saved me from those men. What if from the beginning he planned to be caught? In case Rhiannon found me so she wouldn’t kill him.”

None of them replied, only the breeze of the wind was heard passing by.

“But you said those men were killed,” recalled her sister.

Only she didn’t remember if she was the one who killed them, or if it was all on William.

“But the attack on the border was a coincidence?” Robbie asked, confused. “I don’t think he has the means to plan that much.”

He didn’t have the means, but someone he knew did. “Melione has an army at her disposal to do it.”

“But then, how much did he actually plan?” Robbie asked.

“Exactly,” agreed her sister. “Because I don’t think he expected to be linked, or that I disappeared,” she added.

Atarah tried to remember everything that William told her. He was telling the truth when he told her they didn’t send him to kill her, and he accepted when she assumed he killed the messenger, so Melione sent him for the dagger. On the other hand, Demir must have told Melione where their defenses were weak so they could attack the borders and drag the coven to defend it so the other hunter and his men could capture her.

When she heard a whistle outside the cell room, she remembered hearing it before. The first time was in the forest when she saw the hunter in the rain before they captured her and then when they were on the road with Dhara and again when they were in bed together.

When they were in Ekkirah, he told her he became the man who gave orders to the other hunters. He was obsessed with hunting creatures.

“That’s why he reacted the way he did when he found out you went with Sabine,” Robbie concluded, dragging her out of her thoughts for a moment.

What Robbie said hit her in the gut because William told her he cared about her. Elysia had been right not to trust him, and perhaps for that reason William did not trust her either. Elysia saw his lies. It made sense that she hadn’t been able to feel his emotions. Melione must have put a spell on him so she couldn’t detect them. But it didn’t feel like a lie when they were together.

Now she understood why Duncan wanted to attack him and why someone was always watching him. It explained why William didn’t feel good being around shapeshifters, as if they could detect his lies. The forgotten nereid told her not to trust him.

Atarah remembered when William suggested an alternate route after they went to Midnight Waters. She told Robbie and her sister everything that went through her head. Otherwise, she felt like she would lose her mind if she didn’t tell someone.

“Do you think”—she struggled to finish her question—“Do you think that falling in love with him was part of his plan?” She asked with her sight starting to blur, trying to hold her tears again as a lump formed in her throat. Robbie looked at her for a moment without saying anything. Her sister didn’t say anything either. Atarah laughed before she said, “How stupid I was.”

“We don’t know if he planned that,” Myrah replied, which surprised her a lot coming from her.

In the end, it didn’t matter. It was her mistake. She needed to get them out of there, even if it took her life in the process.