Empress of the Gods

Atarah

The door opened, and they kept silent, waiting for their jailer when Atarah heard slow footsteps, and she recognized those curls and eyes that she thought she knew so well. William had a dull look when he looked at her, and she walked away from the bars of her cell, turning her back to him, trying to calm her breathing so she wouldn’t start crying again. She didn’t want to see him again and didn’t want him near her.

“Atarah,” he said in a low tone as a plea. Hearing her name on his lips sounded like a curse. She used to love when he said her name, but at that moment, she wanted him to never utter it again.

Atarah kept looking at the small window in front of her with her arms around her in a hug, feeling worse than when she was four winters old and she was in the woods, trying to hold every piece of her soul so she wouldn’t break into a million pieces. Even if the situation was different, the feeling was the same. And she couldn’t stop her tears from falling easily.

“Please look at me,” he pleaded.

Then she tried to wipe away her tears. And just as Rhiannon had done, she put on a mask of indifference and boredom when she turned around, pretending as if it didn’t affect her.

“We don’t talk to traitors,” Robbie replied.

“Atarah, please.” William ignored Robbie as if they were alone.

“I don’t know how you dare to come here,” Myrah said. He glanced at her sister before seeing her again.

She lifted her chin and looked at him, waiting for him to say something. “What?” she demanded to know in a cold tone that seemed to begin to falter. “What do you want? What else could you possibly want from me?” she asked with a lump in her throat, trying to hold the mask of indifference on her face, but some of her tears escaped. Atarah folded her arms, trying to keep it together.

He didn’t answer. William just grabbed the bars of her cell as if he was the one inside of it and not her. He opened his mouth a few times to say something, but no word came out. He just looked at her, but not coldly as he had done the first few times when they met, nor like those times when he got angry because she was doing as she pleased, nor like those times when it seemed that both shared a secret, nor as he did when he was about to kiss her.

William couldn’t hold her stare and only bowed his head, but that infuriated her. “What do you want?” she angrily screamed, feeling the cold trail that left each of her warm tears on her cheeks before savoring the salt in them when it ended up on her lips. She slowly approached him. “Are you coming to gloat over the excellent job you did catching me?” She applauded him for it with a fake smile on her face. “Look at me,” she ordered, but he didn’t move. “Look at me,” she said in a higher tone of voice, and he obeyed. “You killed all those people in Khrysaor, whom I suspect were your men. Whatever happens now to Myrah, Robbie, and me—it’s on you,” she expressed, feeling the bitterness of her words. The only thing that separated them were the bars of her cell. “You just lost the only people you could call friends and even family. You lost me forever,” she hissed at him. “When I get out of here, be careful, because I will be the one who puts a dagger in your heart.” Just as you did in mine. She completed that thought in her mind. Those words cut like a dagger on the skin and with them, he removed his hands from the bars. Atarah’s tears started to fall when he left the place, feeling she was holding her breath to not break.

She placed her hands where he had put them and slowly lowered herself as she let each of her tears silently fall. Robbie remained silent without saying anything. Myrah didn’t make a sound. As soon as she sat down, she turned to look away because she couldn’t stand Robbie seeing her that way and if she saw him, she wouldn’t be able to stop crying.

Atarah’s gaze got lost in the light that entered through the window that, without the bars, would be a small hole in the wall. The light didn’t get to where she was, but she could see how the dust danced in the sunlight.

How many days had they been locked up? She wondered after seeing some days the stars in the night sky, and the cold light of the moon sneaking on the window, changing to the warm light of the sun that covered the stone floor. Atarah counted two times a day when a soldier brought her food to her cell. On those days, William didn’t appear again.

She wanted so badly to be seen and to be loved that she believed each one of his lies. And her mistake would not only cost her.

Melione was only interested in her and the dagger and now she had both.

She understood why they had not been followed by more hunters or bounty hunters because her jailer was by her side all that time. Not only she gave him her heart, but she gave him her freedom.

Atarah was trying to find an explanation for what William did, but she failed. He wanted to give it to her, but no words had come out of his mouth, and she had not wanted to hear it either. It was strange to think that during all that time when she was starting to feel alive was a lie. She was aware that she had been walking on a thin line and he kept her away from the abyss, only to let her fall into darkness. That’s where she was. All she wanted to do was stay there without moving, no matter what plans Melione had for her because even though a slight ray of sunshine seemed to peek into the storm, she didn’t feel like she was going to get to shore or that the sun was going to completely rise. She planned to let the storm carry her away, but it wasn’t fair to Myrah or Robbie and if to get them out of that place she had to become the storm, then she would turn into a hurricane.

William made his choice on that flower field, and it was time for Atarah to make hers. She was a dragon, not a phoenix, so it was time she unleashed the storm of fire.