Empress of the Gods

Atarah

It had always impressed Atarah the combination of the language of spells and fighting skills the Witches had while the magic flowed through their fingers. She had never seen the coven in action, only in training, and they were so lethal that it seemed unreal as if the same God of war, Eren, had trained them. No wonder why humans feared them so much. It also had to do with the years they spent perfecting their training. Some of them even fought in the battle of the Calythea abyss with other creatures by their side, and they still looked like time stopped with them thanks to the spell the coven conjured to keep the age they appeared to have so they were able to live longer. However, they were not immortals, only their aging process was too slow. In the Witch realms, that spell used to be common and more so among clan leaders as the ones that were part of the council in Khrysaor and Lhrastsha, until a few leaders in Khrysaor preferred not to interfere with the natural cycle of life.

Atarah used to think that one of the many reasons everyone tried to stay away from her had to do with Rhiannon’s last name. She blamed her adoptive mother’s last name for it and the influence she had.

Some had Rhiannon in high esteem, and others believed she dishonored her kind by having two driadaes under her care. She didn’t doubt that if they could, they would change their place with her only to have access to the vast knowledge, strategies, history, and influence Rhiannon had. Even if some council members and clan leaders disagreed, she seemed to be the queen of the Witches without having to sit on the stone throne.

What they didn’t know about the Silverclaw leader was that she was a vault when it came to her past, and because of that, no one ever knew what she was thinking. Not even Atarah, who could feel others’ emotions as her own. Although, since she had met her, she had never been able to perceive her emotions.

Atarah could perceive everyone’s emotions which, at first, drove her insane because not only she could not control the wave of everyone’s emotions that were drowning her including her own, but she also felt too exhausted as if a part of her was taken away. Therefore, Rhiannon taught her how to create a mental shield that allowed her to feel only her emotions, which made her wonder how she had learnt to do it since she wasn’t a driadae.

Driadaes were empaths.

For five years, she looked for information about them in books and sometimes locked herself in the library. She only found limited information, which led her to visit all the libraries in the southern kingdom. But she wasn’t lucky enough that made her wonder if the council hid books about driadaes to avoid panic about them or for some other strange reason.

Some leaders preferred to keep their people ignorant to control them, although they didn’t notice that by doing so they were preventing progress.

Atarah only knew part of the world she came from, and she wanted to know more about her kind—about herself. Also, she wanted to know about what lay beyond the Witches’ realm without mentioning the incredible need to use her gifts freely, without scaring others, only she was not allowed to leave Khrysaor for her own protection. If she gave it a thought, she wasn’t allowed to do many things.

She was grateful for all Rhiannon, and the coven, had done for her and her sister. They treated them like family, but she couldn’t help to feel she didn’t belong there. She didn’t know if the coven noticed that sometimes they told her stories related to her kind. Like when Enver, another member of the coven, told her about the nymphs; minor deities who had bred offspring with gods, faes, warlocks, and humans that created powerful creatures that descended from them that were known as driadaes. Seren, the third-in-command of the coven, told her how they had seen them manipulate others’ emotions during the war, turning them into excellent spies and extraordinary soldiers considered lethal as the Witches, but never more than them.

“Are you alright?” Aeron pulled her out of her thoughts when he sat next to her on the bed, letting her rest her head on his shoulder. She closed her eyes for a moment.

They were in their room with Rhiannon, updating Myrah about the change of plans, only it looked more like a mother and daughter farewell, while Seren had stayed to watch William outside the cottage.

“Yes, I’m just tired,” she replied, yawning. Then she remembered the coven should have felt worse because they hadn’t even wiped the blood on their armors. Even Rhiannon’s cape was dirty and torn from the edges. She was the only one in the coven who wore a cape that identified her as the leader of the clan.

Atarah felt guilty for resting just a moment when all day they had been defending the border.

“I assumed you used your gifts,” Aeron whispered. He would never dare to question his leader’s orders, but when it came to her, he preferred she used her gifts every time she was in danger.

When Atarah was younger, she used to leave her chores to spend time in the library, looking for books that helped her understand more about herself and, from time to time, to read stories that let her escape to other worlds. She always loved how books made her feel; like she was at home. So, when she wasn’t in the library, she ran into the forest to use her gifts. Aeron had caught her red-handed one day and had kept her secret ever since. Although she doubted it, considering he was Rhiannon’s right-hand man and there was nothing that escaped to the Silverclaw leader.

“Yes, I did.”

“Good,” Aeron replied before a corner of his mouth lifted as if he were proud of her. He had trained her in secret after seeing her imitating the recruit’s training. He had been so impressed with her discipline in her training that he decided to train her himself. What he didn’t know was that she only did it to silence the rain of thoughts in her head as well as to use her training as a mere distraction from the nightmares that haunted her, making her relive that night in the woods when she was only four winters old.

They even tried to use her gifts in their training, but it never ended well. So, Aeron only trained her the way the coven did without magic.

When Atarah was younger, she couldn’t stop her curiosity about the ebony-haired warlock that had raised her like a daughter. She couldn’t help to read his emotions when she’d caught him lost in his own thoughts a couple of times. Even if Aeron was more open about his feelings than Rhiannon, he also didn’t talk much about his past. Every time she peeked through his emotions, she felt so much pain that, at a young age, she didn’t understand. When she grew older, she didn’t dare cross that line with anyone unless she needed to.

Aeron didn’t have a family of his own, but not because he lacked suitors, since he was a very attractive man, or if Rhiannon prohibited it. The reason was the leader of Khrysaor, Zion, put too much pressure on them. He always kept an eye on them. Plus, Aeron was one of the best warriors Rhiannon had in her ranks. He was loyal to the core and very dedicated to his work, but above all, he prioritized his leader’s needs by having everything she wanted before she even asked for it. Atarah thought it was unfair he put Rhiannon first over his private life. He was more than her second-in-command, which made her wonder what happened between them. For her it was clear Aeron had feelings for Rhiannon, but the General’s feelings were a mystery. If something had happened, she knew she would never find out about it.

She stopped thinking about it since she didn’t know what love looked like. Love was a foreign word for her.

“Atarah, are you listening?” Rhiannon’s voice made her open her eyes right away. “You leave today,” she informed her, making Atarah’s tiredness disappear. It was too soon to leave and more without a plan.

“Today? That’s insane,” she objected when she stood up from her bed.

“Get ready,” ordered the Silverclaw leader.

“No, it’s too soon.” She was the first one to be surprised by the words that came out of her mouth, but it seemed as if it was an escape plan more than anything else. “Why? What happened at the border?”

Rhiannon and Aeron gazed at each other as if they were thinking the same thing, and it looked like a complicity look. They were keeping things from her, and she hated it. They were still treating her like a child. She felt like her own opinion didn’t matter.

“What?” Atarah asked in a tight voice while she glance at Rhiannon and then at Aeron, who looked like he was ready to answer her question, when her adoptive mother silenced him with a look.

“There’s no time for that,” Rhiannon replied before Aeron could utter any word. Then, as if she had said something between the lines, Aeron interpreted that his leader needed privacy with her daughters. He stood up from the bed and, before he left the room, gave Atarah a slight squeeze on her shoulder as Rhiannon looked at her daughter, Myrah. “Could you please do what I asked you to do?” her voice was calm, and Myrah observed her hesitating to leave the room. She didn’t move an inch from where she was standing as if someone put her under a spell, which made Rhiannon add, “Please.”

Despite not wanting to leave, Myrah did.

For a moment, Rhiannon stared at the door that closed behind her daughter. Then, she let out a slow sigh, as if she had been holding her breath for a long time. “I know how you feel,” Rhiannon said, hesitating for a moment to continue, which caught her off guard. She didn’t understand what Rhiannon was talking about.

“I know how it feels to feel like you don’t belong.” Rhiannon looked to a certain point in the room, with shoulders hunched and sitting on the edge of her bed. “I understand,” she continued before she sighed again, while she placed her elbows on her knees, intertwining her fingers and resting her forehead on them.

Rhiannon always seemed so tall and fearless to her, but at that moment, she saw someone that had been close to the abyss and fought again and again to survive. For the first time, she didn’t look tall.

“I’m not sure I’m getting what you are saying,” Atarah replied as she tried to understand how the woman that never showed any weakness was feeling.

Her adoptive mother stood up and walked to where she was, and for the first time in all those years, the mask of a cold-hearted leader fell. Rhiannon put a hand on each side of Atarah’s shoulders.

“I might not have given birth to you and your sister. You may have driadae blood running through your veins, but I need you to understand what I’m about to say. You’re my daughter.” Rhiannon’s voice trembled on her last words while tears threaten to fall at any moment from her eyes. “You will always be my daughter. Blood is not what makes a family,” Rhiannon whispered in a wobbly voice. “For me, you and Myrah are always going to be part of my clan,” she continued as she petted Atarah’s head and then wrapped her in a hug like a lioness protecting her cub. That’s when she understood it was a farewell.

The Silverclaw leader prepared Myrah in case something happened, but never thought about preparing her. It was strange for her that Rhiannon hugged her or showed her any signs of emotions. Seeing her that way made her feel strange. It also gave her a hint about how serious things were.

Atarah couldn’t feel anything. A driadae that was an empath by birth and always felt too much couldn’t feel anything at all. So, she laid down her mental shield and let Rhiannon’s emotions invade her. Her tears slip down her cheeks, feeling the need to scream and destroy everything around her. It felt like they were tearing off a part of her, or if something had broken inside her, and she was trying to hold on to all the pieces. She had to put her mental shield back in place, so she didn’t drown in emotions that were not even hers.

Myrah called Rhiannon from behind the door, and her adoptive mother walked away from her as she tried to clean the tears from her face with the side of her hand before she opened the door. She heard Rhiannon whisper something to Myrah before she informed whoever was at the door with her sister that they would come down in a moment. When Rhiannon closed the door, she approached with a big leather wallet in her hands. “Now, I need you to listen carefully to what I’m about to tell you,” Rhiannon said as she opened the leather wallet without touching its content. “You can’t reveal to anyone you have this dagger.”

She felt Rhiannon observing her as if she was analyzing her reaction to it.

The voices in the wind whispered to her again while she fixed her gaze on the dagger. “Have you seen it before?” she asked when she got close to see the dagger, wanting to put her finger on the blade.

“No, I’ve only heard rumors about it,” Rhiannon replied as she covered the dagger again, taking with her the voices of the wind. “Those rumors said the Gods created the dagger to slay creatures from other dimensions without realizing that it could kill them too.” Rhiannon stared at her as if she wanted her to understand the importance of the dagger. “I have seen men and creatures kill and betray each other, only to find this dagger. And there was a time everyone thought it was lost, but for some reason, Uphine put it in your path.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?” she asked, confused.

“I don’t know. That’s for you to find out, and if I were you, I would do it soon. Before you get to Euthoria,” Rhiannon suggested when she rolled the dagger in the leather wallet before handing it to her. “But whatever you decide, don’t lose sight of it. You don’t want to know what will happen if it falls into the wrong hands,” Rhiannon warned her, and Atarah stared at it as if she could feel the cold steel of the dagger in her hands. It felt heavier than it actually was. She didn’t like the idea of carrying an important dagger any more than being chased by her own kind, because that made her feel like she had the fate of everyone on her shoulders when she was trying to carry her own.

She heard a loud noise from one of the drawers of the dresser. Dragging her out of her own thoughts, Rhiannon pulled out the bottom drawer, and she took something that was wrapped in a dirty cream-colored fabric. When she opened it, she saw a notebook with a thick back that seemed not to have enough space inside to store what it contained. It was closed with a belt buckle that helped to keep all its contents inside. Rhiannon contemplated the book before she ran a finger over its cover as if it brought her nostalgia. She walked without taking her sight off the book she was holding in her hands.

“Here,” Rhiannon stretched it out for her to take it. Atarah seemed confused, because as soon as she held it in her hands, she realized it was the Silverclaw grimoire. She was speechless. “When the time comes, you will know what to do with it.”

Atarah didn’t look away from the grimoire that weighed more than it looked. She didn’t understand why she gave it to her if she was not a witch and couldn’t become the leader of any clan. There were only two ways the grimoire could change owner: when the clan leader named a successor, or the clan leader passed away.

“I hope you’re not asking me to become the new leader of the Silverclaw clan,” she nervously joked while she felt the power it held inside, but not in the same way she did with the dagger when her power tingled at her fingertips. She knew she couldn’t open it and couldn’t use it, so it didn’t make sense for her to have it.

“I need you to keep it safe for me.”

“Why? If you’re coming with us,” Atarah said in a tight voice, but Rhiannon didn’t answer. That made her eyed her with narrow eyes and asked her, “You are coming with us, right?”

Rhiannon didn’t reply. Her adoptive mother had given her signs of it in different ways, but she hadn’t wanted to see them. She wasn’t a child, but she was going to leave the only home she knew on someone else terms. She tried to hand her the grimoire again because she had a lot on her plate. Only Rhiannon didn’t take it back. “Why are you giving it to me?”

“Atarah,” Rhiannon said her name like she didn’t want to argue.

“No,” she replied, while she tried to hand it over again, but when she saw Rhiannon’s gaze, she stopped doing it.

“For once, do what it is asked of you,” Rhiannon scolded. “Pack your things and don’t take too much time. See you downstairs,” the Silverclaw leader ordered, and then left her alone in her room.