Empress of the Gods

Atarah

The silence was so terrifying that even her breathing seemed to make too much noise. Atarah’s skin bristled as soon as she entered the fog, losing Myrah and William from of her sight. She couldn’t see anything in the thick haze and almost ran into a tree. Her stomach began to ache, and her nose began to itch from the putrid smell in the air.

As her horse moved, she felt a scratch on her face and as she touched her cheek, she realized she had a small cut. Apparently, a branch of a tree scratched her cheek. At least, that was what she thought.

That place forced her to be alert, so she lowered her mental shield, making her regret it right away when her fear intensified with her horse’s. The mare began to neigh and stand on two legs, causing her to almost fall to the ground. She tried to calm her horse, but she couldn’t even calm herself.

Where were Myrah and William? She wondered, as she tried to move through the mist.

Atarah lost them a few steps after she entered. She wasn’t there to take care of Myrah, as Rhiannon had asked her to be.

She didn’t dare to scream for fear of attracting a creature from which she could not escape, although she doubted that it would be necessary to speak loudly to attract whatever lived in that gloomy place. She could feel the darkness that roamed in there. Calling her. Claiming her.

A chill ran down her spine, causing her to shiver. Something was not right in that place. It was as if she had to be vigilant of her movements while she watched everything around her. It seemed as if something was patiently waiting for her to fall into its claws.

Her power was ready to go out when she needed it. Same as Galad, who was restless inside her. She couldn’t control him, but at least she would try to, especially in a place where darkness felt like a promise of her worst nightmares coming to life.

She heard a scream that made her snap her gaze in its direction. For a moment, she thought it had been her sister.

“Myrah,” she shouted as the screams in the distance grew louder, trying to get her horse to move forward, but it kept neighing and standing up on two legs. “Don’t do this to me,” she begged in a low tone, but her horse refused to take another step, and between neighs, she heard something moving around them. A growl of a strange creature sounded close to where they were. Her heart was starting to beat faster than normal, and her power kept tingling at her fingertips.

Something was terribly wrong.

She felt observed, but no matter where she turned, there was nothing but the thick fog. Her breathing increased, and her hands began to sweat, causing the horse’s ties to slip from her hands. Atarah heard another growl that sounded like an echo, making the horse neigh again. All she managed from the mare when she kicked her sides with her legs, to keep moving, was a neigh as she rose her front legs, making her fall to the ground while the mare fled in terror.

“Wait,” she yelled as she tried to follow the horse, not realizing that something was following her. She felt a tall presence behind her, but when she turned around, she saw nothing. She was beginning to breathe nervously while her heart thundered as it was near to impossible to calm it.

She took a step back, stepping into a pool of mud. Only she barely looked down when she realized that it was not what she thought it was. She didn’t dare lower her gaze more when something strange and slimy fell on her shoulder. Then she slightly turned her head to the side, feeling a warm breath close to her ear. She tried to run when a high-pitched scream hurt her ear, but a creature buried its claws in her side and threw her against a tree. When the creature did it again, something cushioned her fall to the ground, but when she felt it moving, she got up as fast as she could.

The creature was beginning to emerge from the fog, letting her see a faceless form, but with sharp teeth and claws as if it were a kind of specter that was taking corporeal form. The creature had a human body with six arms and its skin was covered in blood.

“Your gifts could be very useful right now.”

It surprised her to hear William’s voice. He came back for her.

“I’m going to try,” she replied, staring at the creature in front of them that was salivating at finding its next meal.

Her gifts stopped tingling at her fingertips.

The creature let out a scream, ready to attack, when William took his ax with one hand and his sword with the other.

“Trying will only kill us,” he growled as he tried to cut off one of the creature’s arms. When he managed to cut one of them, the creature screamed. She tried to ignite a spark, but nothing came out. “Now would be the right time to do so,” he pressed.

“That’s what I’m trying to do!” Atarah frantically yelled, trying to concentrate so she could find a way of igniting her fire.

“Crouch down,” he warned, and Atarah complied, but her hands kept shaking. The creature managed to scratch her and pushed her forward while it threw William to the ground with another of its arms. Suddenly, Atarah’s gifts tingled in her skin, making her act fast without realizing that she had touched William’s arm. “Wrong arm,” growled William as he dodged the creature’s teeth.

“Then, stop obstructing my path,” she told him as William lost his ax and pulled out one of several hidden daggers, one of them falling in front of her. Atarah took it from the ground and rushed to the creature that almost bit her while she tried to free William.

“Careful with the teeth,” he warned her before he used another dagger to attack the creature that had him pinned with two arms and at the same time with the other two it was trying to get rid of her. Atarah felt the palms of her hands getting warmer, feeling her own fire that didn’t burn her, and without wasting any more time, she released it. Her fire began to burn the creature, covering it in a cloak of fire, and forcing it to release William. The creature shook uncontrollably, throwing her to the ground. Furious screams came from it while William was still on the ground, trying to move backwards so the creature wouldn’t reach him.

She thought about using her earth power to trap the creature with the roots of the trees, but she couldn’t sense anything moving in the ground. Nothing answered her call. Not in the way her fire did, ready to be used.

Some rifts appeared on her skin, making it seem like her fire was about to escape through them. Not only her fire was waiting to be used, but it was also demanding it.

The creature let out a louder noise, calling for their attention as it kept moving with the fresh wounds that seemed to sprout mud as if they didn’t affect it.

“You enraged it.”

“Sorry, next time I’ll wait for it to decide to let you go,” she argued as they slowly walked backwards, not taking their eyes from the creature.

“Unless you have another card under your sleeve, I suggest you start running,” William said, giving a step back.

“You don’t need to tell me twice,” she replied before they started running.

Atarah didn’t want to release all her power. She feared she wouldn’t be able to control it afterward.

Only a few steps later, the creature caught up with them and threw William to the ground. Atarah moved fast, trying to find a weapon to attack the creature. She felt the mud under her palms until she felt the edge of an ax. In the meantime, William was trying to throw the creature with his feet and move its teeth away from his face with his hands. Then, she buried the ax in the creature’s back. Its claws were struggling to remove the ax from its back while it continued pressing William to the ground. When she got close to the creature, she forcefully pulled out the ax so she could hit the back of its head, but she failed and almost hit William who turned to see the edge of the ax close to his ear before he turned to see her surprised and angry.

William didn’t think it twice before he surrendered to the creature, who buried its sharp teeth in his shoulder so he could take the ax and stick it in the creature’s head. She prepared in case it wouldn’t work until she heard a crackling sound and the creature stopped moving. Before the creature’s corpse fell completely on him, she helped him to throw it aside.

It had been a single creature that took two of them to take it down.

What in the gods’ name was that?

William stayed for a moment on the ground, heavily breathing, and then stood up, growling over his injured shoulder. He gave one last look to the creature before he cut its head with his ax. “Just in case,” William said, which made her put a hand around her neck as she stared at the creature’s corpse. “Let’s get out of here before another one of those things appears.” He looked around as if he could see them in the fog and moved the ax to his good arm before they started walking.

When the fog began to dissipate, Atarah felt relief because it let them know they were leaving the Eirian Forest. She couldn’t feel more relieved about it, but something left her uneasy.

“Was that really necessary?” she asked him as she remembered the way he split the creature’s head when it was already dead. She couldn’t help to think he would do that to her if they weren’t linked. William rose his eyebrow. “Was it necessary to cut off its head?”

“We almost died in there, and you’re worried about the monster’s head. It’s just a creature,” he replied, as if it didn’t matter at all. Maybe he was right, but he was a hunter, and his job was to kill creatures, and she was a creature.

“Like me. I’m only a creature.”

“You’re welcome,” he looked at her irritated, ignoring her answer.

“I didn’t thank you,” she angrily replied when she was close to him. William came even closer, tightening his hand on the handle of the ax. But she didn’t take a single step back and didn’t lower her gaze. In fact, she felt tempted to give him a pretty good fight, even if she didn’t have complete control over her gifts and didn’t have a weapon with her. She didn’t care. She was not afraid of him.

“That thing was a soulless monster.” He moved his hand in the direction of the Eirian without taking his eyes off her. They were too close. Too close.

“Are you calling me a monster?” She moved her head slightly to the side as she folded her arms.

“I didn’t say that.”

Atarah knew he was right about the monster, but she didn’t want him to know that. She doubted he was able to differentiate it because for a hunter all creatures were the same. She couldn’t help to wonder if he would have come back for her if they weren’t linked, but there was no way to know and that was why she couldn’t trust him.

He closed his eyes tightly and took a deep breath. “If you want to protect all the creatures that live in that damn forest, I don’t have a problem at all, but do it when your life is no longer linked to mine, am I clear?” He said in a low, threatening tone. She didn’t reply, only held his stare. “In the meantime, try to stay close so they don’t kill us both,” he ordered with a forced smile on his face.

“You were the ones who walked away,” she instantly replied.

“I don’t plan on arguing about that. Now walk,” William ordered before turning his back on her.

“Any other requests, my lord?” Atarah asked sarcastically, which made William frown before he turned his back again on her.

“Walk,” he uttered, but she didn’t move until she heard a growl similar to the Eirian’s creature. She didn’t have the energy to face another.

The colors of the forest began to change and were totally different from the lifeless forest they had just gone through. While the Eirian smelled like death and looked like darkness, that part of the forest filled her nose trills with the aroma of wet grass, and the trees were now covered in leaves.

She didn’t see her horse or her sister anywhere which made her stomach churn.

“Where is Myrah?” she asked when she approached him. The hunter didn’t answer, only stopped walking and gazed at the tree in front of them. He walked away, trying to look behind the tree, making her lose her patience. “Where is my sister?” she asked again, articulating each one of her words.

“She is not here.”