Hekate
"Going somewhere?" I ask, gaze dropping to the packed luggage.
The woman jumps at my voice, turning immediately to find me leaning against the door. Her eyes widen with fear and surprise. "Prince Rune--"
"Atlas."
One word. One name. Stories untold, secrets buried. A friend. A foe. I have never been able to decide which of them Atlas Moonburn was.
The staff in her grasp clatters to the ground and her complexion turns blotchy. Pale. She looks much older now, her allure as a maiden nearly gone. Her grey eyes widen to the side of saucers and she stumbles a step back, reaching behind her for the candle stand.
She hurls it at me, trembling with fear. "Oh, Goddess."
Displeasure curls my lips and I catch the golden stand, squeezing it hard in my grasp. "That is no way to treat an old friend."
"You are no friend of mine!" she scream, hurling a book at me next.
My lips kick up as I cross the distance between us. "That isn't what you said when you begged me to kill your sisters. Neither is it what you said when you crawled in my bed every night, seeking solace in my arms and pleasures abominable to someone of your station."
Her chest heaves uncontrollably and she swerves, searching frantically for a weapon, anything with which she can defend herself.
But I am Hekate. Nothing can stop me from making a kill if I so wished.
"You can't be here. You are not here," she whispers to herself, voice reaching new heights of hysteria, and my patience wears out.
It takes only half a heartbeat to close the distance between us, and another half to lift her by her neck, squeezing rather lightly. She chokes, clawing at my fingers, digging her nails and cutting deep into my skin. Her legs kick out as she tries to breathe.
I cock my head, observing as her eyes reddened, and her breaths shortened. "I always wondered which of the snivelling cowards came up with the idea to act only in my absence. I had been too angry to properly think on it, but now..." I pause, icy wrath spreading through me. "I had left in a hurry that morning to get the peaches, and it was you who tipped me off on where to find them."
The memory is clear as sky. I can hardly forget the events that occurred that day, and the days that followed. "You knew just how long it would take for my return. The council wouldn't have dared move against me if they didn't think they had a chance. If they didn't think the Goddess was on their side."
"I... don't...know what you're...talking about," she croaks, tears sliding down her cheek.
I can smell her fear. It excites me. I can also smell the lie. Hear it. It infuriates me. I think of crushing her windpipe...but it seems too easy. I think of ripping her throat out with my teeth, but it would give her an instant death. I want her to bleed and suffer like Lorna did.
"I don't like lies, Atlas," I tell her, throwing her across the room, where a set of chairs are arranged. She crashes into the ground and I am with her in a heartbeat, peering down at her. "Sit."
My voice reverberates through the entire room and she rises, unable to control herself. She settles on the chair, tears dropping from her frightened eyes.
I reach for her fingers, grasping in them. She trembles violently at the feel of my touch. "I want to kill you, Atlas. I want to hurt you, but I think it'd be enjoyable to watch you do it yourself."
She starts to mumble in her throat when I take out the dagger from it's hilt and hand it to her. "Stab your thigh."
She means to plead, but my hold on her will not allow her speak. She fights against me with all of her will, but her traitorous fingers rise to take the dagger from me.
She raises it, eyes pleading as she brings it down on her flesh, tearing into it. Her scream is silent as blood splatters.
I laugh darkly, the sight of the blood exciting me even further. "Dig deeper, Atlas, and while you're at it, tell me why you did it."
Born mad. Insane. Cruel. Evil incarnate. Darkness. A curse. They called me all of these things, and I have never bothered with changing the narrative. They're not wrong.
She drives the dagger deeper, digging through flesh and bone. Her face is purple with pain and I am amused by her struggle to get each word out amidst it. "You left me." A sob. A cry. A whimper. "I sacrificed everything for you. I killed for you. You were mine, and she bewitched you."
"It was your choice to make those kills, Atlas. I never asked you to."
She bares her teeth, lunging forward. "You didn't need to ask. I did it for us! I killed my sisters because they found our secret. They would have burned us alive for it. I killed your father because I knew it was the only way to keep you alive. I saved your life! No one else did that for you. Not your mother. Not that rotten cunt!"
My smile fades. "Slit your wrists."
Crying out, she takes out the knife. She stares at the wound, noting the fact that it isn't healing, and her fingers begin to tremble. "Ashen dagger?"
My answering smile is nothing short of wicked. "The same one that stopped Lorna's heart."
Her sobs become wails as she unwillingly raises the knife to her wrist. "I couldn't let her take you from me. Not after everything we had been through together. Not after everything I had lost. She couldn't have you. Not when--" her breath hitches as she slices her wrist, blood welling at the gash. "Not when I had done everything to ensure we had a future."
The second slit is quicker, and her eyes raise to mine, as if in question of the next place of torture I might have in mind. I oblige, delighted. "The fingers on your left hand, Atlas. Cut them off."
"Please," she rasps as her hand starts to rise. "Please! The Prince will never forgive himself if he sees what you have done!"
I chuckle. "Not to worry. He won't see."
She begs, even as she lodges the blade between fingers. "Hekate, please."
In a different lifetime, I might have considered stopping. A lifetime where I knew Lorna wouldn't approve. She would scrunch up her pert nose in disgust and yell at me like no one in their right mind would.
She did for me what no one else had. Showed me what it truly meant to feel warmth.
Atlas and I, our affair was a joining of bodies, at her behest. She was young and fair. She didn't believe she belonged with the acolytes who devoted their entire lives to their Goddess. She was too much of a selfish woman to give it all away for higher powers and respect.
She sought me out, every night. The guards would have turned her down, having too much fear and respect to touch one who was already given to the Goddess.
I suffered no such boundaries. I was never one to conform to the rules of the world.
And when the captain of my guard found her in my chambers one morning, clad in nothing but her skin, between my legs, she had been so petrified, I swore him to secrecy. Not that there had been a need for it. Keir never would have said a word, if it meant placing me in jeopardy--of which I had not a single care in the world.
Keir was found dead in his room the next morning. An ashen dagger in his gut. I knew it was Atlas, however, I didn't care enough to pursue it. He was a guard. He'd served his purpose.
But word began to spread in the Other Palace. The late night meetings, the smell of raw sex that rolled off of her, my scent melding with hers. She was stupid enough to think they wouldn't notice.
And when they called her to order, she went...berserk--for a lack of better word. She was younger than the lot of Priestesses. It made it easier to kill them. She was faster, ripping out hearts and throats in her wake. I had watched, merely out of amusement.
Very little amused me. She did.
And when all that was left was blood and flesh, she had come to me with the same cry, I did it for us. Let us flee together. We can start over in the human lands. Build a home, and family.
But I had little interest in any of those things. Or her.
And what was Atlas's response to my rejection?
She framed me.
It had surprised me. Truly surprised me. I had laughed for hours when I showed up at my home and found swords angled at me.
My father already thought the worst of me, and frankly, no one would take the word of a lunatic over that of a priestess with self-induced cuts and injuries.
I didn't plead my case. Not even with the threat of execution looming over me. Too laid back, you might think, but I could have walked out of the dungeons if I wanted to. It was a thing of choice to remain there.
I was bored, and prisoners make for excellent company.
When the news of my father's death reached my ears, I had felt nothing. Not even a sliver of sadness. It was an illness. Never to feel remorse. Never being able to tell between wrong and right. Never being able to get hurt. I didn't think I possessed a heart.
None of this disputes the fact that I am evil. I did kill my people and place their heads on spikes. All for sport, and I would not have stopped, if I hadn't met Lorna.
She became something precious. Even I couldn't understand it at the time. She had loathed me beyond reason, but she had outright laughed her head off when I brought her lettuces instead of flowers.
I wasn't a very romantic male. And I found flowers to be absolutely abhorrent. I still do.
The sound of her laughter had stirred within me something I didn't think existed. So I did it again. I visited her, bringing all manner of ridiculous things in the name of gifts, and I had seen it in her eyes. The shift. She began to look forward to every...lettuce and pumpkin.
It didn't make it any easier to seduce her. She was a force to reckon with, and she fought me every step of the way, threatening me with the smallest things.
I will gut you.
I will sew your insides into sweaters.
I will kill you in your sleep.
I will kill myself if you touch me.
I will chop off your cock if it so much as twitches when I'm around.
Keep your disgusting lips away from me or you will lose them.
Do not touch my hair. Do not caress me. Do not look at me. Do not visit me. Do not speak to me. If you so much as try any of these things, I will drown you in a cauldron of boiling oil.
She had no fear. None at all. I fell for her before I even realized it. It doesn't matter what my mate several rooms away says. Borrowing Lorna was the best thing that happened to me.
And Atlas had taken that from me.
I stare at the blood and dismembered fingers, and my lips curve into a smile. I take out the scroll from my coat and place it on the small table between us. "Write, Atlas. Tell the entire world why you killed yourself."