Rhea's POV

I looked around the circle of my traveling companions as they discussed the matter of who would keep watch, the firelight spreading a dim glow across all their faces. I shivered and wrapped my cloak a little tighter around myself, it wasn't that I was scared of these people, I'd seen scarier in my life. The unknown was what scared me. I'd traveled nearly all my life with my father, we always had a set destination, an obvious goal, but with this journey I felt like I was blindly being shoved forward. One of the guards named Demetrio gave me a nudge, "Holding out alright?"

I shook myself free of my thoughts and turned to him, "Yes, I suppose I'm just a little tired."

He laughed, "Running for your life will do that, ya know?"

I frowned, shaking my head as I spoke, "We aren't running…." I trailed off as the realization hit me. No, there weren't people chasing after us, at least I thought not, but we were running off to some mountain that supposedly imprisoned an ancient god, and if we didn't reach him in time, we probably would lose our lives. Maybe I really did have a reason to be afraid.

He smiled, "Don't worry, I've heard what you and your friends can do. Once those others come chasing, you'll show them who should really be running." Across the circle someone called his name and he got up to leave.

"Uhm, thanks. I really hope you're right," I said hesitantly as I stood up too.

"No problem. You know what I think?" he asked, stepping closer, "you four aren't really the ones who need protecting."

As he walked away I felt myself blush just a bit. Someone thought I was powerful? Never in my life had anyone ever thought I was good for anything but making jewelry.

"Rhea," someone said in a sing-song voice. I looked over to see Yemaya approaching me.

"Maya…?" I said, mimicking her voice in confusion.

"Look," she said, her eyes pleading, "I really don't feel comfortable around Lady Hasubi…is there any way we could maybe switch up these sleeping arrangements?"

I rolled my eyes and looped my arm through hers as we walked back to the tent, "If you don't get along with her on where to sleep, how do you expect any of the things this prophecy is telling us to do, to be any more comfortable. We're going to all be sleeping together for the next couple weeks, you're a tough girl," I said with a smile and a small friendly laugh, "deal with it."

She groaned, "At least ask her to sleep on the opposite edge. Please?"

I sighed, "Hey, I'm not the mother. I'm not going to tell anyone what to do."

She laughed, "Right Rhea, keep saying that."


Hasubi's POV

I woke up the next morning feeling soaked and sore. I sat up groggily in the small tent, surveying the bodies of the other three sleeping girls. They all looked so peaceful…and dry. I gathered a piece of the sleeping shirt Rhea had let me borrow. The fabric was slightly darker from where it had been soaked. That's strange, I thought upon examining the garment more closely, all the wet spots are circles. That was definitely not what it should have looked like if I had rolled into a puddle in my sleep. I looked over at the sleeping figures again and my eyes rested on Yemaya. "You…you BITCH!" I yelled as I realized what she had done. All three of them sat up with a start. Aradia rubbed her eyes deftly, "What? What's going on?"

"What's wrong?" I hissed, anger boiling inside me, "ask your friend ITCH!" I yelled as I realized what she had done. All three of them sat up with a start. Aradia rubbed her eyes deftly, "What, what's going on?"

"What's wrong?" I hissed, anger boiling inside me, "ask your friend Yemaya." I spat her name.

She looked me dead in the eye and I saw a twinkle of the most unthinkable thing. She thought this was funny. "You little…." I didn't finish as I lunged across Rhea and Aradia towards her throat. I landed on top of her. She pushed me off with surprising strength and scrambled out the flap of the tent. I followed quickly after her, anger seething in my every bone. I was done with her mockery, her disrespect…her cruelty. She stood on the other side of the makeshift fire pit, staring hard at me. I looked her dead in the eye and spoke, "I'm done Yemaya. You will no longer mock me, torment me, or push me around. We are EQUALS." With the last word, I gathered a burst of heat in my hand, pulled my arm back and launched it at her. She casually swatted it away as it vanished in a puff of steam.

"Please," she said anger beginning to seethe in her eyes as well, "it's not my fault a spoiled, pampered little princess like you can't handle a little water."

"That's not what this is about, and you know it. You've hated from the moment you met me and I'm sick of it. You know what? I'll give you something to hate me for." I leapt across the distance between us, tackling her to the ground. She landed a punch right on my cheek. I had no time to muster any fire as we wrestled for authority in the dirt. I pulled at her hair, scratched, kicked, hit. She met every one of my attacks with a just as painful one. We rolled back and forth, inflicting pain on each other for a good five minutes until two strong arms pulled me off her. I found myself pressed up against Samir. I twisted and struggled against his tight hold, "Let me GO," I yelled. I looked across from me to see Yemaya resisting as much as me to Rhea and Aradia. Her face was flushed and bleeding, her hair filled with leaves and twigs, and a nasty looking bruise was beginning to show on her jaw. I could only imagine that I looked twice as worse.

"We aren't finished!" she yelled at me as her struggling began to decrease.

"Sleep with one eye open!" I shot back as Rhea and Aradia dragged her back towards the tent and Samir pulled me towards the creek.

Once we got there he forced me to my knees and dunked my head into the freezing water. It shocked every ounce of anger out of my body. I came up sputtering, "W-w-what d-did you d-d-d-do that for?"

He pushed a chunk of wet hair out of my face, "You're insane. What could the girl possibly have said to make you attack her like that?"

I sat in stubborn silence, my teeth chattering. How dare he ask me to explain myself? I thought angrily.

He pulled his cloak off his back and wrapped it around my shaking form, "I saw everything from the fire ball," he began, "and I've never seen anything like it in all my years of as a soldier. The way you two just kept going at each other. What did she do?"

I gritted my teeth, suppressing the rage, "I really don't want to talk about it."

He let out a sigh, "I'm sorry. It's none of my business. I just….I just thought you were going to kill each other. Look," he said, wrapping a comforting arm around me, "I know this is hard for you. Nothing like this has probably ever happened to you, but trust me when I say she is not your enemy. And I can only hope that when you meet your true enemy, you fight with all the fire I just saw."

For a moment I sat numbly in his arms, shaking with cold, and frustration. Then I shifted closer to him and the heat radiating from him through his shirt. "Samir…"I said, risking a glimpse up at him, butterflies fluttering in my stomach.

"Yes?" he asked, looking at me with questioning eyes.

I leaned into him, brushing my lips across his own. His hand reached up to cradle my face as he captured my mouth in a fiery kiss. I leaned into him farther as he fell onto his back, pulling me on top of him. Heat spread through my veins. His tongue skimmed across the bottom of my lip and I opened to him, deepening our kiss. His strong arms tenderly wrapped around my waist. I ran my fingers through his soft, short hair. "Hasubi," he whispered against my neck, as he pulled away, "we can't…."

I collapsed into his chest, struggling to catch my breath and regain my composure, "You're right," I said finally, pulling away and immediately becoming aware that I was clothed in only a nightshirt and his cloak, "Sorry."

"No, that's not what I meant," he pleaded, catching my hand and pulling me back to him, "just not here, not now."

He stood up and helped me to my feet. I touched his face gingerly with my hand, unsure what he meant by that.

"Please," he said, lifting my chin up with a finger, "when we make camp tonight…come meet me. I just want to be alone with you."

His voice sent shivers through my body. I mustered my courage and replied, "I'll come."


Yemaya's POV

The first thing to bring me out of my haze of anger was a cold hard slap across my face. "Dammit Aradia, what was that for?" I said, rubbing my smarting cheek.

"Do you want to tell us what in the world possessed you to do that to her?" Rhea demanded.

"She attacked me! Like I was going to sit around and let her treat me like one of her servants," I fumed.

Rhea and Aradia looked at each other and rolled their eyes, "She had every right too after you soaked her in water," Rhea began.

"And while she was sleeping, too," Aradia added.

"I just don't understand why you have such a problem with her. She's perfectly fine to you," Rhea finished scolding.

I sighed, "Look, last night I had this dream that someone was creeping around outside our tent, so I guess in my sleep my body just reacted. It was an accident okay? I didn't know what had happened until she woke me up with her screaming."

"Then why couldn't you have told her that instead of beginning some crazy, fight to the death?"Aradia asked, infuriated.

"I don't want to explain things to her. I don't want to have anything to do with her," I fumed, "Why don't you realize that?"

This time it was Rhea who smacked me across the face, "What is wrong with you? She's done nothing wrong to you until today…when you provoked her. Please, help us understand this. All she wants to do is avoid you and your temper. I understand that in your city things are different than Carthak, but even Aradia doesn't have this personal vendetta with the poor girl."

"She's right Maya. What's going on?" Aradia asked.

I sighed, I didn't ever share the story of my father, and no one ever really wanted to know. Now that someone was asking, did I really have to share?

"Maya," Rhea said, putting a supportive arm around my shoulders, "We just want to help."

I looked across from me at Aradia. She placed her hand on mine and said, "C'mon, we all have secrets to share. We're still going to love you."

I think that's what got me; these two strangers loved me even after they had seen me at my absolute worst. "If I tell you this, you have to swear to the Great Mother that you will never tell anyone."

"I swear," Aradia said first.

"Me too. I'll take it to my grave," Rhea promised.

I gave them a shaky smile and began, "Before I was born, my mama worked as a dancer and singer in taverns around the city. She was…and still is the smartest and most beautiful woman in Corus. Anyway, one night she was performing in a tavern down in the lower city and three knights came in to enjoy a break from the castle and have a wild 'lower city time' as my mama called it. She noticed one of them right away. She said he was the most handsome man she'd ever seen. After she had finished performing that night, she went out into the crowd to have dinner with her friends. That's when he first talked to her. He came back every night for about a week before she finally took him upstairs to bed. She told me she fell in love after the first time with him. So almost every night after that for a month, he would come down to the tavern, and after she was done performing he would go home with her and spend the night, always making sure to leave at dawn. So not long after a month she realized her monthly hadn't come yet. She went to the mage and found out that her charm had worn out and she was pregnant. She had no idea what to do and I mean who would? She was only 16. So that night when he came to see her, she told him. I guess she thought he loved her back. When she told him, he accused her of doing it on purpose and then he hit her. He broke her heart, and he could have killed me. But he was too much of a bastard to think about that. So he left, and nine months later I was born. I looked just like her, except for my hair. I have his hair. But growing up, I never knew anything was wrong with my family, or my life. There were plenty of kids on our street who didn't have a dad. I thought nothing of my father until one day when I was fifteen. It was late and my mom was just coming home from her work at the tavern. I had made her dinner and we sat down to eat when there was this loud banging on our door. I don't know how my mother knew, but she told me to hide at the neighbor's house. So I did, because when my ma tells you to do something, you do it. So I climbed out the window and I had every intention to go there when I heard her scream. So I crept back to the window and watched as the man I guessed to be my father and three of his servants search the house…for me. When he didn't find anything, he beat her until she was unconscious and left. I ran to the nearest healer's and the fixed her. But before the healer left, she told me it had almost been too late. Since that day, my mother hasn't been able to dance and she now walks with a limp, even though she's only 33. To make money for our family, I had to take a job at the palace, washing clothes. Every day, I see those people, those nobles, and think 'those people are the same as that man, the one who took away the joy in my mother's life, the man who treated her like she was nothing more than a worthless whore, and turned his back on her when she needed him most. They're all the same. That's why I don't trust Hasubi. That's why I don't trust any of his kind," I finished, swallowing my tears of anger.

"Yemaya…" Rhea began before she burst into tears and hugged me tight.

Large, glassy tears welled up in Aradia's crisp blue eyes. I didn't need to hear it, I knew she understood. I reached out an arm to her and pulled her into a hug with Rhea and me and the three of us sat in that small tent, holding each other. I don't know how or when, but soon warm tears began to creep down my cheeks as well, and I realized for once I wasn't crying in anger…but relief.