Zafina met my gaze, briefly, her grin wide. “And to think that earlier today you were playing with a bowl of water.”
The heavy march of footsteps prevented me replying. “Get behind me,” I commanded, jumping from the floor and pacing my way towards the entry.
I was expecting guards but held in a shocked breath when the Emperor himself, my godly husband, stormed into the room. Yeah, well, husband or no husband, I’d tied myself to another, and our mutual history stood behind me holding their breaths.
His slap as it landed stung my cheek and I reeled back a little. “I will not be disrespected!” His skin paled beneath the olive tone. “You shall be in the palace with me, as I command.”
“You need me, but it doesn’t mean I have to do what you wish.”
“It means you shall give me what I need, or I shall take it by force.”
“Or what exactly? I don’t think it works like that.”
His eyes hardened to the shine of steel. “Or I shall make you do what I need.”
He thrust his hand out and pointed at one of the younger girls stood behind me. She whimpered, but stepped forwards.
“No.” I reached my hand out to stop her, but she kept walking, her eyes almost mesmerised.
“They can’t resist me, Maia. I’m the most powerful being on the planet.” The girl was within reaching distance and he easily put his hand around her throat squeezing tight. “In war there are sacrifices to be made. If you wish to resist your role, what sacrifice are you willing to make?” The girl didn’t scream or shout, she hung from his grip, her skin flushing with red and then paling as he crushed her windpipe.
The gold I contained within me pulsed in my chest.
“I’ve made my sacrifice and you will never understand what it took.” The earth rumbled beneath my feet, the floor cracking. The trees outside waited for my command.
I could bring his palace down if I wanted.
Maybe I could bring down the whole of Rome.
Is that what I wanted though?
I wasn’t here to rewrite history books. I was here to save Mae and Tristram… but now everything had changed. I’d changed.
I stilled the gold and repressed it under a tight control.
“Let her go.” My shoulders slumped. “I’ll come with you, do whatever you need, just let her go.”
A wide smirk flitted across his face, but I spotted a shift in his eyes. He hadn’t known what I would do. I smirked myself. Two of us could play at that game.
I watched as his fingers released the young girls throat and I stepped closer to catch her into my arms.
Carefully I released just a little of my tightly wound golden energy. I placed my hand across her forehead and down her cheek before gently sweeping my fingertips across the mottled skin of her throat. A nasty red mark startled against her pale skin. He hadn’t been joking when he’d nearly squeezed the life out of her. My stomach churned. He was a dangerous man and I’d just agreed to go with him and do as he willed.
A small tingle vibrated at the end of my fingertips and I sensed the damage in the girl’s tissue seeping into my skin, I soaked it up, willing to take it for her. When the tingle stopped, I knew she was on the path to mending. I gently passed her to Zafina, but not before her eyes fluttered open. “I knew you’d come to save us,” the small girl said.
I offered her a tight smile and nodded, but I didn’t answer. Without saying a word to anyone, I turned for the Emperor. I wanted him out of there before he could harm any of the others. Zafina met my eyes; her only sign of worry the edge of her lower lip caught between her teeth. I tapped my chest, the space above my heart, and hoped she’d know what I meant. They all had to search for the well of energy within them. I’d find a way from inside the palace to share what I had with them. The Emperor couldn’t cut off my access to all nature. I’d seen inside, there were plants everywhere.
Three days later I dangled over a deep dark edge of frustration.
Heather perched on the edge of my sumptuous bed and watched as I launched a cushion at the sheer material hanging as a canopy. “He can’t keep me locked in here forever.”
“He’s the Emperor. I think he can do what he likes.”
“And I’m a goddess, so how does that work? Why is he stronger than me and holding the upper hand?”
“Because he is in charge of this right now. The god of war is always somehow seated at the very centre of power. I don’t know how he does it, but lore tells me it is quite normal.”
“And he knows I can’t do anything without any contact with the outside world,” I added.
She shrugged. “In his own way, I think he is fond of you. His feelings, hidden as they are and tied in with his mortal being, are raw. You’ve denied him a long time.”
I rolled over and screamed into the mattress. “Being on house arrest is actually killing me.” Within me ached a deep unsettled sensation. It rocked like turbulence, or a boat keening in a gale. I couldn’t feel anything. Couldn’t connect with anything.
For the first time in my life. For the first time in all my conscious lives, both as Mae Adams the American and Druid Mae, I was cut off from nature; and now I understood the powerful effect it had on me. I guess I never noticed before because I’d never been separated from it.
I longed for the rain on my face, the rustle of leaves above my head. The power of the ground beneath my feet.
“The fact
