Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
I was nothing in her divine presence. A worthless speck and growing smaller. I should rip out my bones, drain my blood, tear out my eyes rather than see what my unworthy being was never meant to see.
“I don’t think so, little one.” Her voice slithered from the pit of my soul, whispering clear in my ear over the raging storm, and my screams. “Surely you don’t think I’ll let you go that easily.”
Just like that, she was gone, and I was free.
I snatched up my boot and ran without bothering to put it on.
I’m so close. I have to get out. I have to get out now!
Branches whipped and snapped at my face, opening cuts on my cheek as if under orders from the bitch goddess herself.
Tears mingled with the poisoned water. Why me? Of all the unlucky, cursed-by-fate demigods in this wasteland, why did the goddess have to choose me?
I tossed my head, roaring as visions of that night assaulted my mind. Before she found me, I foolishly thought my life couldn’t get any worse. If all those legends and stories my mother told me were true, I suddenly understood the humans I never met better than any being in Olympia. They forced the gods out of their lives with sheer force of will. An aggressive disbelief in them that almost brought about the end of everything—but would’ve been worth it.
The gods were monsters.
They cursed, tortured, and ruined people to reflect the soulless emptiness they carried inside. An eternal life gets boring. Tormenting one lonely little girl barely on the cusp of her eighteenth year had to bring some entertainment.
A low, hissing chuckle sounded all around me. Seemed I was closer to the truth than I thought.
For hours I ran. My lungs burned. My bare foot collected bruises and cuts from unseen rocks and broken branches buried beneath the mud. I needed a break miles back, but still, I ran.
You’re so close. Don’t give up, Aella. Olympia has done me no favors, but I won’t subject it to the fate she has in store. Get out. Get across!
The words spurred me on—keeping me going when strength, energy, and endurance failed.
I’d be no use to her in the human territory. Once you left Olympia, there was no going back. The ancient spells created by the daughters of Hecate—the fearsome enchantress—ensured that any pathways closed themselves behind you. It was another deterrent to stop us from leaving.
Go, and leave behind everything you know and everyone you love for a world that knows nothing of gods or power, nor are they interested in finding out. A deterrent that worked on most demigods, but for me, it was the best thing that would happen to me since I was ten and a monster tore into my home and destroyed my life.
Barred from entering Olympia, I’d be no use to the goddess and her horrifying plans. I would hurt no one, and the demigods wouldn’t have reason to do to me what I knew they must.
I burst through the trees, and there it was.
Slowing to a stop, I gasped and immediately sucked in rain. Hurriedly I spat it out before it got comfortable on my tongue. It wouldn’t do to die... when I finally reached the border.
I gazed out at the wide, barren expanse. The whispers I heard throughout the villages described the other side of the border as a gorge. That was too small a word for the sharp drop-off and red rock basin bed stretching farther than my sight could follow.
I approached the edge, looking for—what?
A bridge? A ladder? A pegasus to drop out of the sky and fly me away?
If that’s what I was looking for, none of those things appeared.
“Okay, okay,” I breathed. “Crossing the border without permission from the council is forbidden. They were never going to make this easy, but there is a way to do it. The question is how?”
I peered over the one-hundred-foot drop. Get inside the mind of twelve stuffy, imperious, saggy-jowled men and women who were losing too many soldiers to desertion. They couldn’t bring down the border without the spell to put it back up, and daughters of Hecate were known for taking their spells to the grave. So what could the old council do to encourage anyone who got this far to turn around?
“Make me believe trying to cross meant my death.”
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than I lifted my foot and stepped off the edge.
Falling. Spinning. Screaming through the stomach lodged in my throat.
I accepted my foolish mistake as the ground rose to meet me, then I accepted my end. If I couldn’t leave Olympia, then I had to die. This was always my only way—
The red rock basin winked out. Darkness flooded in around me, cradling me as my descent slowed to a near stop.