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Pink pinched the indigo sky, and clouds rolled over the forest. The smell of rain hung fresh in the air. I lay upon the mossy mattress, surrounded by underbrush and fallen dewy leaves. The ground muddied under my fingers as I sat upright, gasping in precious breaths. Squirrels foraged nuts nearby, their chattering and scurrying filling my ears. The wind whistled through the trees, catching wisps of moss and cobwebs and drifting them to the ground. I closed my eyes as another sound babbled in my ears: a trickling of a stream. I whipped my head around, tilting my head, and stared at the long, luscious blades of grass and how they seemed to whisper in their sway, catching thick droplets of rain, in tiny domes of light, and the splashes they caused. Everything beautiful was breathtaking, and every ugly thing, horrendous. Bugs crawled out of a log. My eyes narrowed as they feasted upon one of their own recent dead, their mouths and feelers desperate for the food of its own.
I shuddered, turning away. My eyesight had never been so sharp, my hearing never so acute, and suddenly it felt like I had been living my entire life muted, with the volume down and a film over my eyes until this moment. Drizzled rain touched my skin like a thousand kisses, sending goose bumps along my skin. A branch creaked, followed by breaths. Yes, they were definitely heavy breaths. Each one had a slight whistle to it, and footsteps. Whoever was close crept through the trees, trying to be silent, but it sounded as if they were right in front of me.
“She has to be close.” Naomi’s voice drifted to me, echoing like a melody, a song in each word. I shook my head as if to scatter the sound, but it was followed by a distinct second voice.
“If someone hadn’t stopped for food,” Maddox said, his sassy tone low but light. “We’d have found her by now.”
“I was hungry,” Naomi snapped back. “What am I supposed to do? Starve? We’re hiking. We needed the energy. I didn’t see you complaining when you dug into those pancakes.”
“Enough,” Edmund ordered, and they fell silent, followed only by a small sigh from whom I presumed would be Maddox. “We need to whisper. Freya could hear us if she’s close.”
Whispering would do nothing. I could hear their hearts racing as clear as drumbeats. My nostrils flared. I smelled Maddox’s cologne—rich, spicy, and deep, with a hint of cinnamon. I sniffed it out, following it into the trees. I went to run normally but sped too quickly and headed right for a tree trunk. I stopped myself before I hit it, with perfect balance, and steadied myself. I felt lighter than expected.
This was how it felt to be a goddess.
After readying myself, I moved and whisked through the trees. Expecting the blur I usually got when I was in the arms of Raiden or Aziel when they ran, I blinked twice. Everything was crystal clear: each time-chiseled tree, flake of bark, veins on the leaves, and droplets caught on webs. There was so much beauty in the world, and for a moment, I wanted to capture it, as Alexander had in his paintings. I wanted to take it and show it to my friends and my family, so they could see what I did, but it wasn’t possible.
Within a few seconds, I reached them and stopped in front of Edmund. He dropped his compass, wide-eyed. Maddox jolted back, and Naomi gasped.
Maddox gulped. “Well, this is a lot to unpack.”
“Elle?” Edmund hesitated, holding his hand out as if I could be an illusion. Did I look different?
Naomi’s hand shot to cover her mouth. “You’re immortal,” she said between her fingers. “Or something close to it.”
“I killed Freya.” My voice sounded different to me, each note crisper, sharper than before. “I took her place.”
Maddox smirked. “Jeez. To think we’d come to save you. Looks like we could have saved ourselves the journey.” He tugged at his belt, which was snagged at the side. “This was expensive and now ruined. Stupid branch caught it.”
I rolled my eyes, delighting in the normalcy for a second. Maddox was processing it better than the other two. Edmund looked as if he was going to pass out at any moment, and Naomi hadn’t yet lowered her hand from her open mouth.
“I’m okay,” I explained. “Well, sort of. Everything feels so different.” I extended my arms and gasped at the dried blood coating my skin, soaked into my pores, and dried on the tiny blonde hairs. No wonder they were shocked. I looked horrific. Freya’s blood smelled like rusted iron but with a cloying sweet tang. “It’s Freya.” I tried to pick the blood off, but there was too much. I needed a bath. I wondered how a bath would feel now. How water would feel on my skin…
Maddox snapped his fingers. “Even as a goddess, you’re still just as distracted. Nice to know some things don’t change.”
I arched an eyebrow. “You know I can beat you now, right? At weapons training. With magic.”
He smirked. “Finally, after all the years of mediocrity, a challenge.”
Edmund tugged at his collar and cleared his throat, bringing our attention back to him. “All right. So this is a new development,” he said slowly, looking up, then down—everywhere but at me. “We need to replan.”
“Replan.” Maddox scoffed. “We need to go home. Elle can find her sister herself. We’re hardly any help.”
Naomi punched his arm, having finally snapped out of the mini-trance she’d appeared to be in. “We’re still her friends, and we’re going to help her. She can’t face Alexander alone. He’s a god too now.”
“Also.” I bit the inside of my lip. “I imagine I might need some help with Raiden. He and Aziel are not going to be happy. He could have brought Leda back, but now that I’m goddess of the hunt, he can’t unless he kills me.” My stomach knotted. He wouldn’t. He cared for me. I had felt it with each kiss. He had given me the dagger. But Leda was his favorite. He missed her and loved her. She was family. I was not. When it really came down to it, could I trust him not to kill me?
I didn’t want to think about the answer.
Naomi slowly approached me, as if I were a wild predator. She touched my arm and breathed relief. “You’re warm.”
I side-eyed her. “What did you think I would be?”
She shrugged. “Cold, I guess. Like a dead person.”
Maddox’s eyebrows knitted together. “Way to be creepy, Naomi.”
Edmund interrupted their squabble. “Would you like to go back first? To, well, bathe?”
