Page 27 of An Empress of Air & Chaos

“Excuse me,” Emara said politely to both of them.

Wandering away, she left them to strike up a conversation without her. A conversation she was sure she didn’t want to listen to. Looking over her shoulder, she was shocked to see that Torin was still watching her.

Emara swallowed down the tension.

As a distraction, she turned her gaze to the artwork. One stunning painting caught her eye. It hung in a solid gold frame. He was a God of some sort—she was sure of it by his mighty crown and monumental body. Reading the scripture on the golden plaque, the words formed Thorin, God of the Sun and War.

She had heard of Thorin before, in the stories and lessons her grandmother used to tell. But did the Hunters know of the same Gods as she did? Did they celebrate the same holidays? Have the same beliefs?

A hush mellowed across the room and she turned to face the entrance. An older gentleman walked into the sparring room, and immediately she could sense his authority. His presence radiated around the room. His features were familiar, yet very much his own. He must have been in his fiftieth year of life, but his authority could have been mistaken for someone who had owned the kingdom of Caledorna for a thousand years. She knew instantly that he had been the one to send the note.

He was the commander.

She narrowed her eyes to get a better look, and then she saw him.

Gideon.

He stood beside the commander. Other men flanked the outside of him, but they kept to one step behind. The ensemble of hunters made their way to the front of the room and the villagers watched in silence as they parted. Emara noticed that Torin had now joined the men at the front of the room, standing shoulder to shoulder with the commander. Emara couldn’t help but gawk at the strong similarities between them.

Her eyes found Gideon again and she offered him a smile that died when his eyes pulled away from hers quickly, his mouth tightening. She tried to hide the disappointment in her face by shifting her weight from one foot to the other and looking down at her new boots.

Was she stupid? Of course he wasn’t going to offer her a smile. This was his duty.

“Great gene pool, huh?” Cally whispered, looking at the three men. She had made her way across the mats to stand beside Emara.

Gideon and Torin are related?

“The Blacksteel brothers,” Cally confirmed. She continued to say something about a third brother, but Emara couldn’t stop staring between the two men.

Brothers. Torin and Gideon. One fire and one ice. Gideon was warm and golden. Torin was dark and intense. A mesmerizing combination for both.

Although, she could see some similarities in the way they stood together at the front, she found it difficult to wrap her mind around the fact they came from the same family. Gideon seemed so gentle and Torin, well – he was something else entirely.

“Thank you for coming,” the commander started. “I am Viktir Blacksteel, leader and commander of the Blacksteel hunting clan.” He was strong in the delivery of his words, his voice commanding the room like an enchanted spell. “You were brought here two nights ago in the efforts to save your lives.”

His stern eye coasted over the faces of the villagers. “I can only imagine what it feels like to be brought here with no understanding of what goes on in our world and what you must have witnessed that night. But the time has come for us to expose what we are up against. We must reveal what secretly goes on under the noses of the human world. I know it’s hard to believe what I am about to say, but you need to understand what we are—and what we deal with.”

He paused and scanned the crowd again. “We are not a human hunting clan that hunts animals for sport or labour; please do not get us mixed up or compare us. We are a breed much more skilful and efficient. We are deadly to our enemy, and we do not hunt animals, so to speak.” He paused. “We are a hunting clan bound in an oath of blood and honour to the ancient Gods of Caledorna to protect these lands, and we have been warriors of this world since life was born.”

Emara’s heart thundered quickly as she knew what was about to be confirmed. It already had been by Gideon.

“We hunt demons and all demonic presences; we kill them before they kill you.”

A woman to the left of Emara wept quietly into her hands, breaking her attention from the commander’s dark green eyes. Tears merged in hers too as she dragged her gaze back to Viktir.

“But most of you here have already witnessed such evil.” Viktir rolled his neck and continued. “And I am sure the clan member I have assigned to you will make sure of your comfort while you are here. If they have not already informed you of our truth, I will. But before you can fully understand, we must take you back…to the beginning of our time.”

In the ancient world, a world that we have long forgotten, there lived the first God.” Viktir Blacksteel moved closer to the circle of villagers who were desperate to understand him, by the looks on their faces. They were desperate for this all to make sense. For their nightmares to feel like nightmares instead of reality.

“The ancient manuscripts that belong to the temple of the Gods often refer to her as the Mother God or the Three-Faced God. For having three faces allowed her to be all at once the maiden, the mother, and the crone.” He spoke with passion.

Emara took a quick side glance at Cally, who, to her credit, looked like she was engaged in the story of their history.

Viktir continued, “She had existed alone for an eternity, for a time unthinkable to us here. As the mother of the world, she longed for something more. Something maternal stirred. Something which would never grow within her womb, but within the womb of the world. She wanted to love something more than the vast, dark void of her existence. She wanted to be the mother of life.

“The Mother God plucked from the simplest of magic that lay fruitful in her world and created the first of her children. She pulled from the brightest light she could and gathered energy from the strongest fire she could find and birthed a son. She named him Thorin of the Sun and War, Protector of the Lands.” Viktir squared his shoulders, standing tall as he looked over to the painting of the God that hung on the wall.

Emara confirmed, in that moment, that Hunters did believe in the same Gods as mortals like herself.

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