Olympiad is Falling, The Rise of Artemis

General Storm dragged me to the queen’s court room. Behind him followed the king and the guards holding Daylen. They ambushed us. Now who knows what’s going to happen to us? Queen Solaris frowned at Storm and I, but her eyes widened with alarm when the guards marched in with Daylen.

“You have five seconds to explain this or you all die by my fire.” I swear I felt the heat radiating off her.

“Hear us out darling-” The king approached her, but her hair blazed a brighter shade of blonde like lightning.

Her eyes turned to dark blue of the evening sky. I believed her when she said we would all die by her fire.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

“Don’t darling me!”

“Your highness, this boy has been conspiring against you! He’s been working with this powerful creature.”

Solaris rolled her eyes and pinned them on Daylen.

“We’re not conspiring against you.” I blurted out.

General Storm shook my arm, “Quiet you. You’re in the presence of her royal highness. You could be facing death!”

Daylen lifted his head to face his mother. “I would never betray you.” He spat.

“He’s been harboring her.” Avon accused.

I swallowed it was the world against us. There was no reasoning with them. Even if Daylen’s mother let us go, who was to say they wouldn’t come after us?

“She’s just my girlfriend.” Daylen growled. “She’s done nothing wrong.”

“Will you deny that she’s the creature that destroyed a building block in the mage dimension?” General Storm yelled.

I cringed. Why did he have to bring that up?

Solaris raised her hand and stepped off her throne. With the wave of her hand she silenced the room. Daylen wouldn’t take his eyes off me. I had to break our stare because Solaris walked right up to me to scrutinize me. This wasn’t the way I wanted to meet Daylen’s mother. She took in all my features. She seized me up from the top of my head to the boots I had on. She narrowed her eyes, but I was able to see them flash.

“Your girlfriend Daylen… is an Olympiad goddess.” She smirked. She shifted her attention to General Storm.

“I would be careful of the way I handled her General Storm.” She pushed her cape behind her and strolled back to her throne. General Storm released me and stepped back. He stood at attention like a stone statute.

Her smirk remained ever present, she straightened her back and waved her palm.

“Release him and get out of my sight.” She ordered.

I crossed the room and found Daylen. He wrapped me in his arms and fisted my hair.

“Are you alright?” He asked.

“I’m…” heat built between us. Like a kettle rising to a boil. I pulled back because I didn’t know what was happening. I couldn’t hold on anymore the heat was immense. Daylen held on to my arms, but he felt it too. Right in the center a silver spark formed and blasted me to Solaris’ feet and Daylen to the door.

“What is this?!” General Storm blasted.

“Ouch.” I rubbed my shoulders.

“Artemis.” Daylen groaned. He was on his feet in an instant and crossing the room, but Storm stopped him.

Solaris was standing and glaring at me.

“Who is she bound to?” She asked in a low cold tone.

Daylen looked away.

Solaris raised her voice. “Tell me! Who is she bound to!”

“Alpheus.” Daylen said through gritted teeth.

“The bastard!” General Storm burst out. Daylen brushed him aside and came to help me to my feet.

There was no heat this time. No spark. I wrapped my arms around his waist expecting to be blasted against a chair, but I was kept safely in his arms.

“What was that?” I whispered.

“The blood bond is taking effect.” He whispered back.

“A dark angel cannot have union with an Olympiad god. It’s disastrous.” Storm said.

“He’s always been a smart boy. Now leave us all of you.” Solaris’s death glare ranged from her guards to her general and finally on her husband.

Objections died where they were born. Everyone quietly walked out of the room.

“I only want to know a few things. Why you aren’t in Olympiad and why you’re bound to my fallen son?”

I felt like a mouse under her stare. I swallowed, but before I could respond Daylen replied for me.

“It isn’t that simple Solaris. Artemis hasn’t known about her true identity until recently. As for Alpheus, this wasn’t a consenting bond.”

“It’s a bond that complicates things anyway. We need to talk in a place where the walls don’t have ears.”

***

We took a secret passage in the court room that led down to a dusty cellar. Solaris called it their secret place. I couldn’t imagine a queen spending a second down here. As I was learning Solaris wasn’t like the queens I read about in books.

Blood bonds aren’t so easily broken.” Solaris said as she settled into a wooden seat with a plush purple cushion.

I ran my hands down my face. I didn’t want to be a dark angel queen. Daylen ripped my hands off my face. I managed to hold his stare, but only barely. He was so intense. I couldn’t bare him to see how broken I felt.

“Hey, I told you under no circumstances would I allow you to be bound forever to my brother.” He spat on the word brother.

“Oh! So she knows everything I see. How marvelous.” Solaris laughed spitefully.

Daylen tucked me under his arm. “Of course she does.”

“Even after what I told you Daylen you still want to do this?”

“Yes.” He answered quickly, surprising his mother. “What you told me doesn’t matter.”

She shook her head and sighed, “It matters now more than ever darling. She isn’t a nobody.”

“I don’t understand, what are you talking about.”

“Nothing.” Daylen whispered.

“You’re a goddess. It’s Daylen’s job to protect you just as it is mine to protect your family. You’re from two different worlds ones with boarders that can never be broken.”

“It doesn’t matter Artemis. We’ll find a way around this.”

I cradled myself. Why was everything in existence against something that felt like it carried no blemish at all? Mountains felt like better obstacles than blood bonds and dimensions. Should our love even have been born?