The Bastard Princess

79.

-HER-

I knew he was keeping something from me. The wound on his shoulder didn't look like something he would get from an accident. Instead, it looked like a wound from some kind of an attack. Someone must have tried to do something to Ares.

I decided to look at his wound closely in the morning as he kissed me to sleep that night but when I woke up the next morning, I found nothing but a fainting scar on his shoulder where the wound was last night.

He woke up soon after and we got ready to go to our respective works. I tried asking him again how he got that wound, he simply dismissed the conversation. I tried to feel something through the bond but I could feel that he was blocking some things from me. I didn't like it that he was keeping things from me. I hated being left in the dark.

Even though I didn't want to, it was making me start to question certain things about our bond. He tried to continue a normal conversation with me as he walked me to the temple but I kept quiet for the most part. I knew he was aware of my silence and also the reason behind it.

I only let him peck me before walking out of the woods and towards the temple. I felt his eyes on me until I disappeared inside the temple. Most of the day went by without much happening except for some villagers visiting the temple to deliver some goods. They also seemed to have brought some news with them.

I overheard them talking about some supernatural things happening in the village which had most of the villagers scared. When they caught me hearing them, they gave me a horrified look before they went away.

This continued for the next couple of days. More news of mishaps for ill-fated things happening to people in the village reached us. Edara and other high priestesses in the village did some ceremonies to stop those things from happening but such incidents increased instead.

It was being said that a witch had cast a curse on the village. As another week passed some unnatural and untimely deaths took place in the village which scared people even more. Meanwhile, each evening Ares would come home late. I would ask him what was going on but he would simply brush the matter off.

It was soon when I again started to get the feeling of being watched but this time, it was worse. It wasn't the kind that only made your skin crawl, but it was the kind that told you that someone was very keenly watching you and they'd be soon coming for you.

At first, I was hesitant to talk to Ares about it but it got worse one evening.

I had just returned from the temple and was bathing in the lake when I heard someone calling for me from somewhere deep in the woods. There was something about the voice that was so bone-chilling and had got my heart racing.

I instantly got out of the water and rushed inside the house. Meanwhile, I heard the voice calling for me again and again.

"What happened, my pharaoh?" Ares asked me that night after he returned from work.

"I..." I trailed off suddenly feeling at a loss of words. At this, his gaze intensified at me and he held me in his arms and asked me again, "Tell me, my pharaoh. What is it?"

"Nothing," The answer rolled out of my tongue on its own. His eyebrows drew together as he watched me with concern. He tried to ask me several times again but every time, I would feel this strange tightness in my chest and this lump building in my throat that would push the words back into my throat. I was unable to tell him anything.

He tried his best to comfort me but I would still hear someone calling for me from deep inside the woods when I would be alone in the house. The voice was indistinguishable. Somedays it sounded like a woman, somedays it sounded like a man, somedays it sounded like a child and somedays it would be a chilling whisper just behind me.

At first, I only heard those voices when Ares wasn't around me but after another couple of weeks, I started to hear them in his presence as well. I asked him about the voices but the only thing I would get from in return was bewilderment. I knew it was only me hearing them. At nights, I woke up with cold sweat hearing those voices again while he still would be sleeping peacefully beside me.

As time passed, the unfortunate events in the village continued. Children and animal started disappearing next. One day when I walked back to the house alone, I found several dead birds lying around our house. It was when I entered the house when I found the head of a deer in the middle of the floor.

My heart had stopped beating for a moment as I saw red. All those terrible memories came flooding back to me. I couldn't stay there anymore. I sat by the door of our house and cried until Ares came home. He was furious upon finding out all those things.

He tried to calm me down but I cried rivers in his arms. For the next week, Ares tried his best to stay around me as much as possible while I still struggled to tell him about the voices. Some days it felt like that the terror was so much to put in words but somedays it felt someone was controlling me whenever it came to talking about the voices.

Every time we would come back from to the house, we would find something dead around it. One evening when Ares walked me back to the house from the temple, we found hundreds of dead fishes floating in the water of the lake that had turned bloody red all of a sudden.

I was beyond terrorized while Ares was very furious.

"Arsinoe!"

Suddenly, both of us heard someone calling for me from deep inside the woods. Both of us froze. Me with terror, Ares with surprise and bewilderment.

"I am going to look for whoever it is," He growled.

"No..., please... don't leave me alone," I cried as I clung to him because my life depended on it. At this, he looked down at me fervently and assured me, "I am not going to leave you alone, Arsinoe,"

We got inside the house next and fortunately didn't find any dead animal there. For the rest of the night, both of us kept hearing that voice calling for me. It was after midnight when I thought that the voice had come closer to the house.

It felt like someone was just outside. I was clutching Ares all the time. He was awake and listening to everything. He offered several times to go outside and look at it but I told him not to because deep down, I knew that it was something far dangerous and I was afraid of losing him.

Several more days passed like this and I was starting to lose my mind. It was until one day when I was at the temple and a crowd of angry villagers showed up there all of a sudden, all carrying some sorts of weapon with them.

"Where's that red-head witch?" Demanded one of the villagers. My heart raced and goosebumps surfaced my skin when I was yet again reminded of that night I had fled from Rome.

Somewhere deep down, I had this feeling that tonight wasn't going to be any different.

...

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