Chapter 1: 1. How to get a baby

Author note: Hello all and welcome to another one of my stories. For those of you coming here from God of Discovery, I have a few quick notes for you!

This story takes place thousands of years after GoD. The gods are nothing but myth and no mortals remember that they ever lived among them. This story does not say how the gods disappeared off the land, but some of them are mentioned.

Also, this draft was finished back in 2015 before I even thought about GoD and before I finalized what the magic system of this world would look like. As such, there will be some discrepancies between this story and GoD.

Hope you enjoy the read!

---

It was that stupid mage. It had to be! There was no other explanation for it. After Athae had killed that voided mage he must have put a spell on her or something. Why else would her body be craving to go back there?

The assassin looked towards the distant peaks of the Great Mountains. She felt something inside her nudge in that direction, a pull as if a chain was wrapped around her heart and yanking insistently towards the red Senialli flowers growing there. Maybe even a little further. She knew those mountains as if she herself had carved them from the earth and raised them. She knew of the great lake hidden behind them, what was once flat land, now a great crater filled with water.

King Brandr was barely a man, a boy fresh out of childhood shoved into a brand new castle on the shores of that great lake. He was the son of an Elisii Duke and Duchess with no knowledge of how to control an army or the bad crop of land that had been given to him. His country reached from the previous border of Kesenia and Cial straight into Cialii land. The Kaiser of Elese had given it to him as a present when his youngest son became the regent of Cial.

Athae thought of the young boy and his crooked crown. She had never seen him herself yet the stories of his rule, barely a winter from his reign, had reached her ears, and made her laugh. He was given land that would grow no crops, yet with a focus on history and the study of the mythical city of Evadia.

It was a story every Prince and Princess has been told. It was a magical place that granted unlimited power and control, rule over all of Trace and its inhabitants, and an immortal life. It was a lie that Athae scoffed at and laughed at the people who believed it. They were few but they were devoted. Athae knew it was a story, nothing more.

Yet the assassin felt chills run up her spine as she remembered standing at the shores of that great lake, looking down into its dark depths. There had been news that the Elisii Kaiser was promised great treasures of the land, only for its historical purpose.

Evadia.

It was towards Evadia that Athae felt the pull, not the mountains, or the great lake. The insistent tugging at her heart was telling her she needed to be there. It had started barely a month ago, a sudden urge that woke her from her dreams and stumbling through the streets at night. The previous night she had finished a contract to take out Meister Dae-Mar.

Stupid mage.

The assassin turned back into the valley where she had set up camp for the night in hopes of letting her body rest from this annoying spell. She had to be careful as she was in the eastern reaches of the Great Mountains bordering on Wischeck. The men at the Wis outpost she had passed the previous night seemed unnerved. The current Lord of Wischeck, an old fart Athae had taken a contract for in the past, now had one out for her head. On top of that, the Wis men were a ravenous bunch and were always itching for a fight.

The assassin pulled away from her small camp and towards a spring she had seen earlier in her walk. She opened her canteen to fill it with fresh water when she heard a baby’s cry in the distance.

A babe so deep into the mountains? It must have been a family passing through the mountains in search of refuge in a different land. The winter snows had not melted yet and travelling through the mountain passes while avoiding the Wis outposts with a baby was suicide.

Athae moved quickly to hide in the rocky surfaces around her, but the babe’s cry was neither coming closer nor moving further away. Maybe kholes had attacked the family and spared the babe for some reason? They were strange creatures so it would not be a surprise.

You are reading story Hunting the Myth [The Search for Evadia: Book One] at novel35.com

On a maternal instinct she had denied herself for too long, Athae found her body moving towards the baby’s cry. It was as if a compulsion spell had taken over her body, pushing her mind and the thoughts of Evadia melted away. A new chain wrapped around her heart and engaged her magic as she ran through the rocky passes without a break.

By the time she had control over her own mind enough to stop herself, she realized she was not only within sight of the rocky shores of the Kiri Ocean but that her camp was at least a full night’s run behind her. The babe’s cry was a constant in her mind, never getting quieter or louder as it called her to the edges of the water. The same spring she had stolen a drink from had joined others to become a river spilling through the rocks into the Kiri Ocean.

The assassin looked around her to take in any threats and danger. There was a shadow in the distance, the light falling just so that she could not tell how many people were moving closer along the beach. Widsith was not that far but it was not visible.

The babe’s cry had her moving out of her cover and to the water without thought.

There, in the water where the waves lapped against the rocks, was a box. The cry, though she doubted it was a baby at all by that point, ceased the moment her eyes locked onto that box. She walked towards it without thought and by the time she had control over her own body once more, she was standing atop the box where the waves were beating it further into the rocks.

The box was old, the wood a grain that Athae did not recognize, stained in the darkest browns with symbols carved to reveal the lighter, natural shades of the wood. Before her eyes could even focus on the symbols to find out if she knew the language her hands were reaching for the lid. Heavy darkness fell from the box then slithered away as she opened it quickly.

She felt a burning on her fingers and threw the lid away, but she noticed it was too late when she smelled the burnt skin of her fingers smoking away. When she looked back at the box there was a bundle wrapped in black cloth inside. The baby smiled up at her, reaching with fat little hands out for her and laughing with a toothless smile.

The first thing Athae noticed of the child were the red eyes staring up at her, a black slit contracting when more light fell into the box around it. The assassin glared at the child as it grabbed a fallen lock of her wavy black hair and twisted it around a chubby fist, pulling it closer where it mouthed wetly at the strands.

“You little mahr-veed,” she spat out at the child and leaned back, pulling the strand of hair almost harshly out of the babe’s grasp. She placed her hands on her hips and tried not to focus on the itching and burning of her fingers.

A call in the distance had her turning. The guard she had noticed earlier was upon her now. Coming at here were three men, dressed in full regalia, with their horses at a gallop.

“What are you doing here?”

Athae had not bothered to put on her mask when she had started her run and she just realized now that bruises and cuts littered her body from her run to follow the babe’s cry. She was tired, running on little to no sleep for the past few nights, and angered at the bundle behind her that was now quiet.

“This beach is the property of the Count of Middle Wischeck. Do you have permission to be here?” one of the men called out with a heavily accented voice.

“Of course I do, do you?” Athae called back in a mocking voice and leaned away from the box. The moment she did the child started crying once more. “Oh, shut up, will you!?” the men seemed more startled at her bark of anger at the box than by the actual cry it had belted out. It sounded inhuman to the assassin. “I have permission from Miss Celebelee to travel through here.”

The leader of the men jumped down from his horse and moved closer to her. “I am aware of the name,” he rested his left hand on the hilt of his sword. “The Lord of Wischeck is looking for Miss Celebelee as we speak. You know her?”

“I do. So should you,” Athae grinned and let her magic rush through her body, washing over the compulsion the baby’s cry had put on her, and letting her take control of her own mind once more as she rushed the man.  

You can find story with these keywords: Hunting the Myth [The Search for Evadia: Book One], Read Hunting the Myth [The Search for Evadia: Book One], Hunting the Myth [The Search for Evadia: Book One] novel, Hunting the Myth [The Search for Evadia: Book One] book, Hunting the Myth [The Search for Evadia: Book One] story, Hunting the Myth [The Search for Evadia: Book One] full, Hunting the Myth [The Search for Evadia: Book One] Latest Chapter