Free Hera by Chrystalla Thoma Page A

belt, finally releasing it, feeling
suffocated. It was but a small act of defiance to the regulations,
and it made her feel better and worse at the same time.
    Outside, the gray cliffs of Dakru rose
vertically, hemmed with the white of crashing waves and foam. A
fine, salty mist fuzzed the air. The wind whistled through cracks,
and seabirds cawed and circled over their nests, high up on the
rocky summits. Pelicans rose from the water in a V line, dark wings
spread wide.
    “Hera, have you heard a word I’ve said so
far?” Sacmis snapped.
    Hera didn’t bother turning to her – she knew
her friend’s eyes, gray as the sea cliffs, would be fastened on the
sea ahead and her task, not hunting for a reaction.
    A grin pulled Hera’s lips and she worked to
school her face into blankness, just in case. “No, as a matter of
fact, I have not. You mean it was something important?”
    Sacmis growled. “Sobek’s balls, are you
trying to be funny?” She huffed and nudged Hera with her elbow.
“Something’s on your mind, huh? Spit it out, hatha .”
    Would Sacmis keep the secret? Would she not
feel it her sacred duty to denounce Tefnut – and Hera – to the
police? Did Sacmis have her doubts about the system, like her?
    Hera decided she could not take that chance,
not even with a friend she’d known for so long. “Nothing’s on my
mind,” she muttered.
    “I’ll get it out of you, hatha , sooner
or later,” Sacmis threatened, an audible smirk in her voice.
    Sacmis was not hatha , not one of the
Echo princesses’ line. Hera was an elite, a pure-line Gultur,
carrying the original strain of Regina. Sacmis carried a newer
strain with its own multiple mutations – a strategy the parasite
Regina used to ensure its survival against its many foes – other
parasites and viruses.
    They were usually paired like that, elite
with non elite. The idea was to train them to command, Hera
supposed, although Sacmis had never been good at taking orders; at
least not from Hera.
    One of the reasons Hera liked her. She
finally turned to peer at her friend. Sacmis’ eyebrows were drawn
together and she scowled at the sea as if she could flatten the
waves through sheer will.
    So far it wasn’t working, much to Hera’s
amusement.
    Silence wrapped around them, punctuated by
the smash of the waves against the prow and the cries of
seabirds.
    “Do you think blessed Nunet is looking at us
right now?” Sacmis muttered.
    Hera blinked, caught by surprise. “Huh?”
    “Blessed Nunet of the deep. Maybe she’s just
sitting there, the great Siren, whipping her silvery tail in the
water, watching us. Judging us. Weighing us.”
    “Stop it.” Hera snorted and looked back to
the cliffs. “We did the libations, poured the oil and prayed to
her. Just follow the map and avoid those reefs. We do not want to
crash the wavebreaker on our first unsupervised outing.”
    “Yes, hatha ,” Sacmis grumbled. Her
friend drove well, Hera had to admit, but the turn of the
conversation raised the fine hairs on her arms. The gods, watching,
judging, separating the good from the bad people, deciding on their
fates.
    Were the Gultur the good ones? Was Hera on
the right side?
    Oh shut up.
    She’d never wavered about her objectives when
she was younger. She would protect the Gultur from the mortals, do
her duty and produce offspring, and then, when she was older, she
would serve the temple and learn its secrets.
    But two years back or so, it all began to
bother her – the single-minded faith in the purpose of the Gultur,
their supposed pre-destined authority over other races, their open
dismissal of questions and contradictions, and their
black-and-white perspective on gray areas in history, politics and
religion. So many things made no sense. And the biggest issue of
them all, one that bothered Hera so much it had become impossible
to ignore, was the one concerning the mortals.
    If these puny mortals were intelligent enough
to almost beat the Gultur a few hundred