The thing was, I was dreaming. I knew I was dreaming. But some part of me knew that whatever dream world I usually drifted off to wasn’t this. There was a musky oder where I was standing that reminded me of damp, dark places and a feeling at the pit of my stomach that I’d been here before.

But for the life of me, I had no idea where I was. The door was too intricately made for anything in our castle. The faces were carved perfectly. I would’ve remembered this door.

“You’re dreaming,” I muttered to myself and pinched my arm. The sharp pain did nothing more than annoy me. Slowly, I turned back to face the door. “You’re not dreaming.”

I was in my night shirt and trousers. No weapon to speak of.

No matter how hard I try, I couldn’t scan the rest of the room, and there was nothing else to see beyond the door. It was clear as glass. I needed to walk through. Muttering under my breath, I pulled open the door and the warmth of a tavern, with food and drink, ale and mutton, washed over me. The place was bathed in a golden light from all the lanterns and I knew exactly where I’d seen this before.

It was where I’d gone to, when I’d grabbed hold of the ellelah.

I took a hesitant step inside. It wasn’t the blurry view like I’d first seen it, this was different. Patrons lined the bar, some sat in corners, all chatting merrily about the day’s events and clinking glasses together. There was something a little odd about them though. None of their clothing look similar and now that I’d been around the block in the Böttr Kingdom, I knew what to expect. The heavy cloaks, the roughspun shirts, the silver clasps, but only a few of these folks had that. Some of them were dressed in colorful silks, far lighter than what the climate of the Böttr Kingdom would allow and others still had togas or rough animal skins covering them.

Nobody asked me a question. Nobody even seemed surprised that I was walking in. A few of them waved at me in good nature and returned to their drinks.

“This is fucking weird,” I muttered to myself and took my place at the bar. Once a bartender approached, I gestured to my sleeping clothes. “Look, I don’t have any money on me—”

“Oh, we do not accept money here.”

“Right,” I said slowly, like that made sense. “Great. Well, I’m looking for a woman. She has like a…her hair looks like this, right? But she has two different eyes—”

“M’lady,” she whispered and her eyes flickered to somewhere behind me. “She must be awaiting you upstairs.”

I leaned against the counter and glanced back. Stairs lead up to a second floor but most of those doors were closed. At the end, a handprint was painted on wood. I had a strong feeling that’s where I needed to go.

The talkings and good natured conversations kept going in the room even when I took the first step. Some part of me hung close to the chairs, waiting to see if some threat reared its head, so I could swing one across and make an exit, but no one bothered with me. It was like I was one of them in this mismatched room.

And there was the next door with the handprint. I took a deep breath in front of it and gently pushed it open.

There she was.

The woman sat on the bed, her hair up in a messy brunette bun, a few strands sneaking their way out and gently framing her face. She wore a thin robe that offered a sliver of view, her creamy thighs and a little of her neck. She didn’t hear the door open. Instead, she was too engrossed with the book on her lap, her thick lips were pressed in concentration and she held her face in her hand, scanning line after line, fascinated.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I cleared my throat.

Her eyebrows furrowed and she glanced up at me. In mere seconds, she almost tumbled out of the bed and her book crashed to the floor. She hurried to righten her sleeping robe, tying it tighter around her waist.

I took a step back, still with my hand on the door. “Sorry, I should’ve knocked.”

“What are you—?!” She took a deep breath, stunned. “Hero, what are you doing here? I—I did not call upon you!”

A deep flush crept up her neck and she crossed her arms over her chest. I understood. It was a damn thin robe. Even with her crossing her arms, it was hard not to see the outline of her heavy breasts, pushed up from her arms.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I just…appeared in front of the door.”

She blinked at me. “What?”

“In front of the metal door. I fell asleep in the Böttr Kingdom and now I’m here. And I knew you were here.” I shook my head and gestured back down to the first floor, with the light chatter still spilling out. “Who are these people? What is this place?”

“How did you…?”

“I’ve got no idea.” I nodded towards her and the bare clothing she wore. “You want to get dressed?”

“I—I—” She recovered herself a little and drew away from me, off to the dresser. “Of course. To you, I was going to offer my call, for you to join if you may, but now I may see myself at your call and elect to join.” She shook her head in amazement and I closed the door softly.

In a few minutes, she reappeared in a dress, something that none of my women had. It was kind of like one of the togas outside but ripped in a few places, like it’d been worn a long time. It was snug around her breasts and waist. This wasn’t something to sleep in.

“Hero,” she said, sounding a little more like how I met her. “Welcome.”

“Are we going downstairs?”

Her eyes drew towards the conversations on the floor below and she shook her head. “Those that are lost cannot help u.”

And with that, I closed the door behind me. There wasn’t an easy way out of here and if I was brought here for a purpose, I wanted to find out what the hell it was so I could get back and inform my women. This entire place reeked of the gods’ influence. Something powerful was drawing me and this woman together.

“My name isn’t Hero,” I informed her, taking a look around her room. It had everything she could’ve needed, bookshelves with books, a fine four-poster bed, paintings on the wall with paint thrown on them really, but there were no windows. Nothing to cook with. No back exit to leave this place. I drew in a breath. “My name is Warrick.”

She sat down in a comfortable chair. “I hadn’t settled on a day for you to arrive or I would have picked a name for you to settle with.”

“What name? Your name?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you talk like that?” I asked, pulling up another chair to sit close. “It’s a little confusing.”

A wry smile tugged up on her lips. “We all have curses to bear and to bear-roar curses at.”

“You’re cursed,” I guessed. “That’s why you’re here.”

She held up her hand and tapped her temple. Even if she was confirming the fact that she was locked here though, I knew she was pleased I’d guessed it all immediately.

I rubbed my jaw, thinking of what I wanted to know. “What name do I call you?”

It took her a few minutes to decide. First, she scooped up her book from the ground and walked to the other side of the room, to the bookshelves that lined the wall. The moment she turned around, I could see how the dress hugged her curves and showed the lines of her ass. Like I said, every hot professor I had in college definitely would’ve made this woman Enemy Number One the moment she stepped on our campus.

“Cipher,” she decided, taking her time back to the chair.

“That’s not your real name, is it?”

She tapped her temple again. Right on the money.

“But you can’t tell me…” I continued. “Let me see if I’ve got this altogether. You can’t tell people straight things about you, that’s part of your curse. So you have to make shit confusing. You’re some kind of powerful being, hidden away…but this isn’t really a prison.”

I couldn’t stop thinking about the people downstairs. They didn’t look unhappy. In fact, they looked like they were having a blast. The only one who had a touch of melancholy was Cipher. But even if she was bummed out, that didn’t change our circumstances. There was still a simple question I needed to answer. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought about that picture that Keeose had shown me, with the terrifying women and the hordes of monsters tearing themselves from her, the more I knew it was the right question to ask.

“Are you the Unseen Goddess?”