The Alyta Trilogy: Handmaids, Heroes, and Hierarchy.

Disclaimer: same as first two parts.

Part Three of �The Alyta Trilogy: Handmaids, Heroes and Hierarchy�

A vision of wild forest.  Images fade in and out of it.  Two loving people.  A costly secret.  A feeling of being lost and fearful.  Attacked.  They�re everywhere.  Kirya sits up and gasps.  Beads of sweat cover her body and her eyes are wide with fear.  She breathes heavily and looks around her.  She sees she is in a chamber somewhere; she knows that she came to be here by this strange man called Ares.  She doesn�t know what he wants with her.  She just knows that he can help her get what is rightfully hers.  And she�ll do anything to get it.

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Sytifa keeps an ear open in this dangerous forest.  There was a time when she was too headstrong to do so, a time when she was not a stooping old woman but the fiercest Amazon warrior on the earth.  She smiles back as she thinks of those days, when she was so carefree and independent.  She was her own woman, belonging to no one.  She continues through the trees and images come alive in her mind of long ago, and warriors jump from limb to limb high above the forest floor.  Shouting battle cries, they overtook the strongest men and did flips with the greatest of ease.  She thinks of Alyta, so much like her that she could be her mother, doing those same Amazon trademark flips with even greater ease.  Looking around to make sure she isn�t being watched, Sytifa mischievously puts down her traveling bag.  She engages in a dance of fighting tactics, attacking trees on one side of the path and then the other.  She spins around to hit a branch, and comes face to face with one really frightened chipmunk.  She laughs to herself and feeds the little critter a crumb of bread from her pack, and walks away from the chipmunk�s tree, feeling a little old.

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Alyta sneaks past the empty corridors and peeks into Jason�s room.  She stifles a giggle: he�s sleeping like a log.  She�ll have to amuse herself this morning.  She greets the morning vendors as she walks through the streets of Corinth and the guards let her pass out of the gate with a nod.  She smiles back in return, and looks out to the forest and hills surrounding the city�s walls.  She breathes in the crisp air and stretches.  In mid-stretch, she stops and looks around, turning in slow circles.  A tear begins to form in the edge of her eye.  Now that the coronation is over, she must leave this place soon.  Her heart pricked a single time as if to say �goodbye� already. 

Recomposing herself, she walks towards the forest and the secret place that Jason had shown her.  She follows a small stream near the path; its water is cool and clear so she bends down for a drink.  She hears tinkling laughter by her ear, and looks up.  There is nothing.  She could have sworn she heard something.  As she brings her cupped hands up to her mouth to drink, a tiny fluttering light appears in front of her.  Her hand drops in amazement, and her eyes stay wide open.  The light thing blinks and comes closer to her, almost landing on her nose.  A childish laughter comes out of Alyta herself, as she realizes that these things are what she has heard of in bedtime tales as a child.  She is fascinated by them, and pokes the one who was about to land on her nose.  Chiming runs through the air, �Hey, no fair!� the little creature yells out, and Alyta soon finds herself surrounded by them.  They fly around until she�s dizzy, and can�t help but fall over.