"Let's get moving again," Artemis said, continuing in the direction of her fallen temple. She took them off the main road so they wouldn't run into anyone who would recognize Alexander as he was supposed to be missing. She was behind schedule and the last thing she needed was for Alexander to have a fan meeting.
"This feels like deja vu. The last time I followed you like this, I was taken."
Artemis gritted her teeth tired of hearing about him being taken. So much time had passed since then where he should at least get over it. "If I hear you mention that one more time I am going to have my pets drag you around again."
"Got it," Alexander killed the topic. He looked around the path he didn't get a good look at when he had been here with Artemis last time. He would never have imagined such a path leading to a temple was still here. Darius could not have known either because he would have finished the task of destroying what remained of the temple. "Is there something hiding this place from leading humans to the temple? I have never heard of anyone mentioning coming across a temple these days."
"There's nothing blocking humans from coming this way that I know of but with rumors that you'll disappear if you go into the forest in this area, not many have wandered too far this way. And if anyone did find a fallen temple, they would rather run away as quickly as they could so no one would suspect them of having a connection to it. When the past kings killed anyone who followed the Gods, their people realized they had to keep their beliefs hidden."
Artemis knew there were people who still like the Gods and would pray for them to let them know this. However, they prayed in secret, scared for their lives and the lives of the people around them. It wasn't the best way to live. She wished they would forget about Gods entirely and not risk being killed by the king.
"It's either you follow what the king says which is not being involved with anything not human or be killed. What a wonderful ruler you have. We're here," she said when they came to an area filled with followers. It wasn't too far away from her old temple.
"I take it you didn't come here to pick flowers. What do you need?" Alexander didn't find the area to have anything special other than the flowers you could find growing around only in this kingdom. This was a possibility that she was seeing something that she couldn't see.
"This," she held her hand out and waited. The ground where they stood started to shake until a bed of flowers in the middle of this hidden area opened up and a book came out of it toward Artemis. It was the diary of her original past life. She knew it had always been here but ignored it because she didn't want to read about what the woman wrote. She had quite a few bad memories already and knew the diary would open up new wounds which were why she avoided it.
"Is it a special book?" Alexander questioned as it fell into her hands. It didn't look to be anything special. Just a regular old book but since it came out of the ground and Artemis walked all the way here for it there had to be something important written on the inside.
"It's my old diary from a long time ago. It's been kept here safe away from the ruins of the temple. Many of my things were buried here so that the humans could not destroy them. Dig as much as you want but you won't be able to get them. Let's see," she flipped open the book to read a few of the pages while they were there. She had to be certain this is what she came here for.
"What is it that you are looking to find in this book?" Alexander wondered. He knew there was a place in the palace with many items which belonged to creatures for experts to use to track down where they might be.
"Why the hell I was placed in that damn forest," she quickly flipped through the pages. The book had entries about a human man which Artemis didn't care about.
"You did something bad in the past, did you not expect to be imprisoned for it? You don't need that book to explain that to you," a woman popped out of the forest with her hands behind her back. She smiled, glad to see a God alive and well these days. "The legendary Artemis. It is nice to finally meet you."
"Who the hell are you? You seem to be nothing more than a human. How do you know who I am?" Artemis didn't trust the stranger considering she was a human and she hadn't introduced herself as a Goddess to anyone other than Alexander and the thieves she just killed.
"My friends call me Wendy and yes I am more human than other things but I know many things about people like you, Artemis. I know many things about the world you are from and what happened in your past. Never would I have imagined running into you today. What a glorious day but you must go back into your prison for the sake of everyone around."