Page 25 of Flamesworn

He didn’t even love you.

Ares slunk, quiet and invisible, through Kataida’s front door. Around them, war was building like electricity before a lightning strike, but Ares could only think of one thing—the book of letters by Kataida’s bedside, bound so carefully in worn leather.

They opened it, gazing down at the faded ink that was all they had left of Atreus, now that his shield was broken and his soul reborn as another.

Beloved,

We are not alone in the desert. At first, I thought the creature a dream, like one of the ghosts they say haunt the olive orchards. Its skin is pale, its hair like fire, and when it speaks, I feel an unease that even the memory of Katoikos’ lush gardens and quiet rivers cannot drive away. Its skin burns to the touch, and it says it knows my spirit, and that it loves me.

Ares’ fingers trembled on the page.

“I knew you when your soul was young,” they’d told Atreus, that first night. “This land is mine, as it always has been mine, but I will let you thrive here, if you wish.”

Atreus had stared at Ares for a long time that night, the silence stretching heavy between them. Then he’d reached for Ares, tangled their hair in his fingers, and Ares had sighed at the thought that here at last was a mortal who knew them and would not turn away.

I trace the lines of your face in the stars, the way you traced mine the night we met.Atreus’ handwriting was plain, clear, with a precision that had carried over into every aspect of his life.Do you remember climbing the balcony trellis together? The taste of your father’s stolen wine? Perhaps one day, when my task here is done, we can return there.

The creature thinks itself a god,he wrote in another entry,but it thrashes beneath me like a mortal man. It is the cruelest thing I have done. It is not a mortal creature, but it seems to feel, even if only base emotions like fury, lust, and delight. It says it loves me still, and I can feel the heat of that love in the blood I have to spill to keep you and our kin in Katoikos safe.

If the gods are real, perhaps they will one day forgive me for seeking to tame the worst of them.

Ares slammed the book shut. It.It.The word burned into them like a brand peeling back blackened flesh, but there was no pleasure in the pain, just a strange, sickening sensation.

Atreus hadn’t wanted to take Ares to his bed. He’d seen it as a necessary evil, a way to tame the fey creature that came to him in the dunes of Arktos. But Ares had thought him willing, had embraced him earnestly, smiling at his touch. And all that time, every touch, every hot breath, every kiss and push and pull, they’d been nothing to Atreus—just a creature, a wretched god, the worst of them.It.

“And I begged for you,” Ares said, looking to the bed where Kataida had been the night before, “as though you loved me still. As though you had any reason to think any differently than Atreus.”

She’d been trying to tell them the whole time. She’d been pushing Ares away even as the heat of her soul seemed to call to them, and why should she want them in the first place? What did they offer that a mortal would find worthy of devotion? The sweetness of blood and steel? That was beloved only to the creature, to thethingthat Atreus tamed.

The sword he wielded.

Someone was calling them. War was running through the streets of Axon, a thousand currents winding into a flood, and Ares couldn’t stop themselves. They were thrown into the thick of it, disappearing from Kataida’s dark bedroom and staggering as they appeared in a cramped, dark room. The Beast was there, his iron mask snarling over a face cast in shadow, a heavy collar around his neck.

“No survivors, Beast,” a soldier said behind him. “Not even one.”

“Very well,” the Beast said, and Ares shivered as his gaze slid over them, curved blades shining in the light of a single torch.Brown eyes narrowed behind the mask. “They’ll know we seek the Needle when they see the guardpost has fallen.”

“We want them to know,” another soldier said. “See it done.”

The Beast closed his eyes, and as he stepped forward, Ares could see marks on his chest, written in the old script of the empire. It was a line that used to be inscribed over the temple of War, above the statue of Ares’ imperial form.

Firebearer of the Empire.

“The empire is dead,” Ares said, and the Beast went still.

“Something’s here,” he whispered. “Something’s with us.”

Ares felt another pull—someone calling them, needing them, always needing them. They closed their eyes, and opened them in a small room at the edge of Axon, where the man they called Stavros stood with a young soldier dressed in clothes that blended with the hues of the desert beyond.

“Let no one see you,” Stavros said. His expression was grim, and he kept his voice low. “Now more than ever, there will be eyes watching us. Take this if you are captured.”

He handed something to the soldier, who closed his hands around it. “My squad leader will ask questions if she sees me missing.”

“Go,” Stavros said.

Another pull. Ares gasped as they appeared in a council room where Evander and Menelaus leaned over a map of Arktos. Evander’s hair was slightly disheveled, and Menelaus looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

“We can still keep them safe,” Menelaus said. “We can obscure their uniforms so they aren’t spotted by the enemy, but the risk is there.”

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