Page 32 of Flamesworn

“I don’t. I’ve never, except to Azaiah once, when I ruined things with that soldier of his.” Except had Ares ever said out loud that they felt guilty about interfering? Or had they just thought about it and assumed Azaiah would forgive them? “Yes, all right, I’m sorry. Family is important, even if they’re difficult.”

“What does it look like when the gods are difficult?” Kataida asked, and Ares gestured toward themself. “Oh.”

“The others took things so seriously,” Ares said, slipping out of bed and following Kataida toward the bathroom. “I didn’t understand it. Why worry if a few hundred mortals die or if a kingdom rises or falls? What mattered was your realm, how it felt when you were riding the current of your power, arrowswhistling, sword cracking bone.” They shivered. “Then I met Atreus, and I thought I understood. Now I’m not sure. Those children… I shouldn’t have wanted them to live.” It had been the first true act of this war, and it should have shaped them, made them colder, but instead they had looked at them and wished it hadn’t happened that way. It had been their own thought, no one else’s. They’d never wanted mortals to live before.

“What does that mean?” Kataida asked. She pulled for the slats in her overhead shower to open, and steam filled the room as water hissed and evaporated before it struck Ares. “Are you going to change things?”

“It took much of my power to change the tide of war in Atreus’ time, and I think I did it wrong then, favoring one person. I don’t know.” Ares heard the beat of drums in the distance and suppressed a tremble of pleasure. “One person mattered, and now…now there are more.”

Kataida’s mouth pulled into a grim line, and she reached out to touch Ares’ chin. “I’ll help you, if I can.”

“You shouldn’t have to. People with souls as bright as yours, they would be frothing at the mouth, flinging themselves into battle without a thought. I drove my most devoted supplicants into a frenzy, you know. It’s as though my fire only warms you. Is it that I have changed, or that you are…” Ares peered through her, into the white-hot flame at her core, “different? Bright enough to burn but strong enough not to be consumed?”

“I don’t know about that. We’ll have to see what happens in battle first. It’s coming,” Kataida added. She finished drying herself off and took a clean uniform from the closet. “When you were gone, the council determined that the traitors were planning to take the Needle. It’s right between Axon and the Soldiers.” The Soldiers was the nickname they had used for the city to the north even in Atreus’ time, which lay between hundreds of towering rock formations that looked likethousands of marching soldiers from a distance. When Atreus was alive, the city had been just an encampment, but people had begun to build houses there when Ares descended into Atreus’ tomb.

“They’re drawn to the Needle,” Ares said. “Too much blood has been spilled there to ignore it.”

Kataida went quiet as she buttoned up her uniform, and Ares sat on the open windowsill of the bathroom, watching soldiers leave their houses and barracks and file through the streets. “Someone’s coming the wrong way,” Ares said, and Kataida approached the window. “Look. It’s Menelaus, the one who calls your father an old friend.”

“He must have news.” Kataida smoothed down her hair. “Menelaus is most likely the one Theron and I will be taking orders from—he took over my officer training when I was young. Try not to alarm him.”

“I‘ll stay in your shadow,” Ares said. Kataida made a face as though she wanted to say something else, but nodded and started off down the stairs. She was just lacing up her boots when a knock sounded on the door, and Ares was privately impressed by how polished she looked when she opened it, as though she hadn’t been lying in bed in a lovely mess half an hour before.

“Menelaus,” she said, saluting to the older man standing in the doorway. He, too, was impeccably dressed, and he barely looked at Ares as he inclined his head in Kataida’s direction. “Do we have orders?”

“You do,” Menelaus said. “A runner informed your brother, but I wanted to speak to you personally.” He paused, a furrow forming in his brow, and a look of mild concern passed over Kataida’s features. Ares had the sudden urge to smooth it away, but they kept their hands behind their back, watching as Menelaus shifted in place and coughed into his fist.

“Did something happen in the night?” Kataida asked.

Menelaus sighed. “Your orders were dictated by the Strategos himself,” he said, in an oddly formal tone. “When the Strategos and his soldiers depart for the Needle in two weeks, you and Theron will remain in Axon.”

Kataida stared at him, unable to believe what she was hearing. “What?”

Menelaus’ expression was carefully shuttered. “I know you want to be in the field, but you and Theron are needed here.”

She was digging her nails into her palm so hard that even though she kept them clipped short by habit, she could still feel a sting of pain as they bit into her skin. “Sir. With all due respect, that’s– I’m an officer. I belong with the troops. This ismycountry, my father’s rule that is being contested.They referred to me by namein their declaration of war--”

“And we don’t give the enemy what they want,” Menelaus said calmly. He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to argue. “I know you’re upset, soldier, but your job is to follow your commander’s orders.”

“You agree with this?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Myjob is to protect Arktos.Why are you keeping me from doing what you’ve spent so long training me for?”

She could feel Ares behind her, a warm presence like a campfire at her back, and for half a second she almost considered slamming the door in Menelaus’ face, grabbing the war god, and heading toward the Needle without permission. But that would make her no better than the traitors, would it? They, too, thought they knew what was best for Arktos.

Menelaus kept his gaze on hers, but every now and then, it flickered toward where Ares stood silent in the shadows behind her. She wondered if he could see them, or sense that they were there. Then again, everyone in Arktos knew War had come to them. “Try to understand, Soldier Akti. Your father is the Strategos. He will ride at the front of his army as he’s meant to do, but if youandyour brother were there? This leaves the Strategos’ wife and his husband alone in Axon--and his wife is pregnant, too. What happens to them if the line falls?”

Kataida raised her eyebrows. “Has anyone asked Elena what she thinks about this, being treated like she’s not a warrior herself?” She doubted that being pregnant would ever stop Elena Akti from cleanly and efficiently taking out a threat to her family. “Leaving me here to protect her doesn’t make sense.” Maybe Theron, who wasn’t an officer, but her?

“Try to understand your father’s feelings on this matter,” Menelaus said. “He’s lost his brother, his country is under siege, and the most gifted future soldiers in his army were slaughtered in a school that was supposed to be safe. His son is merely a toddler, and his wife is pregnant. Aleks Akti has confined himself to their home since the day we declared war.”

Kataida’s mind was racing. She knew Aleks was a ferryman and Aziah’s successor, and she assumed he was attempting to reconcile his duties to the realm of the dead with his place as Evander and Elena’s husband. “Aleks has no place in battle until it’s over, you know that. He’s not the only ferryman in Arktos.”

Menelaus waved a hand. “Still, you understandwhyit’s so important that you and Theron survive? You are the children of our Strategos.”

The children who will never be Strategos, and everyone knows.“We are my father’s children, yes, just like every soldier is someone’s child, someone’s lover, friend, brother, sister, spouse. Markos was someone’s son, someone’s friend, and sowas every soldier in that training facility. We are Arkoudai first, sir. Why is that different for me?”

“Because you’re Evander’s daughter.” Menelaus put a hand on her shoulder, and she immediately stepped away, not wanting to be touched. Menelaus winced and dropped his hand, and Kataida felt a warm breeze at her back, like a rush of hot air in an Arkoudai summer.

It settled her, oddly enough. “Thank you. I will speak to my father. He must know this isn’t right. My place is with my people, and my people are at war.”

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