Page 52 of Flamesworn

“Stand down, soldier.” Menelaus made no attempt to whisper or keep his voice down, so the enemy couldn’t be on the other side of the door, could they?

Unless they’re not his enemies,a little voice whispered.Unless they’re only yours.

“Ah,” Menelaus said, nodding. “I think you understand.”

Sweat prickled the back of her neck. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re one of them? Atraitor?” That couldn’t be. Menelaus had been her commanding officer, had taken personal interest in her training since she was barely out of the barracks. He ate dinner at their house. He was friends with her father, she’d called himuncleas a child. He couldn’t be a traitor. But what else could that mean?

“I’m no traitor, Kataida,” Menelaus hissed. “I’m a patriot, and so are you. That’s why I’m going to give you a chance to do the right thing here.”

“The right– You can’t possibly thinkI’ma traitor?” she asked, dumbfounded.

Menelaus waved a hand. “Of course not,” he scoffed. “There is really only one person who’s betrayed Arktos, Kataida, and his name is Evander Akti.”

Kataida went still, her breathing light and fast like she was on the starting line at the spring footraces, waiting for the starting bell. “Excuse me?”

“I brought you here to tell you the truth, Kataida,” Menelaus said. He looked both familiar and completely foreign in the light, and she noticed with a shock that he wasn't wearing his insignia as a high-ranking member of her father’s military council. She had never seen him without it, which must mean he believed this nonsense he was spouting. “Your father was never meant to be Strategos. He wanted to be a scholar, and if he had been, we wouldn’t be in this position now.”

“You’re saying my father is a traitor because he likes old ruins and scholarly articles about empires,” Kataida said, flatly. “Right.”

“Your father is a traitor for sullying the line meant to steward our country,” Menelaus snapped, and there was real anger there, lending a harshness to his voice and making his dark eyes gleam like lit coals. “He has a good, strong Arkoudai soldier bear his children, and does he marry her? No. He lets her marry abardand live next door, waiting for some ghostly, foreign woman he saw in a vision to show up on his doorstep–”

“Which she did,” Kataida said, trying to keep her voice even. She needed to be very careful, here.

“And then he marries her, and haschildrenwith her, and do you know that he’s already mentioned that his whelp with that foreign woman will be Strategos?”

“Don’t talk about my family that way,” she breathed, unable to help herself.

Ares, who was silent as one of the Soldiers standing watch at her back, put their hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t care if Evander Akti and Elena of Lukos have children,” Menelaus said, which seemed to be a lie, but she said nothing and he continued. “I care that he is elevating a non-Arktos to Strategos, when there is someone far more suited for the role under his ownroof.”

She stared at him, obstinately silent when it was clear he was waiting for her to respond.

“And no, I don’t mean your brother, either.”

“I know who you mean.” Kataida faced him, deliberately keeping her posture easy, relaxed–as much as she could, anyway. “I never wanted it.”

“You have the god of war standing at your back, and you’re denying Arktos? You’reAtreus Akti reborn,and you’re denying Arktos? And you don’t think your father is a traitor, for letting you think that’s all right?”

“She’s not Atreus,” Ares said, speaking for the first time. “She’s Kataida.”

“I know who she is,” Menelaus said. “That’s why I’m doing this. Not because I hate your father, or you, or Arktos. I don’t like what your father’s done to Arktos, because I know how much better it would be if he just realized you were meant to lead, not a six-year-old.”

He was four, but Kataida didn’t say that. “What do you want? Just tell me.”

He smiled, voice full of approval that made her sick to her stomach to hear. “You are what every Arkoudai should be, Kataida, strong, loyal, brave. What I want is for you to take your rightful place as Strategos. Arktos needs you. All those years of feeling like you didn’t fit in with your family, remember those?”

Of course.All those yearsmade up the entirety of her life, and that he would use something she’d spoken to him about in confidence now, to try and turn her against herfather–

But she nodded, face blank, and all she said was, “I remember.”

“It wasn’t that you didn’t belong,” Menelaus said, stepping closer, the harsh sunlight making his face look hollow. “It wasthattheydon’t. You’re the only true Akti left, and Arktos will fall to ruin without you to guide her.”

She wanted to laugh, because he was so very wrong about that. He didn’t know her at all, did he, even after all these years? And she would have considered him someone who did, if someone had asked her before this little jaunt. “Arktos is suffering because her people are turning against each other.”

“Because the wrong person is leading us in the wrong direction, and has chosen the wrong person to lead after him,” Menelaus said. “You can’t navigate through a storm with a compass that’s broken.”

So you kill children and lock men up in chains for thirty-one years?

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