Page 31 of Flamesworn

Despite the long centuries they’d spent asleep in Atreus’ tomb, Ares found themself slipping into quiet dreams as they lay beneath Kataida. Sleep didn’t feel so oppressive, perhaps because Ares knew it wouldn’t last, and when they stepped onto the red sand of their familiar dreamscape, they almost smiled at the endless stretch of desert.

“Ares?”

They turned. Something was moving under the sand a few feet away. The sand bulged and rippled, and a thin, pale hand emerged, then another, clawing out of the dune. Horns appearednext, dotted with stars, and Astra, the god of dreams, dragged himself up out of the sand and staggered to his feet.

“It’s you!” He was grinning, his long black hair speckled with sand. “You’re awake!”

“Not technically,” Ares said, and huffed as Astra slammed into them, wrapping them in a tight embrace.

Astra was the first dream god who had really bothered with Ares. Most found them too intense, or didn’t much care for dreams of war and bloodshed, but Astra had come to his godhood around the time Ares slept in Atreus’ tomb, and was fascinated by them. He’d appeared in Ares’ dreams many times over the centuries, chattering away while Ares lay on their side and tried to let the unending dreams fade into a comforting haze. Now, Astra was full grown and glowing with power, and he squeezed Ares tight, face pressed to their shoulder.

“You’re still more awake than you were before,” Astra said. “You know that, right? Even in your dreams, you were sleeping. But now, look at you! Oh, you’re naked. Here, let me.” Astra whipped a robe out of nowhere and handed it to Ares. It rippled like silk, and there were impressions of fire dragons across the black fabric. Ares wryly put it on while Astra shook sand out of his hair.

“I hear you have a companion,” Ares said. “Azaiah told me.”

“Oh, you saw Azaiah already?” Astra’s face fell slightly. Had he wanted to speak to Ares first? “Yes, I do. His name’s Cillian. He’s the god of art, can you believe that?”

Ares looked over Astra’s shoulder. One of the dunes was changing shape, taking the form of a man’s face framed by sculpted roses. Astra turned to look, coughed awkwardly, and swept a hand over the dune to clear it out again.

“You love him?” Ares asked.

“Well.” Astra blushed red. “Maybe. Yes. I mean, we made our bond, and he’s, you know. He’s very…” The dunes startedbursting into flower again. “He understands me. I understand him.”

Ares thought of Kataida, asleep in bed. “Is that all it takes, do you think? Understanding?”

“Well, we complement each other. And we can talk for ages and never get bored, and he’s so…” Astra went pink again. “But I don’t want to talk about it if it…um, if it upsets you.”

“Why would it upset me?” Ares looked around them, eyeing the endless dunes. “Oh. Atreus.”

“You never liked to talk about him,” Astra said. “Which I get, really. I can go, if you need space.”

Ares remembered the times they would push Astra off the edge of the tomb where they slept, or refuse to answer his questions, leaving Astra to sit quietly at the border of their dream and say, in a sad, small voice,“I thought you might want someone to talk to.”

Astra was older now, but they’d come into their godhood as a child, and Ares remembered the strange pang of grief in their heart as they’d held Markos’ body and had seen something of that small, earnest boy in Astra’s eyes.

“I have a few hours before dawn,” they said, “if you want to talk.”

“You don’t mind?” Astra’s grin broadened.

Ares thought of Kataida asleep in bed, and the way she’d settled them, giving them balance not out of duty or obligation but because she knew it mattered. Maybe care wasn’t love, but it was something.

Ares reached out and took Astra’s hand, the way they should have when Astra was just a boy sitting at their side so long ago. “Tell me what I missed.”

They woke just before dawn with their head swimming with wild, rambling stories and shifting, colorful dream worlds. They half expected to find unicorns in the hallway as Kataida rolledout of bed, and it took a while to get used to walking on solid ground instead of sliding over clouds in Astra’s dreams.

But when they saw Kataida’s lithe, lovely body illuminated in the light of her oil lamp, they didn’t feel quite as grounded. Guilt twisted in the hot core of their body, and they sat up, letting an Arkoudai uniform slide over their naked limbs.

“I stood between you and your brother yesterday,” Ares said. Kataida turned to them, frowning slightly.

“Theron was just—” Pain flickered behind her dark eyes, and she turned aside. “He was fond of Markos. Markos and his siblings were from Mislia, and they took oaths to become Arkoudai a few years ago. Of course he’d be upset. We all are.”

“But it still wounded you,” Ares said. “You aren’t made of stone. Even the gods aren’t.”

Kataida ran a hand through her short, black hair. “Sometimes I think I might be.”

“You burned strongly enough last night,” Ares said, and Kataida’s mouth twitched. “I just wanted to say that I should have…” Ares gestured broadly with their hands.

“Is the god of war trying to apologize?” Kataida asked, and some of the gloom left her expression, her cheeks lifting.

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