Page 55 of Flamesworn

“He’ll want to be present for this,” Menelaus said quickly. “His niece, the next Strategos of Arktos, requests an audience.”

The soldier looked like he wanted to protest, staring at Kataida with clear alarm in his eyes, but he saluted and turned on his heel. He left through a connecting door, and Menelaus paused at the entrance.

“I should speak to him first,” Menelaus said, in a voice that he probably thought was soothing. Ares could feel the excitement in his spirit as he glanced Ares’ way. “He doubted that any of his family would come to our side. It will be best that he hears the news from a familiar face.”

“Of course,” Kataida said. She might as well have been a block of wood. Ares saw her fingers twitch, eager for the hilt of a sword, and they stepped forward, brushing their shoulders together. They could feel her outrage, her disgust, the righteous anger burning through her veins like fire.

Menelaus wasn’t gone long. When he returned, he gestured Kataida through with a slight bow and a trembling smile. The air inside the chamber was cool, and it reeked of sweat and blood. There was only one torch in the wall, but Ares could see the mark of chains in the dust, as though someone had swept the floor with them before dragging them out the door they came through. Soldiers guarded the only entrance, and a man in dark robes stood in the corner, hands obscured. Ares could taste the metal and powder of a gun in the air around him, hidden behind the heavy folds of cloth.

In the middle of the room, standing at attention with his hands fisted tight behind his back, was Damian Akti.

He wore a black shirt over his muscular arms and broad shoulders, but Ares could smell the blood beneath the cloth, and the sting of iron at his wrists. He’d been shackled recently, then—or perhaps beaten with the chains, but Ares wasn’t sure. They didn’t need firelight to see the shadows in Damian’s eyes, or the way he tensed when he saw Kataida step into the room.

“So you’ve come,” he said. His voice was flat, dead as the emptiness that Ares had felt in his heart when he fought. But the betrayal that burned in Kataida’s spirit was mirrored in his own as he looked Kataida in the eyes, and he held himself too still, as though he were trying to make his own body a wall against Kataida’s presence. “And you’ve brought War with you.”

Kataida came closer, and Damian flinched—almost imperceptibly, but just enough for Ares to notice. “Yes. I’ve come.”

“And you’re to lead them.” It wasn’t a question. Damian’s gaze was fixed on the far wall now, his knuckles straining as he clenched his fists tighter still. There were deep scars over his face, along his neck, disappearing under his shirt. Ares could sense the long years of pain like a fire as they approached, and they broke free of Kataida. They’d become so much more aware of mortals since they’d woken, but this felt different. Torture happened in war, but Ares had never felt the effects so strongly on a mortal being before. It wasn’t precisely their domain, since people tortured each other regardless of whether a conflict was happening between their countries or not. What was one person’s suffering when Ares could bask in a shower of arrows somewhere else?

So why, then, could they feel the echoes of what had been done to Damian Akti? Why did Kataida’s outrage burn as strongly as battle-fever? Ares narrowed their eyes, reaching up to touch Damian’s chest, where the worst of the pain radiated like ripples in a pond. Damian took a jerky step back.

“Menelaus,” Kataida said. “My general is out of regulations.”

“His uniform can be fetched,” Menelaus said. “Of course.”

“No, it isn’t that.” Kataida walked slowly around Damian, her brows furrowed. “I see.” Ares stepped aside as Kataida stopped directly in front of Damian. She unsheathed her sword and held it between them, her voice low. “You’ll need your sword, uncle.”

It was like watching a marionette slowly come to life. Damian’s hands fell open, his expression slackened, and when he reached for the hilt of the sword and met Kataida’s gaze, Ares could feel the faintest glimmer of a spark behind his eyes.

“Thank you,” he said, “niece.”

“It’s no trouble,” Kataida said, turning to Ares. “I had a sword to spare.”

Ares smiled.

Damian and Kataida moved at the same time, surging forward in the dim room. When Kataida reached for Ares, they took her hand and turned into a sword, whistling as they sliced through the air.

The man in the corner moved first, fumbling to extract the gun from his robes. Damian’s voice boomed like thunder, dominance bleeding off him in waves that made Ares shiver in Kataida’s hand, and the man with the gun staggered back, blinking fast.

Damian Akti beheaded him.

The soldier’s head hadn’t yet hit the ground when Kat charged for Menelaus, but Menelaus was already retreating through the doorway, shouting down the bridge. Ares sighed as their blade sliced through the flesh of another soldier, and Kataida took their sword as they fell.

“Ares,” she said, and tossed Ares up hilt-first. They spun, landing on the floor in their mortal form. “Help us get out of here.”

Ares could have kissed her, but they gasped as they felt a sword slide through their stomach from behind. They twisted onthe blade, wrenching it free of the alarmed soldier behind them, and turned with a smile that stretched too wide across their face.

“Your people called for me,” they said, pulling the sword from their body. “Here I am.”

They took the soldier’s face in both hands and kissed their forehead. Battle fever swept through them, hot and pulsing like a second heart, and the soldier gasped and shook in Ares’ grip. Their eyes rolled and their hands hooked into claws, and Ares felt their heart burst with the strain, their body twitching and jerking beneath them. They fell limp, and Ares felt a rush of power as Damian cut through the neck of another soldier.

“Back the way you came,” Damian shouted to Kataida as another pair of soldiers stumbled into the room. He backed up, taking a defensive position, as though he were preparing to cover Kataida’s escape.

“I came for you,” Kataida said. and Damian shot her a look before breaking his position and following her out the door. Kataida took down one soldier, and Ares turned the other’s gun into his gut, letting the bullet tear through his intestines.

The bridges beyond them were full of sound, boots, shouts, the ring of steel, and Damian strode at Kataida’s side as they made their way back the way they came. Soldiers burst out of buildings as alarm bells rang in the air. Ares ran a hand over an oncoming soldier’s neck and blood gushed hot over their face as the soldier’s body split like a tree before the ax. Ares’ own body felt strange, their skin too slick and polished, like the red stone pillars that overlooked the city. It reminded them of what they’d been when they first emerged in the world, the glass crackling over their limbs as they took the hand of Death.

Kataida had always wanted them to be what they were—what they truly were, without mortals to influence them, and now, as Ares ran across the bridges with the screams of the dying echoing in their ears, they started to feel themselves take shape.

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