Page 64 of Flamesworn

Ares thought of the creature they’d been when they first emerged in the world—new, fragile as glass, a being of violence and fear. What would they have been if Azaiah had been the Death that took their hand? If Kataida had been one of the soldiers in those distant woods?

“I can do anything,” Ares said, slowly. “I don’t have to be one thing always, but whatever I am, I’ll still be yours.”

“And I’m yours.” Kataida squeezed their hand. “Then let’s do it. I don’t need to ask permission anymore, and neither do you.”

Ares grinned.

Perhaps their new form wouldn’t last. Perhaps, by the time they’d rooted out the people who abducted Damian Akti and the rumblings of war had died down, they would be something else entirely. There was no telling what any of them would become—gods, mortals, all the spirits in between.

Regardless what they became, they would always love Kataida just as fiercely. Ares walked with Kataida through the quiet streets, content with the warmth of her hand in theirs, and let their wings spread over the sands of Arktos.

The End

Epilogue

Fall came gradually to Kallistos,a slow progression of autumnal color splashing over leaves and turning lush, green tree leaves burnished gold, deep red and an orange so vibrant that it looked as if it were painted on. Perhaps the trees around Astra and Cillian’s manor were abitmore vibrant in autumn than the others, but the god of art could be excused a few little flourishes here and there, couldn’t he?

Unlike fall, though, winter always seemed to take over suddenly and without warning--one minute you had the trees forming a glorious canopy over the hills, and the next, those leaves had blown onto the ground and formed an elaborate carpet of fall splendor so charming you were disinclined to notice the barren branches stretching up to the sky, bereft of the leaves now littering the ground. And then those leaves were swept away by the wind or industrious homeowners, and all you had were bare limbs and barren earth, waiting for the snow to lend it some kind of beauty again.

Azaiah liked the winter. Perhaps it was because he’d been born to his short mortal life during that season, or maybe it was because his long-ago home had been nestled in the wintery hillsof what was now d’Hiver, or maybe it was that winter was a time of rest, the earth sleeping under the cold and snow to let life flourish once again. Hewasthe God of Death, but just as Death wasn’t the end so much as a transition to a new beginning, so too did winter always give way to spring.

“You look like you’re trying to write a poem about a tree,” said Arwyn from where he was sprawled out behind him on a lounge chair as if it were high summer in Diabolos instead of winter in Kallistos. “Honestly, leave the poetry to Cillian.”

“No,” Astra called, from the tree where he was perched with Sophie, Levi and Iason’s adopted daughter. “He’s terrible, it’s a wholething.”

Azaiah, who had not been writing a poem to a barren winter tree as much as he’d been simply appreciating it, turned to smile at Arwyn. “I wasn’t going to write a poem to it. I was just looking.”

“Trees, the true mystery, right from the mouth of Death himself,” Arwyn drawled. He was in his mortal form as Desire, wearing six different patterns in three different types of material, with a fur blanket on his lap that was dyed an improbable shade of bright pink. Declan was dressed in far more sensible winter clothing, though the fur on the cuffs, wrists and collar suggested the outfit wasnotselected by Dex, who preferred simpler clothes.

“Any sign of our missing sibling and their companion?” This was from Cillian, who’d let Astra’s comment about his poetry skills go without protest, a minor miracle. “We should wait to start the game.”

“I hate playing games with Ares,” Levi said, where he was sitting cross-legged on the ground, a water dragon in a bucket at his side. Every now and then, his companion Iason would come over and murmur to the bucket to keep the water at the righttemperature for the little creature. “Last time, they flipped the table when we rolled the dice for who would gofirst.”

A pause, and then Levi started to say, “Which we wouldn’t have needed to do, if–”

“We went in order,” Azaiah, Cillian, and even Astra from his tree perch finished along with Levi.

Levi, deeply unimpressed, turned his face up to the sun. “I’ll just go swim in the lake again.”

“Nooooo,” Astra bemoaned, appearing next to Azaiah and Cillian. “You got stuck in the mud the last time. Iason had to get you out of there, remember? And you ate that wooden chest of treasure!”

“I’m still mad about that,” Arwyn said, from his chair. “There might have been gems, silks!”

“You don’t need any more patterns with that outfit, Shadow.”

“Declan, really, you’re insulting Cillian. Do you think I could look unfashionable in the home of Art?”

“I didn’t make that outfit,” Cillian said, hands raised defensively. He grinned. “But it looks like how my poems sound.” He laughed as Arwyn grabbed a handful of snow and lobbed it at him, almost striking him in the face. Arwyn had an eerily good aim, but Iason came along and snapped his fingers, and the snowball melted before it struck him.

“Thanks,” Cillian said.

“Don’t mention it.” Iason gave his little grimace, the one that meant he was smiling.

“Buzzkill,” Arwyn sighed, but he didn’t sound too angry about it.

There was a rustle and a thump, and Sophie hopped out of her tree and came over to Azaiah. She smiled up at him, and he smiled back before they turned their gaze back to the path that led down the mountain.

“They should be here soon,” he told Sophie, and wisely made no comment when she blushed hot under her winter cap, a ridiculous contraption of fur and oiled leather that even a Lukoi might find a bit too warm in the winter onLukos. Azaiah knew she had a bit of a crush on Kataida, Ares’ companion, despite being in her first relationship with two friends of hers back home in Mislia, but while some of his other siblings might have teased her good-naturedly about it, Azaiah did not.

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