Page 24 of Flamesworn

“That isn’t why you go to war, little soldier,” Ares taunted, but they were smiling, and she had a feeling there was no malevolence, only the lure of violence drawing them. “I was there when this empire slaughtered the people in the hills for disobeying their tariffs, when they fought with sticks and axes and sent great rocks tumbling down the mountains to crush the Iperian army. I stood atop a hill and watched their palace drown beside my brothers.”

Theron tried again to leap at Ares with his sword. He was clearly too affected by the exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours, but then again, his aim might have been truer than she thought and it was Ares somehow subtly evading the blade.

“He didn’t even love you,” Theron laughed, sheathing his sword, finding taunts were easier to wield. “You know that, don’t you? Heusedyou. And then when he didn’t need you anymore, he made sure you slept long enough that his people would prosper without you there.”

"Theron,” Kataida snapped, dread building like a storm. Ares’ indulgent smile had faded and Theron’s face was red with anger, and she had to step between them, fingers brushing her own sword in warning. “This isn’t helping.”

Theron looked at her, shaking his head. “I don’t know why I’m bothering. They won’t listen to me. Apparently they’ll listen toyou, so if you want to do something useful, maybe you could tell them to go the fuck back to sleep, yeah? Find that tomb and wall themselves up in it, for good this time, somewhere they’ll never wake up. If nothing else, at least let them read the godamn letters.” He turned and stomped off down the hall, and eventually, she heard a door slam somewhere.

Kataida’s head ached. She needed water, something to eat, a whetstone for her blade, gunpowder for her sidearm and a plan. She wanted orders, a map, something todo.And she wanted to banish the sick, disgusting little flare of excitement that she couldn’t quell, the one that saidyou wanted combat, you wanted violence, now you have it. War woke up for you, and like a cat with a dead mouse, brought the only gift they know how to give.

She turned, but Ares was no longer there in the hallway with her. She didn’t think Theron would seek them out, and she doubted Ares would care about one soldier’s opinion of them, so she scrubbed her hands over her face and headed the same way Theron had gone, quickening her pace so she wasn’t holding anyone up. Her mind felt stuffed with cotton and soaked in Athenero, but it would have to clear eventually. If she craved war, if she craved violence, it only meant that she was the onewho could get revenge for Markos, for the others who had died huddled together in terror.

She could hear Theron talking in the meeting room, but her gaze was caught by Stavros, who was alone in the hallway. He stood with a hand on the wall, leaning forward to press his forehead into his arm.

“Taxiarchos Stavros?”

He glanced over at her, his usually light brown skin waxy and his eyes as red as Theron’s had been, though substantially less dry. “Soldier Akti. My apologies. The…situation at the training center has shaken me.”

Kataida had known him her whole life, and if he’d ever exaggerated or embellished something once, she’d never heard it. “Of course. I feel the same.” She wondered if he believed her. People thought her cold, she knew that, and had long ago given up trying to correct anyone.

“I designed it,” he said, staring somewhere over her shoulder, so intensely that she wondered if Ares had returned and was behind her after all. “The training center. It was–It was supposed to be safe. It was supposed to have officers, procedures, failsafes. They were our best and brightest, Kataida. I went through training with my unit, with your uncle and Menelaus. We were friends, came up the ranks together. I wanted to do that for other people, give them that place to find lifelong friends, comrades. You would have gone there.Malikwas going to go there,” he added. “This failure of mine–”

“It wasn’t your failure.” She didn’t try and touch him like she had with Theron, but her voice was quiet, gentle, as much as it could be. “Who would have ever thought separatists would kill teenagers at a school?”

“I should have. I didn’t, and that failure will stay with me forever.” He raked a hand through his hair, more disheveled than she’d ever seen him. He glanced at her briefly, beforeturning back to the hallway. “Are they with you, the Gracious One? I saw them today, behind Strategos Akti. If they will take my vow, I will pledge my sword to them.”

“You are already pledged, Taxiarchos Stavros,” she said, “to Arktos.”

“Yes.” He didn’t smile, but he turned his gaze back to her, the fog of exhaustion and grief fading a bit. He put his hands on her shoulders, which was strange, and said in a voice bleeding with dominance, “If the Gracious One has chosen you, let them. We need every advantage we have. Arkoudai don’t slaughter children and go to war over who their Strategos chooses to marry. I hope you are ready to put your training to the test, soldier, because we will need it.”

“Of course I am.” She wished she was better at this, could say something to chase away the guilt he felt despite knowing very well that there were no precautions in the world that would stop people from doing despicable things if they felt they had some right to do them. She could hear her father calling for Stavros in the meeting room, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Menelaus hurrying down the hallway. She wasn’t the last one, then. That was good.

Kataida followed Menelaus and Stavros into the room, closing the door behind her as she went to take a seat at the table that had become a war council. Everyone’s eyes were red but hers.

Maybe I can’t cry for you,she thought,but I can kill for you. I hope that will be enough. Your bravery doesn’t deserve tears.

It deserves vengeance.

Let the others cry for you and rend their hair, like the mourners Nyx told us about at the old tombs.

I’ll be the sword my father cannot be. This is my legacy. I won’t spare them.

Not even one.

PART TWO

Queen of Swords

Chapter

Seven

Declarations of warhad once been a glorious thing.

In ancient Staria, when war came swift and bloody before the harvest and returned after the first spring thaw, Ares had spent weeks in delicious ecstasy, drinking in the first draught of outrage, fear, and rising nationalism. They had danced in the streets of the old empire and lay on the grassy hillsides of Mislia as mages painted the wildflowers with blood. They had laid under Atreus in his tent as he planned his next move against the Starian warrior-kings who crossed the mountains in the west and the pirates who threatened the port in the south.

How beautiful Atreus had been, with his brow furrowed just so as he drove into Ares, making them weep and tremble with desire.

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