Page 27 of Flamesworn

Kataida ran her fingertips over the warm spot that her hand had made on Ares’ cheek. Ares shivered. “I think you need to be settled. I can try. It might help.”

“Don’t—” Ares thought of the sickening realization that Atreus had lain with them out of obligation, bearing it as a burden rather than a blessing. “I don’t want you to force yourself.”

“I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t want to. I do.” Kataida sighed. “I might want it too much. That’s what scares me.”

“Your brother was right, and I should go back into the dark—” Kataida struck them again, harder this time, and Ares gripped her arm to keep from falling over. It felt as though they were holding her for more than balance. She was a ballast in the storm as old wounds reopened. “Atreus never wanted me, and I thought that was—I thought that was love.”

“I know. But I think he started to understand you, in the end.”

“But not love me,” Ares said, misery sinking into their bones even as they took the form of a smaller person, the way they appeared in the towns of Kallistos. Feathers prickled at their neck as their Gerakian form took shape, then faded. “I don’t think anyone can.”

“I don’t think you know enough about love to say that,” Kataida said. “But I think you’re hurting right now. I’d like to settle you, if you’ll let me.”

For all that Kataida didn’t have the language Atreus had used to express devotion to his true lover, that was nevertheless the kindest thing a mortal had ever said to Ares. She didn’t want them to hurt.

And to think that Ares had mistaken less than that for love.

Perhaps this wasn’t the right time, but Kataida didn’t know what else to do.

She’d read Atreus’ letters when she was young, and she’d always felt bad for Ares, clearly in love with Atreus, who was only doing what he thought best to secure a permanent home for the Arkoudai. With the Great Port no longer operational, the threat came not from sea, but land. Controlling the vast, empty desert would allow the Arkoudai to keep Starian warlords from crossing the narrow Evrys Bay and sacking Collis, the capital.

It wasn’t hate that had sent the Arkoudai to the desert, but love and a fierce desire to protect their home and the citizens left behind.

No doubt her father wanted her to appreciate the historical knowledge, which was something of a secret when it came to the insular Arkoudai and the worldly, cosmopolitan Katoikos, and she had, of course. The common thought was that the Arkoudai had left because the wealthy, mostly submissive Katoikos patricians had tried to control their dominant army and treat them like brutes without any sense. Atreus’ letters told a much different story—love, and loss, and the aching necessity of distance between two lovers who were both married to other people.

But what had fascinated Kataida when she’d read the letters was less the history of her people, and more the story of Atreuswith the being he didn’t believe was a god until much later in the country’s foundational history. Ares was distraught and she knew why—she’d read those early letters and ached for them, and it was a part of why, when it came time to make her vows, she’d made hers to the Gracious One. She’d always felt for them, sympathy as well as their shared draw to violence, even if a part of her had thought it was all a metaphor until she met a god in person.

The way Ares flickered between forms here in her home, it made her think of those letters and the way she’d felt when she read them. Atreus hadn’t been a bad man, not really. He’d done what was best, and he hadn‘t believed that gods were real, and eventually, there had been some respect and admiration for the god of war. But Ares had been so despondent at Atreus’s death, they had gone tosleep for centuries. What did that do to a being who embodied strife, to know that the great love that had sent them to sleep for a century had never been real?

Ares had returned, and war had come to Arktos. Theron thought it was Ares’ fault, but Kataida didn’t think so. She couldn’t stop thinking of Stavros hunched over, trying to control his tears while he spoke of the training center he’d developed so carefully for optimal training and safety, Ares with Markos in their arms, the look on their face as they’d asked her to help them. Pure, chaotic strife and aggression didn’t target something so specific. The way Ares kept flickering from one form to another told her that they were changing, becausewar itselfwas changing, and if humans shaped this war and their first act was to slaughter teenagers in a school?

She had to do something, and since she didn’t yet have any orders, this would have to do.

Kataida reached out and grabbed Ares’ by the hair. “I think you’ve convinced yourself that you want to be used, want to be a weapon. But your brother, Azaiah, he’s not the scythe at hisback. He wields it. You had a sword, and then you became one. Do you see the difference?”

Ares blinked their firelit eyes at her, their flickering beginning to ease. They didn’t seem to know what to say. “War only exists because of humans, Kataida. You’ve always chosen my form.”

“Then the problem is that you’re stagnant, but humanity isn’t.” She pulled their hair again, and Ares made a noise that sounded halfway between pained and ecstatic. “And that’s why you don’t know who to be.”

“I want to be yours,” Ares whispered, head tilted back, showing their throat.

“You want tobe,” she corrected, gently, even as she pulled hard enough at Ares’ hair to get them to their knees. “But you need to be your own. You’re war incarnate. Maybe we created you, but you aren’t bound to our whims.”

“But I am, beautiful,” Ares said from where they’d dropped to their knees. “Like a blade is bound to a hilt.”

“No.” She smacked them, and their moan made her body flush hot, her dominance already roused and heading toward a fever pitch. “You’re not athing. I don’t care who made you. I have parents, too. They gave me shape like humanity gave it to you, but just as I’m not Atreus despite having his soul, you’re not only a sword bound to a hilt.”

“Soldiers follow a commander, as you know.”

“Yes, it’s a choice. Swords justare.” She stepped away, and the sound of loss and desperation that Ares made had her inhaling sharply and fighting the urge to just topple them to their back and climb on them. “We’re going to talk about this, but I need to settle you before you vanish again and show back up with a body in your arms.”

“I didn’t like that.” Ares frowned. “I don’t know why. Soldiers die.” Ares’ form flickered again, ice in their hair, their skin toopale with a blueish tint that made them look like they’d drowned. Then they were a beautiful young woman with hair the color of snow and red eyes, dressed in pure white fur--and then a man who looked very much like Nyx, with half their head shaved and dressed in armor she didn’t recognize, an insignia on their belt that she’d only ever seen in historical documents, a curved bow at their back like Elena favored.

“Stop,” Kataida ordered, not bothering to temper her dominance. It was unsettling to see them cycle through so many forms, knowing it was more from a loss of control than anything else.

Ares, now a woman dressed in the patrician’s robes of a noble senator from Katoikos, shivered, and no matter what form they wore, the glowing eyes still stayed the same.

“Come back to me.” Kataida drew her knife and held it up, showed it to Ares. “Come back to me, bright eyes. Let me settle you.”

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