Page 33 of Aïdes the Unseen
Ares.
Ofcourse.
He never came for peace.
But I only turned to Kore. “Shall I deal with him?”
She arched a brow, the edge of a smirk at her lips. “No,” she said. “I’ll deal with him.” When she climbed the steps back toward the gate, her spine straight, her eyes bright with fire andfrost, I felt it again. She was no longer just the girl who danced in the fields or even the goddess who kissed me in shadow. She was aqueen.
Mine.
She had no fear of War. She ascended ahead of me. Each step she took, the realm shifted. The river slowed. The walls of obsidian turned inward, waiting. Even the ever-burning braziers dimmed, not extinguished, not afraid, but as if squinting to see her better. Not spring. Not maiden.
Kore.
Crowned now by something I had not placed upon her.
A corona of dusk, neither fire nor thorn, but woven from the void between starlight and soil. Shadows curled like smoke above her head, wreathing her temples, not bound butborn. As if the underworld had simply decided:This is who we answer to now.
And I, god of all that ends, lord of silence and decay, stood behind her, speechless.
I would have forged her a crown myself. I would have built it from bone and onyx, poured the night sky into its setting, bent knee before her and offered it without a word. But she had not waited for it.
She had taken the throne of her own will. That, perhaps, was the first moment I understood that she was not mine. She washerself.
And the world would answer to that.
Ares arrived in thunder and scent—iron and sweat and scorched laurel. No subtlety. He burst through the gate with all the grace of a siege weapon.
He was expecting me.
What he wasnotexpecting washer.
Kore turned slowly, not startled. Just... aware. Measured. She was dressed still in my black, but it clung to her like inkto flame. Her hair wild, her eyes molten. The crown above her barely visible—but undeniable. I’d followed merely to enjoy the view and as a reminder should War seek to damage what was mine.
Ares stopped dead. His helmet flickered with the light of the brazier behind him. His mouth parted. He was not used to beauty that refused to burn itself soft for him.
“You,” he said, voice low with confusion and something sharper. “You are not—what I thought you’d be.”
“No,” she agreed. “I’m not.”
He took a step closer, and I stepped forward without thinking, hand on the pommel of a blade I hadn’t summoned in centuries.
But Kore lifted a hand. Not tome.
To him. Not to welcome. Towarn.
Ares paused again. His head tilted, and he smiled, slow and predatory.
“Power looks good on you,” he said. “Are you keeping him company? Or something more?”
I didn’t speak. She didn’t need me to.
“I’m notkept,” she said, voice smooth as oil on steel. “Nor am I yours to measure.”
Ares gave a low laugh, admiring her now, not with leering mockery, but with a warlord’s greed.
“You remind me of someone,” he said, circling slightly, careless of how Kerebos growled low at his flank. “Athena, maybe. But warmer. Wilder.”
