“My poor brother. Of all those I’ve known who’ve worn the cloak and carried the scythe, your heart is the purest. But, ah, Azaiah. That only means it is easier to corrupt. You knew no malice in your mortal life. You came willingly to the knife that made you my brother, made you walk with us.” Ares’s hand drifted down, steaming against Azaiah’s skin, tracing the scar on Azaiah’s neck from the sacrificial knife. “But if it was so easy to leave everything behind, I think perhaps you did not know love, or loss, and that is dangerous. Compassion, you have in spades. Empathy… that is something else. You cannot share the grief of the grieving if you’ve never known loss.”
“I—think I did,” Azaiah said softly, as the rain picked up. He could feel something inside him, something cold and roiling and restless—the thunderheads, the storm, the deluge. “I don’t know. I can’t remember—”
“Yes. This is the problem, when humans give lives to the gods. They think they know what kind of lives we want. They thought you were perfect for the knife, because you were beautiful, willing, a submissive who went breathless at the thought of dying for the good of your people. A flower, beautiful and in full bloom. Tell me, Brother, if you were sent to select one to carry the burden of your power, which would you choose? A flower untouched by rain or cold, perfect and grown simply for its beauty? Or the wildflower, the weed, which thrives in places it should not and pushes, determined, to the surface to bask for a brief time in the sun, even if it is not beautiful or if no one notices it is there at all?”
“That one,” Azaiah said. “I was no wildflower, was I?”
“No, Brother. No wildflower at all.” Ares smiled at him. “You are beautiful. We saw that. We see it still. But I am War, you realize. I seek out the darkness, fan the flames of discord. And in you, I sense the potential for the flood. The one that drowns the world. You must understand that, as much as I do not want it, if it is how my flame extinguishes, I would not hate you.”
Azaiah trembled in his sibling’s hold. “I don’t— That isn’t what I want. I want to be kind. I don’t want to be Death without humanity, without compassion to guide my hand.”
“Death is what it is, Brother. It is nothing. You give it flavor, color. The one you choose to follow after you will do the same. I think you will make the right choice, when it is time.”
“But now?” Azaiah whispered. He was barely able to say it. “It’s raining, Ares.”
“Yes. That could be me. I bring it out of you, you realize. Just as I made Desire into Avarice, as I make dreams into nightmares, chaos into carnage. I love the storm in you, Brother. I could not do anything but love it. So this rain could be me, but it would not rise so easily if you were not on the way to corruption.”
Terror filled him, and in some way, that told Azaiah all wasn’t lost. If he could feel fearat the idea of losing himself in the storm of his true nature, he could fight it—couldn’t he? “I won’t take Nyx until he is ready. I can’t. He must offer it freely, and now… even if he said yes,he would resent me.”
“And then you have Pallas, and her would-be companion caught for however long in stone.” Ares stroked his face, gently, and the rain began to ease. “You have time, Brother. But if you choose to wait for him, find some other way to tether yourself to humanity. I wish I could say to follow me, but I think that is not advisable. There is a reason we cannot walk together. It would be not the flood but the fire, and when nothing is left but Death and War, there will be no life to reclaim what we destroyed.”
Ares pressed a kiss first to Azaiah’s forehead and then his mouth. When they pulled back, Azaiah tasted ashes and let the warmth, the familiar embrace of his sibling, ease his mind. “I’m afraid. I do not shy from my task, but I do not want to end the world. I wish to see it, still. With Nyx.” The person who knew Azaiah as both Death and a man—not the one he’d been in the nameless village that lay forgotten beneath a dozen others, but the one he’d become over the course of his long, strange existence wearing the cloak.
“There are people who gather for us, you know. Acolytes who beat their drums for me, not in praise, but to summon. Who revere me beyond the usual soldiers’ talk. Those who sacrifice doves in caves and paint themselves with the poor creatures’ blood, make crowns from the bones of the fallen and sing sacred chants to entice me. Sometimes I answer, sometimes I don’t. To be worshipped is… dangerous, for me. Like the Lord of Storms, the Harbinger can end all life. But then I would be alone, angry at being the only source of strife in a barren world.”
“I would not want that for you,” Azaiah said. “I would never leave you alone like that.”
“No. But you would not love me anymore.” Ares smiled sadly. “I think it may have happened before. For you, too, worship can be dangerous. Perhaps less so, if you use it only for a time. If you remember that they want to use you for their own ends, wield the scythe through you. It is a connection to the humanity you need to thrive. If the choice is that or to let the storm guide you, instead of you guiding the storm…”
“I don’t even know where to find such a thing,” Azaiah admitted. While he knew there were acolytes and cults for his siblings, he hadn’t known there were ones for Death—because who was in a hurry to see him?
“Listen on the winds, and you’ll hear them call,” Ares said. They got to their feet and held out a hand for Azaiah. “I have something to ask you now, Brother.”
“Of course.” Azaiah let Ares pull him to his feet, then stood close to his sibling. Ares was warm as a fire, without the smoke, and being in Ares’s orbit—jagged and restless though it was—didmake Azaiah feel better. Azaiah loved them, as he loved all those who drew breath and walked this world with him.
If it were enough to remember that—
The thunder again, and light rain fell over them both, steaming on Ares so they looked as if they were made of fire and smoke.
Maybe not.
“Walk with me a moment.” Ares moved smoothly through the camp and stopped by the woman who loved Nyx, who was trying unsuccessfully to brush the hair of the girl named Kelta. She fussed, and Nadia sighed, but neither of them saw Azaiah or Ares.
The little boy, though. Ares pulled Azaiah to a halt and nodded at him. He was standing next to a tent, staring up at the sky. “What do you see, Azaiah?”
“Nyx’s nephew,” Azaiah said.
Ares nodded. “Yes.” They looked pensive. “What do yousee?”
Azaiah glanced at Ares, then looked at Andor. “The flame of his soul is weak, and it grows fainter.” His heart ached. Poor Nyx. “Why do you ask?”
“I see the echo of my mark on him. I see the flame of war in his soul… but it is fainter, I think, than his life-spirit. You say his life will not be long. I wonder if you know when he will return.” There was such eagerness in the question. Ares, who could sow strife simply by walking past two people at a picnic, must be lonely.
“You want a companion,” Azaiah said.
“I want to see what someone who is born to be mine is like. These soldiers who chant for me, call to me… they don’t understand me. Not really. They let themselves burn into ash for me. I want someone who resists the flame. Who stands beside it, warms themself in it, and doesn’t burn.”
“And you think this boy is that person?” Azaiah squinted, but he could not see anything in the dim light of Andor’s soul that said he would walk beside Ares one day. Though if he looked past, into the darkness that lurked behind the soft candle glow of Andor’s soul… he did see something. “I see a shield. It’s as big as Andor—he could not lift it now. I see a symbol that does not exist. I see bears, restless in a green forest. I see a sword, simple and unadorned, needing a sheath. I see red glass in a desert. But for this one, this small soul, I see a light that will soon be out, and tears enough to flood the world when it happens.”
