PART ONE
Page of Swords
Prologue
The Beastof Arktos came to the northern watchtowers in the night.
He seemed to emerge from the sand fully-formed, a massive, broad-shouldered man with heavy iron pauldrons and a mask over his face in the shape of a snarling mountain lion. His chest was scarred and branded with a circle of rough marks, and he carried two curved swords that gleamed with the light of the fire burning.
Castor Kintos, a new recruit who’d only been elevated to a proper soldier three weeks before, staggered out of bed just as the watchtower began to burn. People were shouting, alarm bells ringing in the hot night air, and smoke rolled over the sand and curled around the figure of the Beast as he cut down Castor’s company sergeant in one stroke.
There were others with him, people in red cloaks and an insignia of a mountain lion over their white tunics, but Castor couldn’t look away from the Beast. He was the biggest man he’d ever seen, but he moved with a swiftness that reminded Castor of a fire dragon darting toward a flame. He fought economically, brutally, spinning on a heel and beheading a man with bothblades in a move Castor could barely follow, and then he was there in the shadow of the watchtower, descending on Castor.
Castor dropped to his knees. Fire licked up the side of the watchtower, and the Beast looked down at him through the snarling iron maw of his mask, his eyes dark and dead.
“Please,” Castor said.
The Beast raised his sword. The lion’s head mask tilted slightly, and the Beast kicked Castor to his back. He lay a heavy boot on Castor’s chest. Blood fell from the edge of his blades onto the sand, which swallowed it.
“Go.” His voice was a hoarse rasp, hardly human, and it took Castor a second to understand that he’d spoken at all. “Tell your Strategos that war has come to Arktos.”
Then, as the roof of the watchtower collapsed in a spray of fire, the Beast turned and walked away, leaving him there on his back in the sand.
Castor fled, the screams of his fellow soldiers following him as he ran toward the distant city of Axon, the heat of the dying watchtower at his back.
Chapter
One
It ended as easilyas it had begun, in her favorite tea shop just north of the square.
“It isn’t that I don’t like you,” Kataida said, fingers curled around her earthenware mug of tea. She drank it with a spoonful of agave, which Theron always joked was the sweetest thing about her. He wasn’t wrong—and likely now, Atlas would agree with him.
Atlas, who was a few years older than her, and one of her father’s trusted lieutenants. Atlas, with whom she’d had something resembling a functional relationship for the last three months, hopeful that finally,finallyshe might have one normal thing in her life. Then the dreams had started up again, worse than they’d been since she was a child, and she kept waking up with her heart racing, smelling smoke, the phantom fires leaving the faintest taste of cinder in her mouth.
The dreams were unpleasant, but of course Atlas was far too much an Arkoudai to admit he found it terrifying to be woken from a dead sleep by his partner shouting orders toget up and move, soldier! He claimed he didn’t mind how much more shewanted to hurt him in bed, how her sadism had eclipsed even her dominance so that she was afraid she’d do something…rash.
Sheminded both of those things, very much. Kataida hated being out of control, and she especially hated it with regards to her sadism. She’d long ago suffered through her mothers’ and father’s lectures about howit’s perfectly naturalandyou don’t need to be ashamed, sweetieandas long as it’s consensual, nothing you do with people is wrong, but what they’d never once talked about was the part where she didn’t know how to control herself when it was such a feverish, all-consuminglust.
She’d been sixteen by the time she realized they’d never mentioned it because they didn’t feel that way. They had natural alignments, but if any of the three of them were sadists or masochists, Kataida didn’t know, and only cared if it meant that someone could tell her why sometimes, it felt like more of a slow simmer, and sometimes it felt like she was burning alive. When she was old enough to ask her peers, awkward and unsure how to phrase it, it only led them to think she was even stranger than they already did. Atlas was a masochist, but the level of pain he liked never fluctuated like her desire tocauseit. When the urges were that strong, she couldn’t be with him. He’d go under and be unable to give consent to having those limits pushed, and that was a serious violation of rulesandpersonal safety.
So Kataida contented herself with her increasingly feverish daydreams and her own hand, despite having a masochist who would happily let her cane him until he sobbed. It just wouldn’t be enough, and she’d be frustrated and restless and he’d resent her. That was how it had worked every other time, and she honestly liked Atlas enough that she didn’t want it to play out that way.
“Is this about your insomnia?” Atlas asked. He looked a little hurt, but mostly concerned, which of course, made her feel awful. “I know you think it bothers me, but I promise it’s fine.”
It bothersme, and trust me, it’s not fine at all.She gave a slight shake of her head. “Not just that. I told you when we started this that I’m…not good at it.”
Atlas smiled a little sadly. “You’re better than you think you are. This is the nicest breakup I’ve ever had.”
Given that she’d sat him down and asked if he was interested in her in the same teahouse just three months ago, he shouldn’t be surprised. “I’m sorry. I wanted to be different. You’re a good man, a good soldier.”
“Thanks,” Atlas said, lifting his teacup. “But you don’t have to review this like I’m in your regiment and you’re evaluating me for a rank promotion.”
“You outrank me,” Kataida reminded him.
Atlas groaned. “Yes, I know. I just meant…never mind.”
“This is what I meant,” Kataida said, sipping her tea. “This is the part I’m bad at. Feelings, and…sharing them.”
