Ares was bright as a flame beside her father, their eyes locked on her.
“Therefore,” Evander finished, “they will no longer recognize my claim to the title of Strategos, and will replace me with someone better suited for the ruler of Arktos. The time has come for a Strategos who wields not a shield, but a sword, and they will not hesitate to put us to it. But my soldiers, this is why we must never forget our history. When Akti led his army into the desert, how many dead did he leave behind in Katoikos?” His voice rose. “Tell me, Arkoudai! How many Katoikos citizens died in our revolution? How many lost their lives when we left the green fields of Katoikos?”
As if in the same breath, the Arkoudai army assembled there in the early morning light shouted the answer, thunderous and loud, in perfect unison. “Not. Even. One.”
The words of the Arkoudai motto echoed there off the stones, and Kataida felt a fierce, vicious pride for her father, and sheknew that this pride wasn’t only hers. She didn’t hear Atreus, and only once had she spoken as him, the day he’d given Evander the shield from his tomb.
“I stand before you as your Strategos, who has been both sword and shield in turn. My shield was shattered by those who have forgotten that is what we were always meant to be, and so be it. They will now have my sword. But if there are any among you assembled here who wish to take yourself from my ranks and join these traitors? Go, and know that while I will not lift my hand to stop you--nor will my shield ever cover you again.”
Kataida kept her gaze locked forward, but she knew no one had left the ranks. The Arkoudai here were loyal. They would not turn their backs on their Strategos.
Evander drew his sword, the wicked, curved blade glinting in the sun. “If it is my sword they want, then they’ll have it.” Evander held the sword aloft, then cut his arm. Kataida could see the blood as it fell onto the sword, and she onlyjustmanaged to stifle her sudden inhalation as something hot ran through her, liquid fire, a rush of adrenaline and anger and something she could not quite name.
Evander held his sword aloft, stained with blood. “And thus does the Strategos of Arktos call his soldiers to war!”
Every one of them, Kataida with them, held their swords aloft as he had, identical, polished blades of silver held up to the sky, to the sun, as if asking for its blessing. Wars were not meant for the cover of night, for sneaking into teenage training camps or drawing pictures of beasts on the wall.
There was one sword that did not look like the rest. It was simple, a blade meant to kill, and straight where theirs were curved.
Ares held up their blade behind her father, eyes flame-white and a crown of sunflowers in their hair, an army saluting them in the morning sun.
She cheered and saluted with the rest, even though she could see what it was they were saluting, and it wasn’t her father. It was the god behind him, smiling now, and while their eyes were blanked by white fire, Kataida still knew they were looking right at her.
Speeches and salutes had their uses, but they didn’t win wars.
Kataida was exhausted as she followed Theron into the civic building. His eyes were red and swollen, but they were dry as a bone and he said nothing as he walked next to her. Someone had picked up the pieces of Atreus’ shield, and two younger recruits were already removing the graffiti from the building’s facade.
“Theron,” she said, softly, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
He jerked away from her, which stung, but she didn’t acknowledge it. “What the fuck kind of question is that?”
He’s hurt. He liked Markos. He’s good with kids, you’ve seen it with Malik.“The kind someone asks when they care about you.”
Theron whirled on her, eyes glittering, and his voice sounded choked. “Oh, is that so? How’s that work? You’ve got War following you around, actual fucking War and yeah, I saw them, too, atthe declaration of warwe just had in the fuckingsquare,Kat.”
She opened her mouth, but he barrelled on. “You wanted this, didn’t you? Well, now you have it, so I hope you’re happy. This is what war is, Kataida.” He never called her by her full name. “It’s dead kids. And, oh, let’s not forget that this is thesecond timeMarkos saw war. He escaped one only so he coulddie for someone else’s country, trying to protect people who all died anyway?”
Kataida’s shoulders went straight. “How dare you say that about him? He was as Arkoudai as we are. Hedied fighting, he died trying to be a protector–”
“He died!” Theron shouted, grabbing her by the shoulders, shaking her once. “He died. That’s it. He’s dead. He came here to escape a war he didn’t start or have any stake in, and then he ended up terrified and slaughtered like an animal for adifferentwar he didn’t start or have any stake in–”
“He died like a soldier,” said Ares, and oh, that was thelastthing she needed. At least they were wearing a different uniform, an enlisted soldier’s with the stripes saying they were neither a man or a woman. Their hair was still braided, but at least their eyes were their usual orange-red with banked yellow flames, not the pure white of earlier. “And the child had more of a reason to fight than the intruders who slaughtered them.” There was a strange note in their voice, a confusion at odds with their usual implacable certainty.
“So you were there,” Theron snarled, pushing her, and at least when he did it, he seemed to be pushing her behind him. “And you did nothing. Or you did everything. Are you helping them?”
Kataida felt her forehead break out in sweat, her stomach swooping like she was diving into the water from a great height. Why had she assumed that if War came to Arktos, it would only aid the side she was on? Ares wasn’t just Arktos’ war, in the same way Azaiah wasn’t only death for Staria. Ares simplywaswar. But that hadn’t stopped her ancestor Atreus from bringing them to his side when he needed, had it? She glanced at Ares, who was staring at Theron like they didn’t understand why he was angry, but no, that wasn’t it. They looked hungry, like theywantedto know why.
“They’re a god,” Kataida said, before Ares could make this somehow worse. “You know as well as I do what Azaiah, whatAleks, is always saying about that. Of course Ares didn’t make soldiers in the north defect and cause a civil war–”
“Oh, I probably did,” Ares said. “Even if I was asleep.”
Theron stared at them, then slowly drew his sword. “If my sister won’t put you back to sleep,Iwill.”
Ares clapped, their eyes starting to go wild and fever-bright again. “A duel? Inside? Interesting. You can’t kill me, soldier, and I think your death would grieve my beloved.”
“Don’t talk to me about being grieved by death,” Theron snarled, advancing. “I’m as Arkoudai as anyone else, even if I don’t fucking love the idea of marching in the goddamn sand and shoving my sword in someone’s gut because my father said I should.”
“Theron,” Kataida hissed, but the hallways were small and too cramped, and there was hardly any room to maneuver. Ares danced neatly out of Theron’s way and laughed, and she knew from the slight tinge of mania in the sound that she had to put a stop to this.
