Page 37 of Flamesworn
Ares shrugged. “Do you expect the gods to be fair? You shaped most of us. Are mortals fair? Even you, Strategos, with your gentle heart?”
“Gentle?”
“There is no shame in that. You bend, but you don’t break. A cold heart snaps in the heat of my fire and becomes kindling. The Aktis are strong and kind enough not to burn. Like yourdaughter.” Evander raised his brows, and Ares stuttered out a laugh. “Do you think her unkind, when she is the one who kept me from being summoned by the enemy these past weeks, grounded in one form?”
Evander turned to look at his soldiers as they started setting up careful, tidy lines of tents on the sand. “I wasn’t aware that she needed to.”
“You could say she was kind enough to see it. Who spares a charitable thought for War? Even Atreus saw me as a weapon to wield. You love your daughter, Strategos, but you underestimate her. Does it scare you, the love she has for my realm?”
Evander began walking down the line of half-finished tents. “You have a firm grip on her spirit, Ares.”
“If you looked closer into the part of her that frightens you, you’ll see that she is more like you than you think, Strategos. Love fuels her fire—for you, for her people. Does it not fuel yours?”
Evander went silent for a long time, walking slowly as though inspecting the tents. Perhaps he truly was. He was a strange man to read, a mortal who knew war in theory but not in the heat of his own spirit, thrust into it during a time of peace. “I did not expect to be lectured about my own daughter by the Gracious One. You speak of her as though she’s Kataida, not Atreus, when his name hung in the air between you when I saw you before.”
“I know who she is,” Ares said. “So do you.”
They nodded their farewell to Evander and turned into the thick of the tents, toward the space where Menelaus and Stavros were running soldiers through drills. Stavros seemed to be leading mostly submissives in his corner of the field, with a few companies of dominants; Menelaus’ soldiers were mostly dominants with a few submissives scattered here and there. Stavros’ soldiers nearly looked like they were dancing, keeping time with the beat of a drum. Even Theron was part of it.
Kataida was checking the ammunition for her gun as Ares approached. She was beautiful in the light of the setting sun, her eyes shadowed by her hat and the taut muscle flexing under her uniform. Ares sank to their knees next to her and breathed in the scent of gunpowder as she worked, and she paused to run thin fingers through their hair.
“When you go to war tomorrow, you should wield me,” Ares said, pressing their cheek to her thigh.
“I don’t know if that’s wise.”
“It won’t hurt me.” Ares pressed a kiss to her hip. “It may ground you, as it does me. You are one of mine—when war comes, you will feel what it truly means to have battle fever, the kind that makes soldiers rend their armor and go rushing into battle with their throats hoarse with screaming. My nearness will balance you, I think, the way your nearness balances me.”
They moved between Kataida’s legs, and Kataida parted her thighs only slightly, looking around her at the soldiers moving about the camp. “People will see you.”
“Not now. I’m masking my presence. They will see a warrior, that is all, someone powerful, lit by my fire.” They kissed the fabric over her cunt, and Kataida gripped their hair by the roots.
“Not here,” she ordered, and Ares moaned softly. Kataida stood, gathering her things, and made her way to her tent. Ares crawled after her, content with the warmth of the desert around them, and climbed into the tent with a delighted smile.
There, they lay between Kataida’s legs and pressed their mouth to her folds, moaning in pleasure as Kataida ran sharp nails down their back. She barely made a noise, but they could tell she enjoyed it by the way she yanked at Ares’ hair and whispered to them, making dark, lovely promises to chain them down and flay the skin off their back, to choke them as they thrashed beneath her.
When Kataida slept at last, she slept with her fingers tangled in Ares’ hair and Ares trapped between her legs, smiling and warm in the glow of the battle to come.
The enemy came to the Needle in the night.
When Evander’s army woke to tear down their encampment, their scouts reported phalanxes of soldiers waiting in the shadow of the Needle, with a cavalry waiting in the west to drive the soldiers from Axon into the main force. Evander gestured to Stavros when he heard the news, and Stavros sent pikebearers to the western side of the army, to set their pikes in the sand for the cavalry to ride into, spearing their horses and toppling their riders.
“We should reserve the pikebearers for their swords,” Menelaus cautioned, gesturing toward the mass of soldiers waiting for them by the Needle. Ares wasn’t so sure. Menelaus, like the others, was shaking with the anticipation of Ares’ coming, but he spoke like a politician, not a general.
“Permission to move my submissives to the front,” Stavros asked, and Ares noticed Menelaus turn pink in outrage as Evander gave the order for Stavros to proceed. Menelaus pulled Evander aside, voice low.
“Strategos, Stavros putting our submissives first could be a risk. These people have already shown they’ll break our laws of war. If they use dominance to make our submissives kneel?—”
“Our submissives are Arkoudai,” Evander said, “even if these traitors have forgotten. Your words have been noted, Menelaus. See to your soldiers.”
Menelaus hesitated, then saluted and turned to leave. Stavros nodded to Evander as he passed, and Evander lookedaway just in time to miss Theron passing behind him in the line of submissive soldiers. Kataida stood a few lines behind him, eyeing her father warily, and she nodded to Ares as their gazes met.
Wield me,Ares mouthed, but Kataida didn’t respond, looking straight ahead at the soldiers waiting on the other end of the field.
The Arkoudai were silent. No drums sounded. No boots struck the rhythm of a war chant. A warm morning wind swept over the dunes and spilled dust over polished leather, and Ares could feel the great creature that was the battle starting to stir beneath the fear and dread and outrage, a spirit made of grief for the children whose bodies were left to bloat in the sun, taut with the tension of hands gripping sword hilts and bows. Evander stood at the front, swords unsheathed, but there was no single figure standing before the enemy in the shadow of the Needle. Their leaders were hidden, cowering from battle even as it filled the air with heat.
Then he came.
The Beast of Arktos stepped slowly through the soldiers before him, his face covered in the snarling iron mask, his chest bare, swords hanging loose in his grip in the same position as Evander’s. In the sunlight, more scars were visible on his chest—symbols of War in Gerakian, ancient Mislian, Morrey and Starian. His body was a ruin of them, and Ares sucked in a sharp breath as they realized that when sacrifices were made in their name, he was both the altar and the sword. He blazed in Ares’ mind with the devotion that had been carved into him, but at his heart there was no fire, just a cold emptiness, a void, a hand that closed over a candle flame until there was nothing left but the dark.
