Page 63 of Flamesworn
The future was uncertain, the present was still a tangled mess of allegiances and resentment and conflict, but the past…the past was over and done with, and she thought Ares could finally understand that, accept, and put it to rest. She thought of Damian, shackled and bound in the Soldiers, of her father lost in the world between this and the next, and Ares in their sword form, still and unmoving for so many years.
Only the dead had need of a tomb.
Ares sat on the roof of the civic center building, watching the crowded main square of Axon.
The war wasn’t over yet. Its roots ran deep—Ares could sense it now, a mortal yearning for revenge that pulsed through Arktos like a wound. The people who had started this with Damian Akti’s abduction hadn’t resented Evander, who was only a second son. They felt betrayed by the softness of the Akti line, dreaming of an Arktos that had never existed. Ares understoodthat, to an extent. They had also made an image of Atreus in their mind that wasn’t real.
Now, a thousand new prayers for revenge rose from the plaza, where the names of the dead had been spoken and fires lit to guide the god of death to the river. None of them threatened to summon Ares. Even Elena, whose heart still burned with the desire for vengeance when Ares saw her last, didn’t seem aware of their presence as she took Aleks’ hand while their son fidgeted beside her. Ares remained on the roof, watching Kataida as she stood next to her brother, and let their wings push out through their back, shoulders, and neck. Sunlight filtered through the glass feathers, dappling the roof around them with patches of red.
“Hello, sibling.”
Ares looked down. Azaiah stood below them, his pale face flushed pink in the shadow of Ares’ wings.
Ares dropped off the roof, stirring the dust with their wings. Azaiah smiled warmly, raising a hand to their glassy skin.
“You look lovely, sibling.”
“Of course you’d say that, brother.” Ares paused, examining Azaiah. He wasn’t the first Death, but he was the first Ares had loved, and Ares wondered if they’d ever been able to love Kataida, or even Atreus, if Azaiah hadn’t been there first. They pulled Azaiah into a tight embrace, and Azaiah made a soft sound, half a laugh, half a sigh.
“I know I always said you were too soft to be Death,” Ares said.
“Yes, that’s all right,” Azaiah said, and reached up to stroke one of Ares’ feathers.
“I’m glad you were chosen.” Ares drew back and let their true shape fall away, taking on their mortal form. "I don’t think I would be here if you weren’t.”
“You would have made it here eventually.” Azaiah patted Ares’ cheek. “I have faith in you.”
They walked the streets of Axon together, unseen by the people crowding the square. The news of Damian Akti’s appearance had shaken Axon more than Melenaus’ treachery, but Damian wasn’t in the square. Evander Akti stood with his partners and his children, but Damian was likely in the house they’d set aside for him, avoiding the gazes of the people he’d been forced to fight.
“Things didn’t matter so much to me before.” Ares watched a child run after their parent, gripping shirtsleeves to avoid being lost in the crowd. “If you’d been corrupted and destroyed the world, perhaps I’d have missed it, but I would have enjoyed its undoing, at least. I wouldn’t enjoy it now.”
“That frightens you?” Azaiah asked. Ares whipped around to look at him.
“How did you know?”
“You’re easy to read, sibling.” Azaiah’s eyes crinkled in a fond smile. “Change is always a little frightening. I see it in them,” he gestured to the crowd, “when they come to me. But the fear passes.”
Ares sighed. It had begun here, their love for the empire, for Azaiah, Arktos, Atreus—for Kataida, and now, so much more than them. “I might change more, Azaiah. I’m Vengeance now. What will I be when I’ve been with Kataida for a century? For two?”
“How lucky we are to see it happen,” Azaiah said. and when Ares laughed, the people around them startled, looking for the source of the sound.
“Stay with me,” Ares said, “even when your successor takes to the river. Walk the world a little longer. I want you to see what I become. I want to get to know Astra and his man, Levi, Arwyn, their companions—even Nyx. I feel so new, Azaiah, like I’ve justbeen born, crouching in those woods in Katoikos, but I’m not alone this time.”
They pulled out the coins Kataida had given them—Atreus’ coins. They glimmered in Ares’ palm, warm with the sun.
“Atreus didn’t love me the way I needed,” Ares said, “and I didn’t love him the right way, either. But I did love him.” They handed the coins to Azaiah. “So maybe it’s right that I give this to you, his passage across the river. His soul belongs to someone else, and I belong to her, but not the way I thought I wanted.”
Azaiah closed his fingers over the coins, then he leaned down to kiss Ares’ cheeks, tender and soft as the winter flowers he’d been draped with long ago on Death’s altar.
“I can’t wait to see what you become,” he said.
Ares smiled. They slipped free of Azaiah, leaving him there in the crowd, a tall, dark-robed figure surrounded by the mortals he loved without question. Ares passed through them, making their way toward Kataida. When they reached her, she turned to them, and they took her hand. They slipped away from the crowd silently, and the people in the plaza closed around the gap they’d made as though they’d never been there.
“It isn’t over, you know,” Kataida said. “The people who started this are still out there.”
“Yes.” Ares could feel them faintly, a distant presence in the back of their mind. “We can find them, if you like.”
“It will mean ending the war,” Kataida said, “or stopping another one from coming. Can you do that?”
