Chapter 33
Caelus
Aros tipped over in his chair, unfortunately taking me with him, thanks to the deviously accurate appearance of a shadow gate directly above his head.
Wicked woman.
“What the fuck was that for?” Aros grumbled, rolling to his feet and collecting his chair.
I groaned, still sprawled on the cold, stone floor. “It wasn’t me.”
Perplexity crossed his face for all of an instant before hilarity broke it completely. A grin the size of Rufus’ split his face and his eyes crinkled as he asked, “Nyssa?”
“Yup,” I said, popping the ‘p’ more than strictly necessary.
Aros’ laugh bent him in two, even more when Erato and Diana joined him. Arius merely glared, content to wait until their fit had subsided, but as I crawled to my feet, I decided I’d glare right back.
It didn’t take long for the mortal king to relent, opting to roll his eyes instead.
“I take it you were in the middle of something,” I mused, less of a question than a statement.
Arius opened his mouth to speak but Aros cut in first. “We can worry about military structures in a moment — tell me, how’d you fare on the Isle?
I take it our Queen is fine, considering she sent you back so precisely to me.
” He chuckled again, until my expression registered.
Then, his gaze dropped to the gold spattering the front of my cuirass, and he immediately switched tracks.
Gone was the mischievous troublemaker of my youth. In his place, stood Nyssa’s Blade and Harrow.
“Tell me.”
My eyes flicked over his shoulder to the waiting king — suddenly no longer inconvenienced, but watching with a curiously vested interest. Aros followed gaze and immediately ordered, “Out! All but those with golden blood.”
The warriors in the room rushed to obey, Arius dawdling, infinitely more inconvenienced than he’d been a minute ago when I interrupted whatever it was he’d been discussing.
When the doors slammed shut behind them, Diana rushed to take up residence in front of them — an effective, god-sized doorstop.
I nodded my thanks, then explained everything that had just happened in the last hour.
When I got to the part about Hephaestus, all three faces fell in anguish.
Heph was steadfast and loyal. He’d always been a gigantic champion of moral integrity — but more than anything, he was an incredible father.
And right now, we were all mourning his loss not just for our war efforts, but for Archimedes’ sake as well.
“Fuck,” Aros breathed, dropping heavily into his seat.
Erato poured him a cup of whatever ale Arius had provided in the clay jug. He downed it in one, bitter gulp, extending it for a second. She obliged, though not before taking a hearty swig for herself.
“And Nyssa?” he asked quietly. “I know she’s alright, or you wouldn’t be here, but reassure me anyway please.”
“Exhausted and filthy, last I saw, but managing.”
He nodded. “Diana, let them back in. We need their answer now, not tomorrow or next week.”
Diana pulled the heavy doors open with no struggle at all, then plopped back into what I assumed was her original seat.
Arius strode in, red-faced and livid.
“Where does Strathos stand?” Aros asked point-blank.
Arius spluttered, apparently ill-prepared for such a question. “Give me two hours to discuss with my advisors and you will have your answer.”
Aros rose. “You have one.”
“If they were with us, he would have just said it,” Aros snarled, knocking over a rack of swords in his rage. “He has the power to overrule his advisors.”
I kicked one over to him, picking another up myself, while Erato and Diana plonked on the stands to watch. He picked it up, tested its weight, and held it out blade-first — ready.
“I thought he’d be here somewhere. Hiding, or ruling, maybe. But I thought, for certain he’d be here… and he’s not,” Aros roared, slashing downward in a diagonal stroke I met with a ringing clash of steel.
“Your father?” I grunted, stepping and stabbing simultaneously.
Aros grunted his assent and blocked, sidestepping to launch an assault on my left — my weaker side.
“Barbecue boy, I’m gonna need you to use your words here.”
Diana scoffed and Aros immediately whipped around to glare at her. “Don’t laugh, it was Nyssa’s joke, not his. He’s just taking the credit for it.” Her grin remained in place as Erato died silently on the bench beside her.
I swung from the left and Aros froze, picking a hell of a time to have an epiphany.
Eyes wide, he barely flinched at the glancing blow I landed on his upper arm. “Do you have any magic juice left?” he asked me.
I frowned. “Magic juice?”
He means your shadow magic, Lykos drawled from the sidelines as Aros waggled his fingers.
“Oh. No. Tapped out right now, I’m afraid.”
“Sentencing souls will do that to a guy,” Diana offered.
Aros whirled on her again. “I have a task for you, after all.”
She stood, all traces of humour vanished. “Name it.”
“I need you to sprint back to the Temple of Ares,” he said, growling on that last word, “and warn the others: they’re not going to side with us. They might not even remain neutral. But I know they’re not with us.”
The daughter of Artemis nodded once, checked her weapons were tucked safely away for an arduous trek, took a long draft of water from the nearby tap, and nodded her goodbyes.
“Thank you,” Aros offered quietly, surprising all of us, but especially her.
She nodded again, and ducked out into the hallway to sneak out of the Bloodhold before they could stop her.
Aros threw his sword atop the pile, growling, “I think they’ve had long enough.”
He led the way, storming up staircases and hallways, startling everyone in his path until he reached the council chambers and slammed the doors open so forcefully that both snapped their hinges.
“We still have twenty minutes,” Arius snarled, rising to his full height — a solid foot shorter than the god of war.
“Twenty minutes in which to wait for whoever it is you’ve summoned to come fetch us? Twenty minutes for you to decide how best to keep us from returning to the others?” I thundered, lightning sparking in the corner of the room though I hadn’t consciously intended it.
Arius remained still, though the same could not be said for his advisors. He looked down his ridged nose at me, completely unaware at just how close I was to scorching it off, and finished weaving his own version of Strathos’ thread of fate.
“Excellent catch, son of Zeus. Ares mentioned the pretty face, but he failed to tell us about the brain behind the brawn as well.” His eyes flicked over to Aros.
“You, he said, are just brawn. No brains to behold. To side with such a frail, weak-willed queen over your own flesh and blood? Despicable,” he spat.
I had no idea who was closer to sparking — Aros or I. He with his flames or I with my lightning.
But one way or another, this king would burn.
Erato unsheathed the dagger at her thigh in such a smooth motion that I barely noticed it, let alone anyone else in the room, least of all the obnoxious worm of a king.
He soon realised, though, when her dagger whirred through the air and impaled his left shoulder, spurring the roomful of warriors into immediate action.
One slammed her face down into the table, while another grabbed my arm, collapsing in a smouldering pile when lightning struck him from the contact. Aros’ skin glowed as he channelled a torrent of flame from his left hand, simultaneously grasping the roaring Arius by his throat, melting it.
Erato kicked her assailant’s legs wide, throwing his balance and reared back slamming her head into his nose, breaking it. I finished him off with a sparking fist to the underside of his chin, while she pouted. “I had him.”
I grinned, all teeth. “I know.”
Aros shoved the king down forcibly, giving little regard to his injuries. The scent of burnt hair reached my nostrils and only then did he relent, relinquishing Arius’ neck to reveal a sticky, mottled mess.
“You’re too late,” he rasped. “They’re already coming.”
“Where?” Aros growled. “Who?”
Arius’ returning grin was nothing short of manic. “You’ll see. Strathos will always side with its Primal god,” he cackled.
“Strathos will soon have another Primal,” my friend avowed, and wrenched Erato’s dagger from his shoulder, only to swipe it across his ruined neck. “And now it shall have a new king.”
Erato shuddered. “Brutal,” she breathed. “Brilliant, but brutal.”
Aros swung around with an easy grin. “Thanks! Pretty dramatic if I do say so myself.” He wiped the blade on the king’s cloak and handed it back to the demi-god, hilt first.
Wordlessly, she placed it back in its sheath, staring at the god of war in bewilderment.
He whistled. “They’re gonna be cleaning this up for a while.
Let’s say we wander back down to the temple and confess to our sins, aye?
Beg for my father’s forgiveness.” He snorted, strolling casually out of the room, but not before whispering a quiet, “I look forward to meeting your new king,” to a terrified pair of guards just outside the doorway.
Erato gaped at me instead. I just shrugged. “Don’t look at me. God of war and violence, remember? He lives for this shit.”