Chapter Eighty-Five
I watched until Erebus was lost to me in the forest. He would catch up with the rest of his herd in only a few minutes.
What would happen then, I wondered. Would the women assume the worst?
Would they believe his presence was a sign of my death?
I contemplated that only a moment or two longer before the realization of what I had done struck me. I had turned my back on a god.
I spun hastily, though when I faced Ares, a tiny smile tilted the corner of his mouth. Was he pleased that I had followed his orders, that he had me alone, or that he was about to kill me? I could not tell.
“Thank you,” he said. “You have a good animal there. Now, take this.” He stretched out his hand, once again offering me the blade.
I would not be unarmed when I died. That was something. Refusing to allow my hand to tremble, I stepped forward and took the weapon.
No sooner had I taken hold of the hilt than Ares drew another sword.
Whether it was from behind his back or from the air itself, I do not know, but he swung it toward me.
I dodged and tumbled to the ground, lifting the beast of the sword he had given me and blocking his blade only a moment before it struck my chest. Any heavier and I doubt I would have been so lucky.
How could I hope to strike with such an instrument?
It was easily double the weight of the sword the women had given me.
“Don’t doubt yourself. You are plenty strong enough to hold that weapon.”
The hairs rose on the back of my neck. Could Ares hear the thoughts as they formed in my mind, or could he tell how I felt from my expression alone? I waited for him to make the next move. When he did, it was the most unexpected of all.
He reached down and offered his hand.
Every muscle in me screamed to run or to plunge the tip of the blade into his stomach.
But I did not. Instead, I reached up and let him clasp my hand in his.
I felt the flood of warmth for less than a heartbeat before he swung his arm back and lifted me from the ground as if I were nothing more than a brown and crumbling autumn leaf.
When both my feet were planted firmly on the ground, he spoke.
“Now that you are a little more prepared, shall we go again?”
For a second time, he swung at me, though this time, I lifted the blade far earlier to block.
The balance of the sword was unlike anything I knew, so perfect it sliced through the air with a precision that could only have come from Hephaestus.
But I did not have time to consider the great blacksmith god’s skill.
Ares was coming at me again and again. I knew I could not hope to win; all I wanted to do was delay the inevitable.
Every turn I took, he was there. Every twist I made, he anticipated.
There was no movement, no strike, no single flick of my wrist he did not see coming.
Sooner or later, he was going to kill me. And then he would go for my women.
That thought alone was enough to pull me to my feet.
I had stood there long before they had crowned me their queen and promised that I would protect them with my life.
Only, when I had spoken those words, I had been thinking of men—of the murderers and rapists and raiders who had plagued their lives for so long.
But as my feet skidded on the damp grass and the weight of Ares’s attacks burned the muscles of my arms, I knew mortal men were not where my responsibility ended.
I had promised to protect them from everyone, gods included.
So I began to fight, not like I was one woman but the hundreds I had sworn myself to.