Red Mortal (45 page)

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Authors: Deidre Knight

Tags: #Man-woman relationships, #Goddesses, #Gods, #Paranormal, #Delphian oracle, #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal romance stories, #Immortalism, #Daphne (Greek deity), #General, #Leonidas, #Contemporary

BOOK: Red Mortal
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The king raised his bow, suddenly firing another arrow—how had Ares not anticipated that? The weapon pierced his other thigh, and this time, the entry did hurt, burning Ares’s muscle like fire. With a cry, he stumbled and sank to his knees.
“No, it’s not Eros who forged these weapons,” Leonidas told him.
“Eros . . . where is he?” Ares fell to his side, an unfamiliar emotion flooding him. Where was his son? He should be here, now. It was suddenly more important than winning the battle, than learning the truth about the arrows.
“Where is my son?” he pleaded, as Leonidas towered over his felled form. “I . . . need him.”
Leonidas took another arrow from the quiver, and bending over Ares, jabbed it hard into his chest. “Now do you recognize these weapons?”
Ares hid his eyes, unable to comprehend the rush of emotions filling his heart. He’d abandoned his son; he’d turned his back on his family . . . his own sister, he’d tortured her.
The weapons were spelled, they had to be. They were controlling him, weakening him more than any force that had ever been waged against his god’s form.
“
You
made these weapons, Ares. This is your handiwork. Turned back . . . upon you.”
A wave cascaded through Ares’s core. All the love that any good man should feel, it beat in his chest—all the care a father should naturally have toward his son, it sang in his veins.
“Tell me . . .” he gasped, struggling for his next breath. “Where is my son?”
Grasping at the arrow in his chest, Ares tried to withdraw it. Searching the battlefield, he knew this was his true punishment, for his son was gone, lost to him forever. He had never appreciated him until it was too late.
A whirlwind of imagery cascaded through Ares’s mind. Eros had tried to fire these weapons against Ares before, but they’d never worked—his son’s magic was useless against him—but not when wielded by Leonidas. In a flashing cauldron of emotion, he saw every vile deed, every bad thing he’d done for his own pleasure. Hateful abominations, all of those actions, and he now understood them for what they were.
Because he understood love. Eros’s gift and the force he had commanded for centuries.
Love.
The one thing his son had always longed for from Ares, and he’d denied him. The one thing it should’ve been so natural and easy to grant, he’d mocked, just as he’d mocked the purpose and calling that sang in his son’s soul.
With all the life draining from his body, Ares searched the battlefield once more, perhaps for the last time. But Eros was nowhere to be found.
 
Ares crumpled to the ground, his lean body covered in blood; agony was written in his face, as he weakly lifted his eyes. “Where . . . is Eros?” he gasped. “I need my . . . son.”
“Eros is gone. You had your years with him, your chance to make things right. Here in your end? It’s too late for that.”
The god groaned, rolling onto his back. With struggling effort, one by one, he began dislodging Karanos and the other arrows from his body. “These . . . are my son’s arrows,” he managed to say.
Leo began retrieving his arrows from Ares’s prone form. “They were my warriors, in ancient Sparta. You cursed them into the form of standing stones. All these years they waited for their revenge against you. And now they’ve had it.” Leo held Karanos in his hand and gestured with the arrow. “Lift the curse, Ares. Here, even at your end . . . set them free. They are valiant, truehearted men who deserve their peace. To step into Elysium, once and for all.”
Ares’s eyes slid shut. “I . . . don’t possess . . . the strength.”
Leo seized Ares by the ponytail, forcing his eyes open. “
Free my men
, you bastard.” He roared in the god’s face. “Now!”
Ares lifted a weak hand, reaching for Karanos, but his arm fell to the ground. It seemed that somehow, the god really was dying, despite the laws of Olympus that stated no god could ever pass away.
“Hand him . . .” Ares murmured weakly, and Leo placed Karanos gently upon his chest, followed by all the other arrows. With great effort, Ares moved his hand atop them. “Be . . . free . . .” he said, and the arrows were gone. Leo searched about them, expecting to see the warriors standing in the form of men, but they had simply vanished, to where, Leo did not know.
But he got his answer a moment later, when the heavens overhead cracked open. With an otherworldly, majestic authority, the Highest God spoke.
“Your punishment,” He declared, “is to dwell in Elysium . . . to truly understand the depth of torture and depravity you have caused others. You, son of Olympus, will spend one thousand years in
peaceful
Elysium, unable to taste, smell, or make any kind of war.”
“Please,” he begged, “my son . . . let me see him.”
“You finally know the love you should have felt long ago for that one,” the Highest said. “And that is your punishment, as well. To dwell apart from good Eros and consider the pain you brought him. Until the thousand years ends. Until then, consider your evil deeds and live in peace.”
Ares’s eyes slid shut, and he said not a word, and argued not at all. He clearly accepted the verdict, and Leo found the war god’s compliance and obvious regret a shock. Had it been something in Eros’s arrows themselves, some potent power?
There was no time to consider, because the sky opened even wider, revealing pinks and purples and hues the likes of which no human man had ever seen. The Highest God’s great and majestic voice echoed across the battlefield for all to hear.
“Every curse that Ares currently has in place . . . is now removed.” The words sang down from heaven, and Leo instantly felt his body come vibrantly alive. His knee no longer hurt, his muscles no longer ached. “Any blight the god ever placed, all of them are lifted. Be well, my children. Live well, immortals and mortals alike. Live long.”
Leo felt his body begin to change, immediately upon those words. Every blight Ares had ever placed. He glanced down at his left hand, and the missing fingers had returned; he felt of the deep brackets by his lips, and they, too, were gone. He felt of his hair, and plucked a quick strand—to discover it a deep, rich brown.
His youth had been restored; his immortality reestablished.
But he didn’t have time to celebrate. Ares had become consumed in a beam of golden light, a radiance so beautiful, it was unlike anything Leo had ever seen—even as he’d stepped into the afterlife after Thermopylae. Leo was almost certain he saw tears streaming down the god’s face—tears of regret, and loss, and shame, no doubt. The light became a kind of force unto itself, a whirlwind that swept Ares upward, higher and higher, right up into heaven itself.
He vanished, and the group of them stared in awe, amazed by the beauty of what the Highest was allowing them to glimpse through that opening in the sky.
And then, as suddenly as it had opened, the sky closed up like a thunderclap. The rainy battlefield stood mostly empty, nothing but the windy moors and the Spartans and humans standing together. The demons were gone, the god was gone . . . and Karanos and the other arrows were gone, too.
No one spoke at first, and the rainfall became steadier, the soft sound of droplets on rock and earth the only noise between them. And then it was Aristos, who threw his head back first and released a joyous, wolflike howl of victory. The others joined in, covered in mud and demon blood, as one by one comrades embraced.
Jamie Angel came up behind his brother-in-law and caught Jax in a big bear hug, lifting him off the ground. Straton and Kalias threw arms about each other, embracing and beating each other on the back. The expressions of joy and camaraderie were some of the best Leo had ever witnessed. He watched, beaming.
But there was one man who wasn’t celebrating—one man with seven warrior brothers. Leo found that, oddly, he grieved that fact. Karanos and his brothers had apparently been swept into Elysium the moment that Ares lifted their curse. Still, as Leo stared down at the empty quiver in his hands, he felt a sense of unexpected sadness; he’d have liked to have embraced each man, just once. He knelt to the ground and, pressing the quiver against his chest, offered a prayer for each man’s peace. That he would find his way to loved ones and kin.
Ah, yes, he wished he’d have had a few moments with each Spartan—not doing so made it feel too much as if he’d lost them in battle. But knowing he’d bought them their freedom was joy enough. And he smiled, remembering Karanos’s warm brown eyes, that day before Thermopylae.
“Brave son,” he whispered, “this battle was the most important of them all. And you served me valiantly, you served me well.”
For the briefest moment, Leo would’ve sworn he felt the familiar vibration in his palm, as if he still held Karanos in his grasp and the warrior was “talking.” He stared at the flat palm and the tingling sensation didn’t go away. A slow, joyful smile spread across Leo’s face. “Yes, Captain Karanos,” he whispered, “well done. Very well done.”
And just like that, the otherworldly sensation was gone. Leo lifted his eyes to heaven and smiled.
“Leonidas?”
It was Sophie, walking toward him across the empty field, and as she wandered up to him, her eyes were filled with despair. Leo knew with one look at her—from her overly pale face, to the red rims of her eyes—Sable was gone. He’d seen a glimpse of the demon fire himself, while knee-deep in the fight, and knew by Sophie’s countenance that she’d witnessed the same.
“Leonidas . . .” She searched his face, and Leo would’ve done anything to ease the stark pain he saw in her kind eyes.
Leo took her small, cool hand in his, squeezing it. “I’m sorry. I haven’t seen him,” he said. “And I really
am
sorry, Sophie.”
She started to walk away, then spun back to face him. “I didn’t give up on you, King Leonidas,” she said firmly. “When you needed healing, I gave it, and my faith never wavered that we’d solve your problem. So now you don’t give up on the man I love, please. I’m going to find him. He’ll be alive. I know it.”
Without another word, she marched off across the moors. Leo prayed that her gentle heart wasn’t about to be broken.
Chapter 36
 
S
ophie ran toward the edge of the craggy hillside, the place where she’d last seen Sable. Maybe he’d survived; maybe he’d fought the demons off. And maybe, somehow, that roaring blaze she’d glimpsed, with his beautiful centaur’s form at the center of it . . . hadn’t been real.
When she reached the spot, the cleft between rock and wind, she froze. A scream stifled inside her throat, but she was too horrified to cry out. She stood there, shaking, entranced by the sight of the scorched ground and rocks before her. Pressing a hand to her mouth, she tried to beat back a wave of nausea, and took tentative steps forward. The ground and the rocks were scorched a pure, evil black. The scent of the fire hung in the air all around her, and it was all she could do not to be sick.
She fell to her knees, stroking the burned up place. Instantly, images flooded her mind, the truth of what Sable had done for her. Kneeling there, she doubled over, sobbing. His death. She felt his anguish, sensed the depths of his despair. The torture he’d experienced in that fire was unspeakable, more than any person should ever have to endure. But even worse, unbelievably, than the fire itself had been his awareness that he’d never see or hold her again.
She curled on her side, beside the burnt-up place, shedding tears of grief unlike any she’d ever known. He was gone; he’d done it all for her.
She had lost him forever, to that one selfless, love-filled act.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, reaching out and touching the ashes. “I am so sorry. I love you, I . . . always loved you. From the first moment I saw you . . . it was you.”
She ran her hands timidly through the ashes. Were they some remnant of his body, some last part of the man she loved? She sat up, staring down at the charred bits, then very gently cradled a few within her palm. She brought them up, against her cheek, and mourned for the only man she would ever love. Never again; he had been the one.
Gently rocking, she cried and moaned, a keening sound that she hardly recognized as coming from herself. But then she was startled, and cried out, as a gentle hand came down upon her shoulder. The touch was warm, familiar, and it sent chill bumps down her arms. She didn’t have the heart or hope to turn and look. It had to be King Leonidas . . . or Ari, but not him. He was in these ashes, a memory now.
“Look at me, Sophie.” His voice, a lie. It couldn’t be anything else.
She shook her head forcefully, back and forth, back and forth, just rocking herself.
That warm hand captured her chin, and gently forced her to look. Pale blue eyes, the color of summer sky. And a body that was completely human.
“Oh my God,” she sobbed, dropping the ashes from her fingers. It couldn’t be, and yet he stood there, so human and gorgeous . . . and not burnt at all.
He kept that hand on her nape, his touch and scent so familiar. But she could only stare up at him, crying, and so very afraid to rush into his arms, or even hope that he was real. “Is it . . . you
died
. I saw you in the flames!” She pointed to the scorched earth, tears falling fiercely on her cheeks. She slammed her palms into the ashes. “This is the evidence. This is where it happened . . . I watched you
die
.”

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