Page 110 of A Veil of Gods and Kings

Ares sighed and squeezed my shoulder. “I love you.” I lifted my face and met his gaze, the gentleness in it. “There are only a few in the entire world that I could honestly say that to, and you are one of them. So, hear this counsel from me. If you care about that boy at all, leave him alone, Apollo.”

His words crumpled me like parchment held to a flame, dark ends curling and falling into ash. “You’re right.”

“Then heed advice for once.”

I nodded. “I’ll consider it.”

Ares frowned but pulled me into a hug, and I wrapped my arms over his broad shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You know this isn’t how I want this to be… any of it. And I won’t mention whatever is going on between you and Hyacinth to Father.”

“Thank you.”

He clapped my arm again, and then the silvery shimmer swept around him. The next moment, the three crimson stars, like arrows slicing the heavens, streaked across the sky.

I dropped against the edge of a low wall, my hands sinking against the cool stone, my heart dropping with it. What Ares had said was true. I’d pretended that Hyacinth and I were tucked away here together, a world separate from Olympus, and Zeus, and my past.

But that was not reality.

I sat for a long time, wilting under moonlight as stars brightened.

The clattering of footsteps drew me out of the grim shadows of my thoughts. Hyacinth walked out, his crown removed, his robe rippling around his form. He dropped beside me. “I wondered if I’d find you out here.”

“You found the sulking god. Remind me to get you a laurel wreath for it.”

He rolled his eyes but brushed his palm along my shoulder. “Is everything okay?”

I raised a foot up onto the wall and rested my chin on it. “It’s nice of you to ask about me when Ares just treated you like shit. I’m sorry about that, Cyn.”

He shrugged. “He’s a god.”

“That’s not how he really is though.”

Hyacinth blinked at me. “Isn’t he the god of war? It seems fitting.”

“He wears a mask to match his role.” I lifted my face. “Surely you can understand that.”

Hyacinth stared at me for a long moment, the frogs picking up and croaking like they all wished to chime in with their opinions. “I can,” he said.

I raised my other foot up and tucked my arms around my legs. “He has a son.”

“Ares does?”

“Yes, Ixion. And Zeus uses him to achieve his ends. He threatens him whenever Ares won’t do his bidding.”

The v-shaped dimple I’d come to know and love, that I longed to sweep away with my thumb, bunched up between Hyacinth’s eyebrows. “He’d threaten his own grandchild?”

I huffed a laugh, with no humor. “Without hesitation. He killed Ares’ mortal wife. And it’s not death he threatens his son with. He promises torment for the boy, to bind him to a fire wheel in Tartarus where he would burn eternally should Ares not comply. And Zeus keeps Ixion’s life stalled, permanently a child, forever at his whims. So, that’s why Ares came in here like… that.”

Hyacinth bowed over, resting his chin on his laced fingers. “Does Ares not wish for war?”

“Does any sane person wish for that?”

“Well—” Hyacinth’s eyes darted about, like they looked for answers in the stone walls and navy outlines of the shrubs. “Sometimes war can make sense, don’t you think?”

“Are you wanting Ares to declare one with your kingdom?”

He huffed a laugh. “No. Of course not.”

“He won’t.” I reached out and snagged his fingers. “He would warn me before Father would decide on that action. I’ll leave if it comes to that.”