Page 69

“You killed seven of Artemis’s creatures in a sacred forest.” She tilts her chin. “Then you stopped.”

“That was because of Evie.” Kieran motions to me. “Not because of me.”

“The girl stood between you and the prey.” She looks to me, then back to Kieran. “She spoke of events that carry weight for you. But we’ve watched sons of Ares stand in front of their mothers, their lovers, and their children while in the grip of the blood rage, and none of it mattered. The rage consumed them anyway. So, while the girl gave you a reason to choose, the choosing belonged to you.”

Kieran’s fists loosen at his sides. His thermal output, which has been dropping since the rampage ended, holds steady.

“You passed our test,” the woman says simply.

I blink, and beside me, Kieran goes still.

“But you should know,” she continues, and the brief warmth in her expression folds back into steel. “It will always be like this.”

Kieran’s thermal output drops. “What do you mean?”

“The god and the man will fight inside you for the rest of your life,” she explains. “Your father’s blood will push you toward destruction, and your mortal blood will try to pull you back. The war inside you will never end.”

Quiet settles over the forest. The silver light steadies overhead, pouring down through the canopy in unbroken beams, and the last of the smoke drifts off between the trunks. Around us, the trees are closing their own wounds. Only the warriors stay as they were, a silent circle around us, watching Kieran with eyes that understand exactly what he’s carrying.

“How do I hold onto the human part?” Kieran asks, and there’s a surprising amount of vulnerability in his voice. “How do I make sure it wins?”

The tall woman reaches behind her, unslings the bow from her back, and holds it across both palms. “The Amazons never draw a weapon without a reason. We train every day, fight when called, and kill when required. The reason must come before the blade.” She sets the bow against her shoulder. “Aimless violence feeds the war-blood. It’s rage in its purest form—destruction without direction, and violence for the sake of violence. When you killed the innocent animals in this forest, your fire wanted more, and you had no target, so the fire chose its own.”

Kieran’s breathing is slow and measured beside me.

“Directed combat feeds the man,” she continues. “A battle fought with purpose anchors the mortal mind. When the war-blood surges, you must give it a reason, or it will create its own. And the reasons the war-blood creates are always the same. Kill everything. Burn everything. Leave nothing standing.”

“Choose your war,” one of the other warriors adds. “Before the blood chooses it for you.”

The clearing’s quiet around us, and the warriors watch Kieran with the patience of women who have fought this same battle inside their own bodies and learned to win.

Then the tension in Kieran’s shoulders shifts. His thermal output climbs, but the distribution is different from the war-blood pattern. The heat moves from his core outward in a slow, even spread, as if his body is settling into an alignment it’s been reaching for.

“Steel before spells,” he says quietly.

The tall woman’s eyebrow rises.

“It’s tattooed on my arm.” He pushes up his sleeve, and the letters on his left bicep catch the silver light. “I taught my students to carry steel, because magic can be stolen. I started teaching because if I didn’t have a purpose for my violence, the violence was going to find its own purpose.”

“Your instinct was always correct.” The tall woman slings her bow back over her shoulder. “As your war-blood strengthens, you must hold onto that instinct, brother.”

“Brother?” Kieran blinks, and his eyes travel over the Amazons as if seeing them for the first time.

The tall woman turns to Kieran, and the assessment in her gaze shifts into recognition.

“My name is Otrera,” she says. “I’m the first Queen of the Amazons, and the founder of our nation.” She lets that settle before adding, “Like you, I’m a child of Ares.”

Kieran goes still, and Otrera gestures to the women around the clearing with the ease of a woman who’s been commanding warriors since before most civilizations had a name.

“These are my daughters—Hippolyta, Antiope, and Melanippe.” Three women incline their heads, and the family resemblance between them is obvious now that I’m looking for it. They have the same sharp bone structure, and the same divine heat running under their skin. “The others are queens Myrina, Orithyia, Marpesia, and Lampedo.”

Eight queens. Eight daughters of Ares. Every single one of them is running at the elevated thermal baseline I’ve spent three months tracking on Kieran, because they’re carrying the same war-blood in their veins as he does.

Kieran’s hands are open at his sides. His shoulders have dropped from combat readiness, and he’s looking at these eight women who share his father’s blood the way I imagine a man looks at a mirror he didn’t know existed.

“Sisters,” he says, and the word comes out rough.

“Half-sisters.” Myrina steps forward. She moves the same fluid way as Kieran—a fighter even when she’s standing still. “We all have the war inside. My sisters and I fight the same fight every day, between the god and the woman.”