But not at another’s expense.
“I won’t fight with you. I won’t help you. I can’t. You were right before. We’ll get each other killed.”
Joshua’s face filled my mind as I spoke, pouring guilt over my boiling anger, but I knew my words were true. We would get each other killed if we carried on like this, and then I’d be unable to help anyone. Ares was rash and selfish and impossible. I would just have to rely on his huge ego to be justified and pray he could defeat the Lord’s tests without power. There was no doubt he was a good fighter and could withstand pain, magic or none.
I felt sick as I thought about watching him from the sidelines, Joshua’s life at stake and me doing nothing, but I couldn’t see another way if he was going to treat me like this.
“I do not believe I can win this fight without your help,” Ares said after a long pause, almost too quietly for me to hear.
“I have no power left for you to use! And that’s your damned fault!”
“That is why I need you. With no power, I need your help. To fight whatever we are to face next.”
I blinked at him. Had I heard that right? He was looking down at his feet, his huge arms folded across his chest.
“You need my help to fight? Not to just use me as a fucking battery whenever you feel like it, but to actually fight?”
He looked up at me, and the look in his eyes made my eyebrows rise even higher. He looked... normal. Like a normal guy, asking for something he hoped he would get.
“I do not know what a battery is,” he said.
The simplicity of his statement took me by surprise. “A battery is a power source in my world,” I said quietly.
“Oh. Then yes. I would like you to help me fight whatever Pain is going to put in the pit with me next, not as a battery.”
I stared at him. I wasn’t getting an apology, that much was clear. But I reckoned this was as good as the same thing from a god. He was asking, politely, for my help and he wouldn’t do that unless he wanted me to get killed, or actually thought I could fight.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you trying to get me killed so that you get my power that way?”
He pulled an affronted face. “If I was going to kill you, I would do it with honor.”
“Like over the dead body of my friend?”
“That is not how I had planned to kill you,” he answered gruffly. I held my hand up, signaling him to stop.
“Look, if you actually want my help, telling me how you had planned to kill me is a bad idea.”
“Agreed.”
“Would you look at that. We actually agree on something,” I muttered. The sincere look in his eyes, the absence of angry defensiveness, along with my intense desire to not walk away from all of this had mounted up, and somehow my anger was melting away. It was almost as though him turning his anger off had also turned off mine.
Truth of the matter was, I wanted to fight. I had a point to prove to that crowd now. If Ares really was willing to work with me, instead of getting us both killed, we could likely give them a show to remember.
“After this test, we need to talk properly about my power. And you are never, ever to drain me like that again.”
I saw him bristle at being spoken to so authoritatively, the muscles in his jaw working. “It was an accident,” he said eventually.
“Is that you swearing not to do it again? ‘Cos it didn’t sound like it.”
His eyes locked on mine and a new intensity burned in his irises. I couldn’t tell if it was anger or regret or something else completely, but whatever it was he was feeling it hard. I resisted the urge to look away.
“I swear,” he said, through gritted teeth.
“Fine. I... I’m very tired,” I said, tearing my eyes from his uncomfortable gaze and swinging my legs awkwardly over the table. I tested my weight on them. My thighs felt like I had run three marathons and my feet throbbed, but I could stand. “I don’t actually know how much help I can be.”
“Have more nectar. It should take effect before the next fight, though it will probably not have time to restore your magic.” He moved toward me, leaning close to pick up my empty stone cup. It was impossible not to notice that he smelled of fresh sweat and sand and metal. I closed my eyes a second, getting a grip on myself, then pivoted to watch him move to another table in the long room, where a jug stood.
He poured me a drink and passed it over, and I drank, relieved to have something to concentrate on. My stomach was tying itself in knots. Residual adrenaline, anticipation for the next fight and lingering shame at my public display of weakness all crowded for space in my head. But the thing that was taking up the most space in my fuzzy brain, the thing stamping around and sending my rational thoughts scattering?
Bone-deep confusion over the mountain of muscle kicking at the sand before me.
What he had just done was selfish, dangerous, and made me so angry that I thought I was going to explode. But I was connected to him somehow, in a way that made everything else lose its sense.
22
Ares
“What is this place?” Bella asked me, as she sipped more nectar.
“It is where the fighters used to eat when they lived under the pits,” I told her. The remnants of her power were still coursing through me, and just keeping my voice level wasn’t easy. To feel the blissful elation of speed and strength and movement when I’d been fighting the cyclopes and drawing on her magic... I had told her the truth. I had never meant to drain her of all her power and energy.
But now I was worried that my lack of power was doing something else to me. This girl meant nothing to me, yet an alien feeling was gripping my entire chest every time I looked at her now.
Guilt.
I felt guilty about what I had done to her.
Before Zeus stole my power, I would not have given a second thought to it. I didn’t kill her, I just left her weak, so that I may demonstrate my power. Bask in glory. That was what I did best. So why did I feel like I had done something wrong?
Because I knew the shame she would have felt, collapsing weak to the ground. I knew the thrill of the fight that I had denied her. I understood it in a way that only she and I could.
I shook off the thought, disliking what it might mean. My lack of power must have been affecting my head, as well as my body. It was making me weak everywhere. I could not afford to worry about others, when I had such a difficult goal to achieve.
But that was exactly why I did have to worry about her. As much as I hated it, I couldn’t do this alone.
I just wished it wasn’t her. I wished that the fire in her eyes didn’t linger there in my memories for hours after each fight I had with her. I wished that I didn’t hear the drums of war every time she lost her temper. I wished that her fierce tenacity didn’t spark respect inside me.
No, my feelings were wrong. So wrong. She was a human. An annoying, tiny human. I compared her to Aphrodite in my mind, picturing the two side-by-side. The Goddess of Love and most beautiful woman in the world was not even comparable to Bella. Clearly what I was feeling was a product of my situation. When I had my power back, my mind would strengthen again, and Aphrodite would love me again.
“Why don’t the fighters live under here anymore?”