– T A Y A H –

I woke with a sharp gasp, dragging in my breaths. I could feel the sweat slick over my forehead despite the cold outside the tent. Kàra tensed beside me and I could feel the electric power suddenly in the small, dark space.

"What's wrong?" She asked in a low voice.

I evened my breathing and turned to her beneath the furs and cloth. Her eyes were a dull silver but could quickly change under threat. I pushed a hand into her hair and pressed my forehead to hers, letting my heart slow more. She tightened an arm around me in response and waited.

"I keep dreaming–seeing the same thing in the last few spans. I'm not sure if I am just paranoid since we came across another original..." I murmured, leaning back so I could sink my head into the fur.

"What do you see?" She probed, frowning while her hand drew calming circles against my skin.

"Fire."

"That is all?"

"Just constant, unstoppable amounts of fire." I murmured, practically feeling the small tent heat. "It can't be controlled it just consumes everything. It feels like it consumes me."

Her features softened before me and she moved her fingers to trace my jaw. "You saw an immortal lose control. It is natural for you to think the same will come of your own power."

I let a long breath go and avoided those immortal eyes that had seen all forms of power in the centuries. "Maybe."

She set her head down again so her eyes came level to my own. 

"I told you that I will not let it consume you. Training you with a relic will help you master your fear over these powers. I promise you that."

A small smile tugged at my lip. I moved my hand so I could trace the lines of her face slowly. She held still while I drew lines over her cheekbones and forehead. Down to her jaw and across the bridge of her nose. She let her eyes close and a breath left her calmly.

"I like mapping you out." I murmured. "You seem more real."

Her eyes flashed open and she smirked shamelessly. "Yet I was the one who considered you unreal in my dream when you entered. I felt so foolish that you had been so close–yet I dismissed you as my imagination." 

"I am not offended. Just disappointed." I drawled.

She chuckled and shut her eyes again as I continued my exploration of her face with my fingertips. I crossed over her closed eyes when I spoke again.

"I think about how we met a lot." She hummed under me in question. "It is not how I imagined meeting the love of my life."

"Tayah, I did not even believe in a love of life, so I agree with you on that one." She retorted with another smile.

I giggled and flicked her nose. Her eyes opened again and held something deeper in them. Those eyes always made my heart move that much faster. When her attention was on me so fully I felt exposed but thrilled at the same time. It was a deadly and beautiful combination.

"But you had interests. Immortals you were close to." I ventured, thinking of her earlier words with a spark of that hot spike of jealousy.

"There it is again." She murmured, watching me closely. "You cannot be jealous–"

"I am not!" I insisted a bit too loud in the small space.

She gave me a knowing look. "You should not be jealous because there is nothing to be envious of. No other suitor that has me the way you do, Tayah Ashrive. Meeting you ruined and remade me."

I stilled and looked at her more seriously. "Ruined?"

A small smile pulled the corner of her lips. "Not in the way you are thinking. You destroyed the Valkyrie that carried out the will of the gods without question. Then you made me into an immortal that sees more than endless time ahead of me. I see life that I can discover and have with you. Adventures with idiotic morons like John–"

"You have got to get over your hate of him." I interrupted, continuing the lines on her face again.

"He'll only live for another fifty winters or so–"

"Kàra" I growled. She kissed my fingers. 

"I jest. Partly."

"Why exactly. Do you dislike him so?" I asked seriously. 

She paused under my hand as if it did not need answering. But I waited anyway. She sighed and scanned my face.

"He provokes me. I respond." She stated simply.

"He provokes everyone." I rolled my eyes.

"No... This mortal. I can ignore imbeciles quite easily but your man has a way with words that makes me want to drag him through the Underworld and back."

"Don't say your man like that." I wrinkled my nose, thinking of the man I considered a brother.

"Why?" She smirked, pulling my face closer to hers. "You have never considered him as such?"

She sounded like she was dripping in humour but there was something in her tone that actually suggested she was serious. I froze for a moment realising she actually believed that John and I shared a... history.

"That's it!" I shouted in the small space. "You think I bedded John?!" I demanded.

Her face said it all. I burst into laughter so loud I even heard the men metres away call back in annoyance in the camp. Kàra moved over me and pressed her palm over my mouth as tears left my eyes.

"If you could not wake up the entire continent that would be appreciated." She uttered.

I was still laughing in her hand until I got a hold on it and pulled her hand back.

"That. Is why you hate him? You–" I choked down another laugh and met her emotionless features. "–I never thought in a thousand realms that was the reason you hated him so much."

She sighed and glared at me. Actually glared. Under the circumstances I started giggling again. There was no helping it this was the last thing I had expected.

"I had no reason to think otherwise the way he touched you before–the relations you had indicated–"

"That he is nothing more than a brother to me." I cut in, shaking my head. "John is flirtatious by nature not by relation." I insisted.

"You were mortals. For all I knew Kaden was involved–"

I made a gagging sound and covered her lips with my hand.

"Please. Please. Never think of this again. I think I am about to see breakfast, lunch and dinner reappear at the very idea of those two that way."

She grinned around my hand and pulled it back slowly. "So never..."

"Never." I repeated. "That would be akin to me suggesting you bedded Revna."

She stilled and a smile cut across her slowly. My jaw slackened and I glared her down. She raised her hands to me quickly.

"It was a long time ago–"

"Now you get to sleep outside." I said sweetly.

She grinned and pulled me into her arms tightly.

"How dare you."

"Should I accuse you of every mortal you ever bedded. I am sure there are a few..." She answered in a cool tone.

I stilled under her and she laughed into my shoulder.

"Remind me to never wake you in the night again. We learn too much of each other."

"Where is the fun in that." She whispered, before cutting off my response with a slow kiss that made me forget about any stupid pursuit before her. There were no lips worth my time but for hers. 

* * * * *

"We are less than a span from the capital. I want you to try this."

I stared at the gleaming helm and took a measured breath. The men sat beneath a rocky cover huddled between the boy and thick furs. Yanu watched me with wide eyes.

"If I scorch the mountainside of life it is you that I blame." I muttered, lifting the helmet above my head.

"There is not much life to begin with so nothing to fear." My immortal shrugged.

I felt the hum of power under my gloves as I lowered it to my head. Then without further delay I sank it over my face and saw the world sharpen into the diamond-like holes. The white cliff around us felt no different through the helm. The surge was noticeable but nothing like the explosive power I imagined. I relaxed my shoulders slightly and shot Kára a confused look.

"It is not Thanatos. That does not mean you should underestimate the power. It works differently." She told me calmly.

"How does this relic work?"

"I do not know." She shrugged, "I have never wielded Athena's relic–"

"How on earth do you suppose I control it if you do not know!" I accused, trying to measure the new and extensive feel of fire within me.

"Calm your mind. Remember what I told you. I may not have controlled Athena's power but I know the truth of the gods power remains. Do not absorb it, allow it to pass through you only." She murmured, pulling the black shield from her back slowly and holding it before herself.

"Acknowledge the strength." She told me as she let her hand become soaked with a dark power. Even her eyes flashed briefly black before dancing back to silver again. "Then let it go." The blackness coursed through her hand and she raised her other finger to the sky before the undead blackness of smoke and claws was released to the skies above.

I nodded, shutting my eyes and focusing of the bottomless feel of new power. Power that was not my own. I imagined myself as nothing more than a vessel to it. Just as I had become a vessel before–when my mind was taken–manipulated to a crazed immortal and made to do hideous–

Flames ripped out of my hands and cracked the stone below me in their sudden inferno.

Just as soon as I felt the vast raging fire it was taken from me. I opened my eyes to see Kára's palm raised and the angry fire travel through her and rip up into the sky in a high burning beacon. I gawked at the sheer size of it. At what my power was with a relic.

"That is not Athena's power." She breathed heavily. Dipping her head down to meet my shocked gaze. "You are not using the power of the relic as you should. You are trying to use your own."

"And that is bad..?"

"Catastrophic." She concluded. "You are not ready for that. I want to see you expel Athena's power of wind from the helm. Nothing more."

I tightened my fists and focused once more. I knew why it was that way. My own fear and anger at the past drew it to the surface. I had to disregard all I thought of relics. Then another thought came to me quickly and I opened my eyes.

"But you can control the winds too–"

"Focus." She growled. "We are not on the subject of my power we are on yours."

I snapped my eyes shut again and tried to visualise the goddess sending winds through me. Nothing but a passage from this relic to the skies. I exhaled and raised my palms once again. Bright burning energy flowed through me and a vortex of fire shot out rapidly into the mountain side. I heard the men shout and Yanu clap excitedly. Rocks rolled off the mountain side and fell of the edge.

"I think I felt a breeze with that one!" John called, kicking out a few stray embers on the ground.

I growled and tore the helmet off my head with a sudden urge to set the whole goddamn continent alight. It hit the rock with a clang and I spun a fist into the opposite direction of all of them. A vicious tornado of gold and red fire shot from me. I punched my other fist out and let both consume the air off the edge of the cliff into white oblivion.

Kára waited patiently behind me until I puffed out a heavy frustrated breath and lowered my fists.

"Your rage is Ares rage. It fuels your power. You cannot use that to wield another power." She told me slowly. I grit my teeth and whirled on her.

"Odin's power is not exactly fuelled by smiles either!" I snapped.

She gave me a dark smile. "No, immortal. It is not."

"So what exactly is it that fuels your power demi-god?" I growled low, dropping into an aggressive stance I was not fully aware of. She was unbothered, she regarded me as if she expected as much.

"You know the key to his power. You felt it that night on the beach. You accessed it when you achieved closure with your family. When you finished what had been started by those that took so much from you. Peace."

I was still for a moment. I barked a laugh still feeling the fire of rage urge me on.

"Peace? That is your secret to Odin's thunder?" I threw her a mocking grin and moved to pick up the helm again. But my immortal was faster. She kicked it out of reach and stared me down.

"No." 

I felt the anger rise in me once again. Perhaps it was the taste of a god's power surging through me that brought me closer to my god's elemental. Or perhaps it was a much more basic urge to just fight her with all I had.

"Scared of an Ares descendant?" I drawled, lighting my fist.

"You are wrapped in emotions and powers you cannot control yet. You will feel yourself again soon enough." She answered, picking up the relic and turning her back on me.

I snarled and slashed an arch of fire down on her. The shield on her back devoured it before it so much as singed a single hair. She stopped in her tracks and thunder rumbled above distantly.

"We are done this span, Tayah. Calm your mind."

"What if I would rather test my mind." I cut back, drawing more of the burning fire into me and enjoying the way my cloak lit up around me. She tilted her blonde head over her shoulder with maddening calm.

"That is your choice. But you will not like the outcome."

I growled low and felt it deep in my bones. The mortals under the rock whispered quickly but they meant nothing. This was about showing a demi-god what true power was. What Ares fire could do. The flames ripped past my hands and up my forearms as I dropped into a fighting crouch. I had never felt more alive being so close to the god's energy. A beautiful deathly thing.

"Last time I will say this, Tayah. Control yourself." She murmured over the winds.

I answered her with a wave of growing fire between us. Rising higher and higher. Towering over the blonde woman that held two relics but did not draw on the power of either. I smiled slowly as the flames grew and burned hotter over her. I would show them all–

The idea was cut from my head as quickly as my power was. It felt like an axe had seized straight through me. Through my lungs, my ties to the gods, to my being on the realm entirely. I dropped to my knees and the flames vanished into the cold winds. My vision took on the deathly haze around the edges that felt like I was being ripped out of my own body.

My mind was no longer angry. It felt no trace of the rage. The fire. It felt desperate to live.

She walked to me slowly watching. Then lowered a knee before me and said something. I tried to focus on her mouth. Her hand unclenched and I sucked in a breath I did not need as my body and immortality came back to me in a rush. I fell to the stone but she caught my shoulders.

"I don't expect you to understand what you just became. But I do expect you to be better the next time we try this." She told me in a low voice that was more powerful than any burning power. "Please do not make me do that again."

I shook my head trying to make the blur of her come into more focus. It was a slow process and she knew as much. I watched her hand glow with white light and then felt some of her energy pass through to me. It filled me with warmth and power. But not a vengeful and angry one. One that felt like peace and endless calm.

How had I never noticed that.