Kyra

Chapter Sixteen

The last thing Kyra expected to wake up to was another rose on her pillow. She was sure after her outburst yesterday that the God would stop sending them. That he'd come to his senses and see she was nothing but trouble. That their disagreement would be the end of whatever it was they were to each other.

Evidently, that wasn't the case.

She stared, blinking awake, at the blood red petals leaning towards her.

I'm not the one being unreasonable. You're the one being unreasonable, arsehole.

She launched the flower across her bedroom in a rage, glaring at the ceiling.

If he thought he could balm over their every wound with a pretty flower, he had another thing coming for him. Still, when she got out of bed and prepared to get dressed, she felt bad seeing it lay so limply and uselessly on the floor.

As she picked it up and tucked it between the pages of a thick and heavy book, she hated him that little bit more than she had before.

Her feet felt heavy as she dragged them through to the kitchen. Today's conversation buzz was Ares' announcement from yesterday. Their first battle was a big deal. Kyra wished she could be as excited as the others seemed to be. She wished there wasn't a glitch in her programming. That she didn't have to challenge things the way she did. Maybe then she'd have an easier time with all of this.

But she didn't want to be mindless. She didn't want to accept shit as fact just because someone told her it was. She wanted her own authority. Her own right to make decisions. That didn't mean she cared for the stress that accompanied it.

"It is a little scary though, isn't it?" One girl was saying as Kyra slipped into the seat beside her. "I mean, what happens if something goes wrong? Do we just die or does someone intervene?"

"I'm sure the older Amazons will intervene," Another spoke animatedly. "They can't not intervene, right? They wouldn't just leave us to die."

Another Amazon piped up, adding, "I don't know whether to be nervous or excited or both."

Kyra's was the sobering voice. The tone that didn't sit right with the buzz. The odd one out. "And you're okay with this? All of you are okay with this?"

She'd killed the mood. That much was obvious from the second she opened her mouth. But what was she to do? Not say anything?

"I've cried a few times," The second girl said. "But that's natural, right? A buildup of nervousness."

"You're okay with the terms on which we're being made to do this?" Kyra pushed. "We're mortal. If something happens, we just die. There's no waking back up from that."

"Maybe. But we've known this was going to happen forever."

That doesn't make it right.

"But what about the battle? You're happy to fight a battle without knowing why you're doing it."

"I'm sure Ares has got a good reason."

I wish I believed that. By now, she felt it safe to say she knew the God better than anyone else sitting at the table. But she didn't say that. She couldn't say that.

So she came from a different angle, pushing it even further. "Is being sure good enough? Fair enough if we were going out there to put an end to a group of mass murderers. But what if we're sent out there to fight decent people? What if we're not on the right side of this war? Are you okay with that?"

The others looked between each other, no one wanting to be the person to respond. Sheepishly, a girl from before forced herself to meet Kyra's gaze. "What Ares says goes."