The Sixth Life of Medusa

54. The Binding Ritual

"Fool! Even immortality can't fix you." A fierce backhand.

Ares staggered from the force of the blow, his world spinning as blood flooded his mouth and leaked out. Spitting a red glob at Zeus' feet, he coolly shifted his dislocated jaw back in place and braced himself for another hit.

"Grieving for what belonged to your brother. Where is your shame, you covetous dog?" Zeus' booming voice bounced off the hall walls, his red eyes burning with the fire of his fury. "Today marks the end of your childish impenitence!"

Ares said nothing in response, flatly watching Zeus instead as violent visions of patricide cooked his skull. If a blade could cut this beast, he'd do so with gleeful abandon.

"You think that was the end of that wench?" Zeus returned to his throne and settled in with a huff. "By all means, continue your antics." He waved as if offering magnanimous permission, then his expression hardened. "Continue if you wish to see me bring to life what was once dead."

Ares' hand trembled as he splashed a drop of blue tears into his goblet. A curl of shimmering gold rose like steam as the wine bubbled, then settled once more.

"Covetous dog?" The dog part Ares could understand, but covetous? He released a dead chuckle as he took his cup and strolled to his bedroom window.

The sun had just set beyond the eastern mountain range, leaving the sky a mix of deep blue that gradually faded into pink. One blink and the calming sight shifted to a battle scene. The acrid stench of burning flesh tingled his nose as screams of the wounded and grunts of the dying mixed. Upon a horse, wearing the face of another as he mowed down mortal after mortal, his curse howling in glee in the background, renewed by the wanton slaughter.

Shutting his eyes, Ares drew in steady breaths then opened them once more. The peaceful horizon returned, and so did the memory of that horrible day from centuries ago. Even without the help of blue tears, that bitter lesson remained fused to his soul like a rotting conjoined twin.

In the end, Zeus had made good his threat and shown Ares a scene impossible to forget. Aphrodite looking like that. He had seen death too many times not to know that whatever birthed those sounds she made and forced her limbs to move was not life.

"There, she's alive." Zeus waved, and she stumbled in his direction, blinking milky, lifeless eyes that still managed to look tortured. "Go on. Have your brother's leftovers."

The desecration had reached deep into Ares and shattered every wilful bone in his body. Though his mother never cried, she had turned away, eyes wet, as he finally knelt, succumbing to his role as a general.

Creak.

Ares looked down at the dented goblet. Relaxing his grip, he gulped down the wine, hardly taking note of its taste.

Zeus must die.

Or not. Ares sighed as he recalled his predicament. Athena, once again, had made a fine mess of his plans. She probably prepared a contender for him and killed off his selection to have her way. But how brazenly she went about it was wildly out of character.

There was another massive problem as well. The dead girl was Phorcys' child.

"What a mess." This was precisely why he hated interacting with the rest of Olympus; one step outside his domain and problems wouldn't stop pelting him.

And where was the Moirai? He had yet to hear from her in close to a month, with every call answered with silence. The last time they spoke, he had respectfully pleaded that the girl be moved to his domain in Olympus, but she had brushed off his concern, insisting that her carefully laid-out plan would be a guaranteed success. Was this the ending she spoke of? Cause if it was, he was rather disa—