Saints (SAINTS #1) | ✓

43

THE TENSION BETWEEN AZRIEL and Michael was nearly palpable. Azriel's arm was on her chair, his eyes shooting daggers at his brother, the latter ignoring them both. They were somehow similar though, that was hard to deny. Michael had the same sharp jaw and features, the only difference his pale blonde hair, a sharp contrast against Azriel's jet black locks. Their skin was the same sunkissed shade, though Michael was wearing armor instead of a suit, a spear strapped to his back, his sword resting between his legs, hands on the hilt.

It was easy to notice that a lot of the people attending were dressed in battle armor, but she doubted a real battle would really ensue. If her intuition was right about the Grim Reaper, and it always was, he was significantly more powerful than the others. She supposed someone had to keep them in check, no matter how dreadful that role seemed to be for him.

"Seth," the Grim Reaper sighed," I heard you got in a fight with Ares again."

The god he was talking to leaned back in his chair. He was clad entirely in gold, from his necklace to the cloth wrapped around his waist, his chest bare. The thing that got Jasmina's attention wasn't any of that though, it was the mask he was wearing - or at least, she assumed it to be a mask. His head was far from human, with a pointed snout and rectangular ears, resembling many and yet no animals at the same time. There were no emotions visible beneath his pitch black eyes, a small storm of sand starting around his knuckles as he tapped them on the table.

"So?" he said.

"That's Seth," Azriel whispered to her," Egyptian god of -"

"Destruction and storms," Jasmina drawled," I know."

Azriel looked impressed, shaking his head. "You do your research well. At this point you probably know them all better than I do."

The god she assumed to be Ares started talking, dark hair and eyes carrying a red sheen akin to blood, his armor gleaming in the muted sunlight. The blond goddess Eros had gone to earlier smiled fondly at him, a hand on Ares' wrists.

"He keeps intervening in my wars!" he complained.

"There's no owner of wars, fool," Seth said, his low voice causing a ripple through the storm around him," there are only the death."

"Calm down, Seth," the green-skinned man beside him said, a golden crook and flail strapped to his waist and the aura of an emperor gleaming in his eyes. "Acting like a child isn't a good look on you."

"Come on," Ares said to the Grim Reaper," this was obviously Seth's fault. Hell, he even cut up Osiris and that's his own brother."

"That matter has been dealt with," the green-skinned man said, though the tone he had suggested it wasn't.

Osiris, god of the dead. She recalled Azriel saying he was close to one of the Egyptian gods as well and wondered if it was him. Knowing Azriel it would be the most violent one of them, but she hadn't seen enough of Osiris yet to see if he had the same temper as his brother. A golden-haired man interrupted them, eyes the color of a summer sky and skin dipped in sunlight.

"Let's all get along," he said," we only see each other once a year anyway."

"I prefer it that way," the girl beside him said, her face so similar it was clear they were related. A crescent hung around her neck, glowing like it carried the actual moon itself, stars interlaced in her wild, midnight hair and a quiver filled with arrows strapped to her back. "Leaving my forest for this chaos each year isn't something I look forward to."