Where War Learns to Bloom

The first thing Serus noticed about the boy was that he smelled like spring. It was an absurd thought, and Serus, who had spent centuries listening to generals explain why they had lost battles they had been warned not to fight, knew a thing or two about absurdity. Spring was not a scent. Not exactly. It was a season, a brief and temperamental promise of warmth between the cruelties of winter and the merciless heat that followed. Yet, from the high balcony of his palace, Serus caught the faintest trace of something like that, and his attention wandered from the petition being read to him. Below, Emeraldium was waking beneath a pale gold sun. The streets surrounding the palace were already crowded. Merchants arranged their wares beneath striped awnings, children slipped between the legs of impatient adults, and the sound of cartwheels rattled over the green stone roads. The city was built from emerald-coloured marble and dark, mossy stone, its towers rising in elegant spires that caught the morning light. Gold ran through the architecture in thin, deliberate veins, as though the entire kingdom had been carved from a precious stone and decorated by someone with an unreasonable affection for wealth. Serus had always thought the city was rather fond of itself. He stood with one forearm resting against the balcony rail, dressed in red and gold, his long dark hair stirring in the morning breeze. The golden symbol on his forehead glimmered whenever the light caught it. His armour had been left in his chambers, though the absence of it did little to make him look less formidable. Even without a weapon in his hand, there was something about the God of War that reminded people of the terrible things hands could do. Behind him, Lord Caedmon was speaking. Something about border patrols. Or the grain stores. Or a disagreement between two commanders who had apparently forgotten that Serus had better things to do than settle arguments over whose soldiers had been insulted first. Serus had stopped listening several minutes ago. The scent came again. He turned his head. On the street below, a young man was attempting to negotiate with a fruit seller. “I am telling you,” the boy said, holding up a bruised pear between two fingers, “that this one is rotting.” The merchant stared at him. “It is ripe.” “It has a hole in it.” “A small hole.” “Something has eaten it.” “Something with excellent taste.” The boy looked at him for a long moment. Then he laughed. Serus found himself watching his mouth. The boy wore a loose, cream-coloured shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows and dark trousers tucked into worn leather boots. A woven basket hung from his arm, already crowded with vegetables and a bundle of herbs. His dark brown hair fell messily over his forehead, and the sunlight warmed his skin to the colour of honey. He did not carry a sword. He had no guards, no attendant, no insignia announcing his connection to the palace or any noble household. He looked like an ordinary young man who had been sent out to buy food and had discovered, to his considerable irritation, that the price of pears had become a matter of personal philosophy. There were marks on his back, Serus noticed when the boy shifted beneath the basket's weight, glimpsed briefly through the loose collar of his shirt. A line of moon phases, dark against his skin. The boy handed the merchant a few coins, accepted his purchases, and began walking again. Serus followed him with his eyes. He did not know the boy's name. He wanted to. "Your Majesty?" Serus blinked. Lord Caedmon had stopped speaking. He stood several paces behind him, holding a stack of parchment with the strained expression of a man who had devoted his morning to a task only to discover that his audience had abandoned him for something considerably less important. "What?" Serus asked. "The matter of the eastern garrison." "Resolve it." Caedmon hesitated. "You have not heard the details." "Then I am sure you can explain them to someone who cares." The councillor's mouth tightened. Serus smiled pleasantly. "Caedmon." "Yes, my lord?" "Go away." The councillor bowed, though his expression suggested he was reconsidering several of his life choices, and withdrew into the palace. Serus remained at the balcony. The boy had disappeared around the corner. For reasons he did not care to examine, this annoyed him. August had been home for barely five minutes when his eldest sister accused him of stealing from their mother. "I did not steal anything," he said. "Then explain the honey cakes." August stopped in the doorway. His second sister, Mara, sat at the kitchen table with a piece of bread in one hand and an expression of deep personal betrayal on her face. Beside her, their eldest sister, Elara, stood with her arms folded. August looked at the empty plate on the table. Then he looked at Mara. Mara looked back at him. "Those were for supper," Elara said. "I know." "And yet they are gone." August set his basket on the counter. "Perhaps they ran away." Elara pointed at him. "Don't encourage her." "I'm not encouraging anyone. I'm merely offering a reasonable explanation." "August." "Yes, Mother?" Their mother appeared from the adjoining room, wiping her hands on a cloth. She was a small woman with tired eyes and a face that became gentler whenever she looked at her children. Her dark hair was tied back, though several strands had escaped around her temples. She looked at August. August looked at her. "Did you eat the honey cakes?" she asked. He considered lying. He considered it seriously, too, because he had eaten only one. Mara had eaten the rest, which made the entire accusation deeply unfair. "One," he admitted. "Three," Mara corrected. August turned to her. "Traitor." "You left crumbs on your shirt." He looked down. Their mother sighed, but her mouth twitched at the corners. "Wash your hands and help me with the vegetables. And no more stealing food before supper." "I didn't steal. I sampled." "August." "Yes, Mother." He washed his hands. Their house was small by the standards of Emeraldium, with two bedrooms, a narrow kitchen, and a courtyard where their mother grew herbs in clay pots. The plaster on the kitchen walls had begun to crack near the windows, and the wooden table had a permanent wobble that nobody had managed to fix despite several determined attempts by August and his sisters. It was not a grand home. It was warm in the winter, unbearably hot in the summer, and filled with the ordinary noises of people who had spent so much of their lives together that silence between them rarely lasted more than a few minutes. August loved the chipped cups his mother refused to replace, the herbs growing in the courtyard, and the way Mara hummed while she worked despite having absolutely no talent for music. He loved Elara's habit of pretending she was not worried about anyone, even as she remembered every little thing that might trouble them. He loved that his mother always saved the softest piece of bread for him. He loved a hundred little things he had never thought to count. "You're smiling," Mara observed. August glanced at her. "Am I not allowed?" "You're suspiciously happy for someone who was accused of theft." "I have accepted my punishment." "What punishment?" "Your company." Mara threw a piece of bread at him. He ducked, laughing, and their mother told them both to stop behaving like children. For a while, everything was ordinary. August chopped vegetables. Elara complained about the cost of lamp oil. Mara announced that she had decided to marry a wealthy merchant and retire from all domestic responsibilities, which prompted their mother to ask whether the wealthy merchant knew about this arrangement. He apparently did not. The conversation moved on. August listened, occasionally adding a remark that earned him a glare from Elara or a laugh from Mara. He felt the familiar warmth of home settle around him, and for a little while, he thought about nothing beyond supper. He had no reason to think that anyone important had noticed him that morning. By midday, Serus had asked about the boy four times. By the fifth, his captain had begun to look concerned. "His name," Serus said, standing in the middle of his private chamber, "is August." Captain Rhovan waited. "His family?" "We are still gathering information, my lord." Serus turned. Rhovan was a tall man, broad-shouldered and scarred across the jaw, with the steady expression of someone who had served in enough battles to know when silence was preferable to honesty. He had been Serus's personal captain for nearly forty years. He hadseen Serus become inexplicably interested in a particularly well-made sword and spend three weeks discussing its craftsmanship. This was different. "You have an entire company of soldiers," Serus said. "You have informants in every district, messengers who can cross the city in minutes, and a council that somehow knows when a baker has overcharged a palace servant. Yet you cannot tell me who one young man is?" Rhovan's expression remained carefully neutral. "We only began investigating him this morning." "And?" "We know where he lives. He resides with his mother and two older sisters in the southern quarter. His family is not noble. His mother sells herbs and medicinal preparations, and the sisters appear to assist her with her work." "He has no military record, no association with the council, and no known connection to any noble household. We have found no indication that he possesses an official position or any particular influence." "Does he have a lover?" Rhovan paused. "I am asking a question." "I understand, my lord." "Then answer it." "We have found no evidence of one." Serus considered this. "Good." Rhovan's gaze shifted very slightly. Serus noticed. "Something to say, Captain?" "No, my lord." "You're a terrible liar." "I have been told." Serus laughed, a low sound that eased some of the tension in the room. He moved towards the window, where the city stretched beneath the afternoon sun. August. He repeated the name silently. It suited the boy, though he could not have explained why. There was something warm about it, something that lingered on the tongue. Serus had seen beautiful people before. He had watched kings offer their children to the gods in exchange for favours, seen nobles dress themselves in gold and silk in the hope of catching divine attention, and listened to countless petitions from mortals who wanted something from him. August had wanted a decent pear. "Find out when he usually comes to the market," Serus said. Rhovan hesitated. "May I ask why?" "No." The captain bowed. "As you wish, my lord." "And Rhovan?" "Yes?" "Do not frighten the boy." Something in Serus's voice had changed. It was subtle, but Rhovan heard it. "Speak to people who know him. Ask questions. Do your work quietly. I want to know about him, not have half the city whispering that the God of War has developed an interest in a merchant's son." "Understood." "And if you discover anything unpleasant, tell me before you decide what to do about it." Rhovan bowed again and left. Serus stood alone at the window. He could not have said why the instruction mattered so much. It would have been easy to summon August to the palace. A message bearing the royal seal would have brought the boy to his doors, whether August wished to come or not. But the thought did not please him. He wanted to meet August. He wanted, quite simply to know him. It was an unfamiliar desire, not because Serus had never wanted anyone before, but because he had never been particularly interested in the small details of wanting. August had made him curious. And curiosity, Serus was beginning to discover, could be a far more persistent thing. That evening, August sat in the courtyard with his knees drawn up, watching the last light settle over the rooftops. His sisters had gone inside to help their mother prepare the next day's stock of herbs. Their voices drifted through the open window, occasionally interrupted by the sound of Mara laughing at something Elara had said. August leaned his head against the wall. The air smelled of damp soil and crushed mint. Somewhere nearby, someone was playing a flute, the melody wandering through the streets without any particular destination. He closed his eyes. He liked evenings best. There was something forgiving about them, something that made the world seem gentler than it had been in the morning. He thought about the things he wanted from life. Nothing grand. He wanted his mother to stop working until her hands ached. He wanted Elara to find someone who made her happy without making her feel she had to earn it. He wanted Mara to stop pretending she was going to marry a wealthy merchant when what she really wanted was to travel beyond Emeraldium and see the ocean. He wanted to see the ocean, too. He wanted to visit the southern gardens when the flowers were in bloom, buy a proper book of poetry, and learn to play the flute well enough that the neighbours would stop shutting their windows whenever he practised. He wanted an ordinary life. The kind that could be lived without wondering what the gods might want from him. Above the city, the first stars appeared. August opened his eyes and looked up. He did not know that, in the palace overlooking the emerald streets, Serus was standing beneath the same sky, thinking about him. He did not know that a soldier had already learned the route from his home to the market. He did not know that his name had been spoken in the private chambers of a god who had commanded armies and watched kingdoms fall. He only knew that the evening was beautiful, that the mint needed watering, and that his mother would scold him if he fell asleep outside again. So he rose, brushed the dust from his trousers, and went inside. Behind him, the courtyard settled into silence. And far above the rooftops, in the palace of the God of War, a single golden lamp remained burning long after midnight. Serus had asked for August's name. Tomorrow, he intended to learn the sound of his voice. And for the first time in a very long while, the God of War found himself looking forward to something that had nothing to do with battle.