Amarantha

The God watched, emotions at war within him as his Champion fought; not simply for her life, but for her very existence. The portal he’d created within her garden permitted him this vision of her presence, but he remained powerless to aid her; and that knowledge enraged him further...

...Amarantha’s hair whipped around her face, blinded her for precious seconds as she avoided the sword of her newest would-be assassin. She hated this body she had been thrust into, its’ lethargic responses, even after years of understanding of the weakness, were still infuriating, also dangerous. She breathed deeply, searched the core of her spirit for the strength that her God and master had taught her. She shuddered when her attacker’s weapon sliced into her right arm, cutting close to the bone.

Pain lit trails of fire and agony that rippled through her, and she forcibly blocked her awareness of it. She dodged, motion graceful and easy as instinct overrode the restrictions of an alien form. His voice murmured approval and she smiled inwardly. She could only hear him when she was near the end of her mission, and his well-loved tones gave her new strength.

Amarantha continued the pirouette of movement, and as she swung to face her enemy, she focused intently on her purpose. This infidel was the last of a large group who had been defiling and looting the Temples of the Gods. With his death, that desecration would finally end.

And the Champion could return to her own place in time.

“Who are you?”

She smiled, the gleaming blade of her sword poised at his throat.

“I believe you already know,” she murmured softly, tone pitched to a lethal purr of anger and contempt.

He shook his head, dark skin suddenly tainted with ash grey as he denied inwardly what his instincts taunted him with while he stared into her eyes.

“You cannot be...”

She laughed, the sound bitter, and layered with irony.

“Amarantha,” she supplied.

He closed his eyes and waited, now certain of his demise.

She struck, the pure silvery metal of Hephaestus’ God forged weapon sliding through the sinew and bone of the mortal before her. His blood flowed freely and she screamed inside her head, demanded of the Gods her release.

The whirl of life transference began as the fifth century Roman solider completed his journey to Hades’ domain. Amarantha clenched her teeth as her own body, held in the stasis between all worlds and time, began to wake fully. She whispered a prayer of thanks to Zeus, aware as she did so of the incongruity of it. The King of the Gods, like the others on Olympus, would not be overly pleased that she had survived yet again. Only one of the Twelve would welcome her, and she smiled with the knowledge of their reunion...

When the dimensional spirals and spins ceased, she slowly sat up and looked around. She was in his Temple, the surroundings of home a vision that made her heart soar with relief. She rose and glanced at the polished mirror, reassured by the face that looked back at her from the glass. Waist-length white hair, palest grey eyes, and the lithe form that had been her mortal body so long ago. She turned to glance at the bed, smiled as she went to lift from it the gossamer, trailing white silk gown; the raiment he always chose for her return to him.

The garden outside the Temple was lush and in full bloom when she stepped into the afternoon sun. She spotted him instantly and ran to his side.

He spun around, caught her to him, and she thrilled at the touch she had craved so often during the years of separation. This time it had been a span of nearly two decades that they’d been apart. His hands cupped her face and she knew he drank her image as deeply as she did his in those first, cherished moments.

“You were reckless,” he admonished after several minutes of silence. “Numerous times. It is getting more difficult to sense you as our world drifts from real time to memory.”

“I know.” She nodded. “I lost your presence many times, Beloved,” she whispered. “But when I needed you most, I heard your voice.”

“That may not happen again.”

“Ares, why do they want me to fail?”

The God of War smiled; a dark, cold shift of strikingly handsome features.

“They know you will live long after we have become myth,” he told her, velvety voice rough and textured with countless nuances and subtle emotions. “That I created you to preserve our place in history was an act to which few were happy to concede. They see you outliving Gods and mortals, because you are both, yet neither.”

“I am what you made me,” she replied quietly, uneasy. “First your slave, then your student. I have served you in all ways, as I do your family. The Fates decree what my existence means, in whatever life I am needed.”

“They’ve also foreseen our end,” the War God imparted, voice hushed, troubled.

“I am bound to you,” she began, then hesitated when his dark eyes flared with rage and power.

“Ares?”

“You will walk the earth long after us,” he stated.

“No,” she shook her head, tried to free herself from the suddenly suffocating strength of his arms.

“It is your Destiny,” he said simply, then kissed her; a long, intimate caress of sensuality and need. “Consort to the God of War; Champion of Olympus; more eternal than time itself... That was the Fate I chose for you, Amarantha.”

“Yet if I fail—”

“You won’t,” he interrupted quietly. “Unless you choose to die. I did not train you to die in a mortal form, worlds away from me.”

“No,” she nodded in agreement. “And I have chosen to be all you have demanded.” She leaned into him, and closed her eyes as he held her tightly to him; tried to ignore the whispers of fear that plagued her.

In a distant corner of her mind, she heard the mocking laughter of the other Gods...

They would wait for her failure.

And Ares, the proud God she had pledged her allegiance to, would forever be forced to wait for her permanent return to him.