He’d been awake for hours, dozing when he could, simply lying still when he couldn’t, and hoping for the best. The best, however, was death. He wasn’t so much in the care of the gods as he was the rats. They brought him bits of stale food. The gods, on the other hand, seemed to have forgotten him. No surprise, though, he reasoned. There had never been a single one who’d interested themselves in the better welfare of a mortal. Every story he’d read of gods from peoples across the world reflected their disregard in the name of good intentions. And the road to hell was paved with them. Maybe that was why mortals went where they did when they died.

  Some called it hell. Others called it the afterlife, Sho’el, Tartarus, Yomi, the underworld, Tlalocan, Mictlan, or the Beginning After. Milo, though, thought the idea of some torturous post-life realm was absurd. Life was hell enough. Whatever waited on the other side, waited in the splendor of peace. It was a heaven he couldn’t reach, not one meant for him because he could never be good enough to deserve it, and that was the reason he’d lived. He tucked his hands tighter under his arms and struggled to breathe for the hundredth time, pushing away Lukas’s cries. He did what he asked, and promised to do, but it didn’t save him. And now he couldn’t get his voice out of his head.

  “Teddy’s been a lot more fun than George. He was all bark and no bite,” Callan said, pulling the chair out from the table and sitting down. It’d been days since he’d returned, and not a single person had visited between, aside from the healer.

  It was only a few hours after Callan and his lackey had left when the door swung open and a tall, thin woman wandered in as if she were lost. She squinted and pulled the glasses off the top of her head, long frazzled strings of strawberry blond hair tangled and sagged as they caught on the corners of her frames. She smiled when spotted him and danced her way over to his holding cell. But her friendly mien faded. Her eyes drew round and her mouth dangled open. For longer than polite, she stared at him, unable to make sense of what she saw. It was as though she’d never seen a prisoner in her life, and certainly not one as young as himself. Barely a man at all. And her discomfort was clear as day as she made short work of healing him, doing enough only to make him comfortable. Or as comfortable as he could be under the circumstances. But it was the way she’d looked at Milo as if something about him unsettled her, that was eating at him more so than his hungry stomach and the irritation of listening to the endless banter of his captors.

  “I’m getting bored.” She strolled across the room, dragging her fingers over the table. “How many times have we found where that fox, Makler, is hiding and we waste another opportunity burning only one hole in his den?”

  “You’re trying to take all the fun out of it.” He chuckled as he poured himself a drink.

  “Fun? It’s been over a decade and a half. Where are you going with all this? It’s not like there are any interesting mortals here. We have to job to do, Callan.”

  “I know, and it’s just become interesting.” The ice in his glass clinked against the sides as he made a broad gesture toward the cell opposite of him. “We have someone new to play with.”

  She folded her arms and shook her head while he dangled the glass of dark liquor from his fingertips. “You can’t be serious.,” she groaned, and in turn, he snorted as if he found her response something comical. He took a drink, and she frowned. She shook her head, sending waves through her long silver hair. “But he’s a child.”

  “A child that killed a lot of my soldiers, darling,” he corrected, almost proud of what Milo had accomplished. “He’s exceptional and you know it. That’s why you went back for him.” He pointed at her as if proving his point and took another sip of his drink.

  “He’s different from the others,” the woman said, softer than before. She glanced at Milo’s cell, where he’d been lying still under a blanket for hours. His breathing was slow, and she let out a low-hummed groan, unsure if he was asleep or not. She tapped her toes, trying to make up her mind about him, and turned back to her partner, throwing her hands to her sides. “He deserves an easy life, Callan. He’s just a boy. Can’t we put him in a nursery town? He’s so young and should have never been on the front lines like that. What were they thinking?”

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  “A boy?” Callan raised his eyebrows as she paced the room. “He’s sixteen or seventeen, give or take a year or two, and can wield a sword better than a lot of my own. He can decide for himself what he wants to do and where he goes. We don’t take prisoners.”

  In the cell, Milo shifted, turning over and then sitting himself up. What a beautiful lie they told themselves. He hoped they slept better at night when they said it enough times. They didn’t take prisoners. Then what was he? Their pet? He pulled the blanket tight around his shoulders and drew his knees to his chest. As much as he wanted to give up, curl into a ball, and die like everyone else he knew and loved, he couldn’t and had to live. He had no choice. And living without them, their memories fading to ash, was almost more painful than dying in battle in the first place.

  The woman, small, petite, and shining like a silver star, walked over and peered through the bars. Her soft fingers wrapped around the cold metal as she peered in and tilted her head to the side. The gentle smile on her lips made her seem kinder than the wicked glint flickering in her eyes. She looked him up and down, admiring him like a mother to a child. Her lips pressed into a satisfied line as she relaxed, her hand resting against the bar and the other sweeping her long hair over her shoulder. Asherah, the only woman among the Horseman, was a queen of kings. A god not to be underestimated by her appearance. She was Conquest, and no mortal could refuse her call to submit.

  “How are you feeling, sweetie?”

  “Leave me alone,” Milo grumbled and brought the blanket up to his eyes.

  “I know you’re uncomfortable in there. It’s just,” she glanced back to Callan, “we need to figure out what to do with you. What’s your name?”

  “Fuck off,” he spat and turned away. She could charm her will on anyone else, but not him. He would never fall to his knees for her unless she forced him there, forced him to her whim. Even so, he wouldn’t give her the pleasure of thinking she mattered. She didn’t. She was a wretched god who’d come and ruined the little bits of good left in his world.

  “Milo Stillwater.” Callan provided from where he sat at the table, tapping a file folder and setting his glass aside.

  “Milo?” Asherah leaned on the bars to get a better look at him as he hunched forward in defeat. “That’s a nice name. Are you hungry, sweetheart? You’ve been in here for hours.”

  He shrugged. What did they care if he was hungry? It’d been days. They could have fed him and they didn’t, and as far as he could tell, they only thought to feed him when they found it convenient.

  “We don’t want to hurt you.” She lowered her voice, reassuring him of their faux benevolence.

  “I want to hurt him,” Callan chided.

  “Stop it,” she hissed over her shoulder. “You’re just pissed off because he stabbed you the first time he woke up. How was I supposed to know he had another knife on him?”

  “In the neck, Asherah. He stabbed me in the neck,” he clarified.

  “And you healed.” She glared at him, making clear his complaints had fallen on deaf ears. “We’re not arguing about this in front of the kid.”

  “I’m not a kid!” Milo snapped around, fury blazing in his eyes like gold flecks of dawn’s first light. He’d had more than enough of their patronizing. Of anyone he’d stood among, he was more a man than most. Too many had run away crying like children in the night at the first real fight for their lives. And they’d died sobbing. Not him, though. He’d taken all the fear pouring from his spirit and made it his armor. He’d made it his reason to live, to fight, and he was more a man than a child for it.

  “I agree,” Callan raised his glass to him. A smile snuck into the corners of his lips. “You’re not.”

  Milo looked at him, bewildered. It was the first, last, and only time he’d ever, and would ever, agree with Callan on anything. He was no child and didn’t deserve to be treated as one. His gaze shifted back to Asherah. Her sympathetic facade, as though he mattered to her, stirred the burning of hate’s flames inside his heart. Though he knew she had not killed Lukas, and she had not made the wall collapse on his soldiers, and she had not sent him into a frenzy of fear and fight, he couldn’t help but feel the weight of her influence over it. She led them and didn’t care what came of those who survived. She was cruel and barbaric, and it showed in her eyes. All the horrible things he’d survived were a reflection of her. And there he sat, a soldier full of rage and terror, the only one she’d thought not to kill.