Polemidas's Arc

Chapter 1 of 7

Polemidas had killed thirty men by the time he was twenty. Now a wolf pup chewed his boot, and he had no idea what to do. The war was over. The son of Ares stood in the castle courtyard, hands empty, staring at two grey pups he had been ordered to raise. Prince Heliodorus watched from the marble steps. His golden robes caught the morning light. He was soft where Polemidas was hard, kind where Polemidas was sharp. For six years Polemidas had guarded him with a blade. Now the prince had handed him something else. "They are called Valour and Fury," Heliodorus said. He came down the steps and knelt by the pups. "They need training. Feeding. Patience." "I train soldiers," Polemidas said. "I break enemies. I do not know how to do this." The pup with a white tip on her tail, Valour, tumbled between his feet. The other, Fury, growled at the ivy on the wall. Polemidas reached for Valour the way he reached for a spear. She yelped and bolted behind the prince's legs. Heliodorus laughed, gentle, not cruel. "You cannot grip her like a weapon. Try this." He opened his palm flat and held still. Fury sniffed it, then licked it. "You wait. You let her come to you." Polemidas stared at his own hands. They had never learned to wait. Every skill he owned ended in blood. The moment no enemy stood before him, he was lost. He did not know how to be a man instead of a sword. He knelt in the dirt. It felt strange, low, unguarded. He opened his palm the way the prince had shown him. He held it out to Valour and waited. The pup crept closer. She sniffed his fingers. Polemidas held his breath. He wanted to grab her, to control the moment, to end the uncertainty. He did not. He let her decide. Valour pressed her head into his palm. Something shifted in his chest. It was not the rush of battle. It was quieter, and it scared him more. He had spent his whole life sure of one thing: he was a killer. Now a small warm animal trusted a hand that had only ever taken. "Why did you give them to me?" Polemidas asked. "Because you asked me once who you were, when the fighting stopped," Heliodorus said. "I thought you should find out." Polemidas scooped Valour into his arms. Fury bounded over and climbed his knee. He did not know how to raise them. He knew he would try. That evening he did not clean his armour. He fed the pups by hand, spilled the water twice, and learned their names by voice. He was clumsy at it. He was terrible at it. For the first time, he was doing something that had nothing to do with death, and he was still standing. He was no longer only a warrior. He did not yet know what else he was.