Hungry

The Paladin Alcides had just returned from another successful quest — the defeat of the dragon Acheron, who had staged a hostile takeover of the kingdom of Hashaton.

He and his party made their way back to Hamlet, the small merchant and vacation town they had each invested in and called home. It was the kind of place that rewarded people who stayed. Chaehyun, their rogue, went straight to the orphanage she maintained on the east side of town. The fighter Surak broke off to rejoin his clan. Deucalion, their dwarf wizard, disappeared into his library without a word. Mayara, their monk, headed to her family’s restaurant, where she was probably already being handed an apron before she made it through the door.

Alcides went to the cold springs.

He sat alone in the water, bare in totality, and focused on his breathing.

He was a Highborn — someone born with celestial blood — but not of any gentle or gracious deity. His divine lineage traced back to Adora, goddess of excess in all its forms: bloodlust, feasting, lust of the body, hunger without limit. Most of her Highborn wore that inheritance openly. They became tyrants. Conquerors. The kind of people who fought and feasted and took what they wanted and called it a blessing.

Alcides had chosen otherwise. He chose the path of heroism, and so he channeled everything — the hunger, the heat of it, the pull toward violence and indulgence — into his work. Into the quests. Into being useful to people rather than consuming them.

It wasn’t easy. It was, in fact, a continuous physiological problem: if his heart rate climbed past a certain point, the impulse overwhelmed him. It didn’t matter what had raised it — a battle, a sprint, a poorly timed emotion. The lust would kick in regardless, indiscriminate and insatiable.

Defeating a dragon, it turned out, raised his heart rate considerably.

So he sat in the cold springs, alone, and waited for his body to remember that the fight was over.

Unbeknownst to him, Chaehyun was on her way to find him.

He’d recommended the cold springs so many times that she’d finally gotten curious — curious enough to skip the orphanage for an hour and see what the fuss was about. The hot springs on the other side of town had a perfectly good reputation. Whatever Alcides’s reason was for preferring these, she intended to find it out.

The front counter was staffed by an elderly elven couple who didn’t look particularly elderly — the way elves never quite did. The wife clocked Chaehyun immediately, her expression warming with the practiced hospitality of someone who’d been welcoming strangers for a very long time.

“Oh, a human! And such a pretty one.” She folded her hands on the counter. “Here to relax and recharge?”

“My friend Alcides recommended the place,” Chaehyun said.

The effect was immediate. Both of them brightened like she’d said a magic word — which, apparently, she had. Alcides was, it became clear within about thirty seconds of conversation, their favorite customer. Their most favorite. The kind of favorite that was keeping the business afloat and probably had his own unofficial reserved spot.

“We adore our hardworking little hero,” the wife said warmly. “Any friend of Alcides is a friend of ours.”

“He’s still in, actually,” the husband added. “The all-gender springs, if you wanted to say hello.”

Chaehyun nodded as she said “that would be lovely” before she paid, then found the dressing room, and smiled to herself. She hadn’t seen Alcides without his armor on — not once in all the time they’d traveled together. She was curious what he actually looked like under all that magic iron and steel. He’d mentioned once, almost in passing, that the armor wasn’t technically metal, but that was a conversation she’d never fully gotten to the bottom of.

The dressing room answered part of the question, at least. The armor sat quiet on a stool in the corner, waiting — there was no other word for it — as though it were simply resting until needed again. His weapon (Benevolent Regent) a great axe that could shift int a greatsword that could harness the powers of lightning and fire leaned against the wall beside it. Even sitting still, the room carried the faint calming presence that tended to follow Alcides around. Chaehyunhad never quite figured out if that was him or the armor.

She changed and headed out to the springs.

Alcides without his armor was not what she’d expected. She’d half-assumed there would be something godlike underneath — the kind of physical perfection that tended to come with divine bloodlines. Instead he looked almost plain. Almost ordinary.

Almost, except for his skin. It was a deep metallic bronze, and it was covered in symbols — crimson marks that were slowly cooling into blue as she watched, the color of them shifting like embers going to ash. She recognized the iconography. It was Adora’s.

She stood there for a moment, looking at him.

Adora was the goddess of excess — of bloodlust and feasting and hunger that didn’t know how to stop. Cruel. Capricious. The kind of divine patron that explained a lot of the worst people Chaehyun had ever crossed paths with.

And Alcides was — Alcides. Their moral compass. The one who talked them out of taking the easy road. The one who asked after the names of the people they’d saved.

She watched him for a moment before she said anything.

Part of her — the part that had spent years making a living by trusting no one — turned the situation over with professional suspicion. The noble hero act. The kindness, the patience, the careful moral compass. She’d seen people use a reputation like that before, building goodwill until the people around them felt indebted enough to overlook things. Was that what this was? A long game?