Azaiah sighed. “Your form is not displeasing to me, Brother. I wish you would stop hiding from me.”
The figure on the throne was strange, vaguely in the shape of a man but hard to focus on for more than a second or two. Ares had once told Azaiah that Avarice, when he’d been Desire, hadn’t even had a form to inhabit. Over time, he took on the shape of the humans who changed him, but it wasn’t enough to allow him to rise from his Well and walk among people. Ares had been the same, changed over the years into the shapes they could now have if they wanted. Human, of course, since War wouldn’t exist without people. Any gender, since any and all of them could be soldiers. Even a sword, since the weapons used to fight were almost as revered as the people who wielded them.
But Avarice was the shadow humans pretended they did not have, the urge to acquire what they wanted through trickery, bribery, precious gifts thrown into the sea. Azaiah did not know how many of those dark wishes Avarice granted, but Death had certainly taken the souls of those who were unlucky enough to be on the other end of the equation.
“You say that because you look like a fucking sculpture one of Pallas’s hack priests made for her to have a wet dream about,” Avarice said. He shifted on his throne, and as the light filtered through the watery ceiling, Azaiah could see a little of his form.
He wore a crown that had long since turned to rust on the skull that was his head, and his eyes were broken gems, cracked and dull without any true facets to catch the light. His teeth were the mineral calledfool’s gold, something shiny that looked valuable but wasn’t, and his clothes were tattered remains of any number of cheap materials made to look expensive: fake velvet, silk that wasn’t actually silk, boots that weren’t leather but a cheap approximation. The rings on his skeletal fingers were made of paste jewels and cheap gold-plated nickel or were only settings with empty prongs.
“You are my brother,” Azaiah said, bowing.
“How are you fucking real? Seriously, you’d drown in the bath if you weren’t already dead. That means I think you’re a fool, Azaiah.” Avarice shifted, hiding in the shadows once more.
Azaiah shrugged, unconcerned with either the biting words or his brother’s vanity. Of course Avarice was vain. He was a product of what made him, just as they all were, in Azaiah’s strange family. And what were jewels, gold, silk, leather in the end? Nothing worth killing for or dying over, and that was why no matter how priceless the jewels were that were tossed into the Well, they became nothing more than cut glass after a while. Because human desires were fleeting and ultimately pointless, according to Avarice, and Azaiah supposed he would know better than anyone.
“Sit down. Stop looming at me. What are you doing here? It’s good to see you, I suppose, flower-face. How fares your realm? Are they all dead yet?”
Azaiah gave a soft laugh and settled in on the floor. He did not find the hard stone of the cave uncomfortable, and while Avarice might mock, Azaiah knew his brother was glad to see him. They were family, and those connections were important. Even if Avarice was only happy for a visitor because he was bored. It was rare to be wanted, so Azaiah didn’t mind.
“Not yet,” Azaiah said. He reached into his robes. “I have brought you some gifts, Brother. Freely given, with nothing expected in return.”
Avarice leaned forward, and the light hit his features: the rictus grin of fake gold and the dull glass eyes in a bony face. “Let me see them, then.”
Azaiah made his offerings. “Here. I found this in a ruin in Thalassa. It’s a note in a bottle full of sea glass. The note has faded, but no one has ever seen it since it was put into the ground. And the sea glass is pretty.”
Avarice came closer, and a skeletal hand reached out and yanked the bottle from Azaiah’s fingers. “Hmm. That’s something, I suppose. What else?”
The trinkets Azaiah had were not much: the bottle, a strange device from the people on the southern coast of the Iperian mainland, the one with the college. It involved a series of gears and hinges, and Azaiah had no idea what it was meant to do, but he doubted Avarice cared. Since he was mostly given things owned by other people to entice him to grant some wish, he liked things that were strange, unusual, that no one else had.
“And this,” Azaiah said, finding the last—and, he thought, the best—gift in his voluminous cloak. “Formerly worn by a powerful witch in Iperios. I took her to the river, and she gave me her crown. I thought you might like a new one.”
He’d asked her if she still had need of it, thinking his brother might like it, and she’d shrugged and said, “I’m dead. What do I care?”So Azaiah had taken it from her, and he gave it now to Avarice, who tossed his old one away and promptly put the new on his head.
“It’s made of iron, so it should rust quickly,” Azaiah said.
Avarice couldn’t exactlysmile,since his mouth was permanently fixed in the shape of one, but he gave a low laugh. “Thank you, Azaiah. You are not only the prettiest sibling I have but the only one who brings meanythingI want. It’s the only reason you can show up like this, unannounced and uninvited.”
Azaiah smiled. “I have a question for you, Brother.”
“Oh?” The gifts must have mollified Avarice, or at least distracted him enough that he didn’t try as hard to mask his features. “Is it interesting? Did you ask anyone else, first?”
Azaiah was used to this by now. “No. Well, yes. Sort of. I asked our sister Pallas.”
“She doesn’t know anything unless it’s about fucking poets and fixing lute strings.”
Azaiah had to smile. “She doesn’t fix strings herself. I’m sure she has a priestess do it for her.”
“Lazy,” said the embodiment of greed, sprawled on his throne of trash and seaweed, tossing the bottle of sea glass in the air. He caught it, every time, but Azaiah could see the glass was already cracking, the colors dimming, just from Avarice playing with it. “But you’re not wrong. What’s your question?”
“It’s about your realm, Brother,” Azaiah said. “Desire.”
There was a sound, sharp and brittle, as Avarice let the bottle fall and shatter, the contents swiftly turning to stone on the floor. “That isn’t— There’s nothing aboutthatI can tell you, Azaiah. Greed, not desire, is my realm. You might feel desire, but you’ll never feel greed. We’re all fucked if you do.”
Azaiah considered what to say. “I’ve found someone. A companion, I think.”
“Oh?” Avarice was quiet for a moment. “Really? You’re beautiful. I can see people would want to fuck you. And I can even imagine some ridiculous human wanting to say they fucked Death, but… a companion, huh? Mora had one. She was fun. She liked to rob graves.”
Azaiah hadn’t heard that. That’s why he liked Avarice: he always had good stories. “Did she?”
