Ares went silent, and Nyx sucked in a sharp breath. “Is that why you came to me and gave me this pretty little trinket?”
“No, that was because you kept skulking around the corners looking all bored,” Andor said, and Ares snorted. “But I want to know. Don’t deny it, Uncle. You go to him when you’re done with training, sometimes. Kelta went to sleep, but I only pretended, and I snuck down and saw you talking to the air. And when I saw Lord War, here—”
“Ares. I’m not a lord or a lady.”
“Oh. All right.” Andor nodded. “I’m sorry. When I saw Ares, it all made sense. Are you not a girl or a boy because you’re War, or because that’s just how you are?”
“One question at a time,” Ares said, but he didn’t sound annoyed, at least. “The latter.”
“And who I speak with in private is personal,” Nyx added. Andor rolled his eyes. “Andor. Don’t give me that look.”
“You’re being very casual about talking to War.”
“So are you.”
“Well.” Ares leaned back on their elbows in the grass. “I didn’t even have to escalate this little argument. But you’ll find out soon enough, I think, little prince. Look at the sky.”
Andor looked up, and Nyx’s heart raced as he saw twisting clouds obscuring the stars. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Andor turned to Nyx.
“What does the sky have to do with it?” He looked to Ares. “Who’s in charge of storms?”
“You know enough to give me a talisman of war,” Ares said, “but you don’t know of the Lord of Storms?”
“I mean, no? He’s not important, like you are.”
Nyx pinched the bridge of his nose. Ares was grinning, looking at Andor like he was a prized student who’d answered a complex question correctly. “I’ll tell you in time, Andor,” Nyx said. “You’re… you’re too young for this. For all of this,” he added, glaring at Ares.
“I’m old enough to know my father sent Kelta here to get killed,” Andor said, and Nyx stared at him. “And I’m old enough to know you’re hiding something. Something big. Something that makes Mother upset. Your eyes are always sad when you come back, like you’re sorry you’re here. You look the way I feel, sometimes, when I can’t—” He pounded a fist on his leg. “When my legs don’t work right and I can’t go up the steps or run after Kelta. I know I’m meant to be emperor, but I’m so… stuck, in the palace. No one thinks I can rule one day, even though I know I could, so I’m stuck. You’re stuck, too.”
“I don’t doubt that you’ll be emperor,” Nyx said. He hadn’t known Andor felt this way. He knew the boy was frustrated when people tried to pick him up without asking or excluded him because they assumed he was too tired to attend a dinner or a meeting, but this spoke of a bone-deep yearning, a clever mind too often ignored.
“You hear me breathing, and you think otherwise,” Andor said. Nyx pulled him into his arms, holding him to his chest. Andor grabbed him, and Nyx could feel the damp touch of tears on his shirt.
“You won’t be stuck forever.” That was Ares, watching them with an odd, level expression. “I can see it, at times, when one of mine will do great things in my name. Do you see it, princeling? The armor I wear?”
Andor turned to look, and Nyx swept his gaze over Ares again. Their armor was strange, leather and linen with odd stitching and two coins sewn over the breast pocket. Ares’s teeth flashed in a wolfish smile.
“This uniform will belong to your soldiers, one day,” they said, and Nyx could hear Andor’s breath catch. “Remember that. Your time will come.”
“But you’ll keep your distance in the meantime,” Nyx said. He got up, and Andor stood with him, still staring at Ares. Nyx bowed slightly and glanced back up at the sky. “You said he’s coming.”
“Soon enough. You’ll see.”
Nyx wanted to ask more, but he could see Andor watching them both, and he’d already said enough. He nodded to the tents, and Andor sighed, taking his hand.
“That was my uniform,” Andor whispered. “It’s so different from yours.”
Nyx didn’t want to know what that meant. He squeezed Andor’s hand. “Don’t speak of them with anyone else, Andor. Even your sister or your mother. Especially your mother. She won’t like it.”
“Oh, I know.” Andor looked down at his feet as they walked. “Who’s Lord of Storms again?”
Nyx quietly made a note to ask what the fuck Andor’s tutors were doing when they were supposed to be teaching him. He sighed. “The lord of death. The one who takes us across the river, when it’s time.”
Andor looked up at him sharply, but he didn’t speak again until Nyx let him into Nadia’s tent. He closed the flap and sat down on one of the little cots, his expression grim. “And you like him? Do you like him the way I like War, because they’re my god and I respect them, or do you like him the way… the way I thought you might like Mom?”
Nyx winced and sat next to Andor. “You know I love your mother. But not like that.”
“But you likehimlike that. The Lord of Storms. Death.”
