“Azaiah,” Nyx whispered.
“Not quite,” Death said, reaching for him.
Nyx stepped away. “I want to see Azaiah. You said—” Nyx whirled on Ares, who was tossing a dagger up in the air, catching it by the blade and shuddering with pleasure every time it sliced their hand. “You said he came when there was death.”
“And so I have,” Death said. “I come as I am called.”
Nyx turned away. “It doesn’t matter. It will be over soon. And then I can… call to him. Azaiah.MyAzaiah.”
Yes, Death thought, watching as Nyx went to speak to a woman near the fire.You can call to him all you want, but the Death that comes is the Death you summon, and I think it may be some time before you summon a Death that is kind again.
The soldiers cursed as the fire went out, extinguished by the rain, and Death turned and walked away, drawing his cowl over his head and slipping back into the dark, into the river that brimmed with souls, wet like the tears his avatar shed for a man who had chosen hatred over love.
* * *
War burned through the empire.
Nyx didn’t much care about the villages and towns they passed on their way to the palace. Sacking villages where his soldiers might have been born would end with mutiny in an army that was already uneasy. It was enough to ask them to fight alongside the same people they’d taken up arms against not long before. The real challenge would be seizing the palace, or at least taking it long enough to let it burn.
Estrid sat with him when he stared into the fire at night. Or she did in the beginning. After a while, she left him, as did the others, until it was just Nyx and Freja sitting on the grass night after night, watching the flames flicker and die.
“You could tell me,” she said one evening, after the songs to the dead were sung and the soldiers gathered in the darkness beyond the fires. Fewer of them came near the bonfire now, as though the heat was too strong to bear. “About your boy and your girl. Your heart-sister.”
Nyx said nothing, and Freja sucked air through her teeth.
“We have a story of a boy who loved the Sun Lord,” she said. “He wanted to touch them, to feel their lips on his, so he threw himself into battle with nothing but a sword—”
Nyx stood, and Freja’s voice died as he turned away, heading for the comfortable darkness of his tent. He lay there for a time, and when his shoulders started to shake and his breath came too fast, he held his arms tight and thought of Lamont bleeding out on the marble tile of his throne room. Lamont in his bed, purpling bruises around his neck, unable to breathe—the way Andor couldn’t breathe, at the end, when he lay in his mother’s arms.
Nyx swallowed a low, broken sound and rolled over, digging his nails into his skin until the blood came.
Estrid died in a skirmish a week later.
A few days after that, his sword broke. He found a new one. He slept outside, where the silence of the tent couldn’t strangle him, and woke to find Freja lying at his back, a silent presence.
Azaiah didn’t appear, but Nyx saw Death, once or twice, flickering through the battlefield as rain churned the ground to mud. He couldn’t bind himself to Azaiah yet, anyway. He couldn’t hold back the Death who left his soldiers silent and grim, avoiding the light of their fire. Not while Lamont was still breathing.
When they came to the palace gates, the remaining guards surrendered. Few were left—hardly any people at all, just ribbon dragons chasing the light through empty bars and vacant houses. The empire had crumbled, and when Nyx stepped into the palace, Ares walked with him.
Nyx slew the witch who met them at the bottom of the stairs, raising shaking hands to cast a spell. Her body fell down the last step and onto the floor, and Nyx stepped over her, looking up at the winding staircase where the nobles used to gather. The plush couches were empty now, and dead garlands wound about the railing, smelling of rot and perfume.
“It’s almost done,” Nyx said to Ares. “You may as well call your brother.”
Ares didn’t speak. They followed Nyx, running their hand over the dead flowers, which fell in a steady rain onto the floor below.
Lamont was waiting for him on the top floor. He was sitting on his throne with a sword at his side, and when Nyx opened the door, he got to his feet, grabbing the sword the way a small child would, dragging the tip along the ground.
“Where’s your son, Lamont?” Nyx asked, his own sword held loosely in his hand. “Shouldn’t you have one, by now? If he’s here, we’ll send him away, find a new man to be his father. A better one than you.”
Lamont stared at him blankly, then scowled. “You mock me. The witches said I would have a son—they promised it. But it came out… it came out too soon. Was it you who did it? Did you conspire with one of the witches to kill my son?”
“I don’t kill children,” Nyx said. “That’s your habit,Brother.”
Lamont tried to swing his sword, and Nyx knocked it from his hands. Lamont staggered back, true terror in his eyes at last, and Nyx slashed at his chest, cleaving a line of blood through his white robes.
“Nadia bled through her uniform in much the same way, when you comforted her in the infirmary.” Nyx stepped closer and grabbed Lamont by the hair. He didn’t even feel a surge of satisfaction. He was cold, distant, a puppet going through the motions. He threw Lamont to the floor and crouched over him.
“You can’t do this to me,” Lamont said. “I’m your emperor. You’re mine, you’ve always been mine, why won’t you listen to me?”
