He thought of the little house on the shore, the one he’d always hoped to show to Nyx. Perhaps the successor whose spirit he’d felt on the current would one day make it their home, share it with someone they loved and did not lose to hatred and vengeance and loss. He wondered whether Nyx—Glaive—knew that his beloved nephew had walked the earth again as Atreus.
Whether he knew that, far to the north, on a quiet island in the winter sea, the family he’d thought he’d lost—the family for whom he’d burned an empire to the ground—lived on, the story of their journey etched on the walls of a cave, even if their names were forgotten and the empire turned to dust.
ChapterSixteen
Two weeks passed, but Red remained. Most apprentices didn’t, after seeing what it took to do Glaive’s job. But Red hovered, a cheerful, colorful shadow at Glaive’s side, cooking Thalassan meals and singing sailing songs under his breath while he fletched arrows. He told terrible stories that went nowhere and meant nothing, and he hung on Glaive’s every word.
“I don’t know why we’re stopping so often,” Red said, tipping a pan of hot peppers and trout onto a plate. “I mean, if you’re tracking someone, isn’t it better to just go without sleep for a night or two?”
“If you want them to escape you, yes.” Glaive stoked the fire. “People on the run, they’ll lose plenty of sleep. Mortals like you, you keep up your strength and keep following, and you’ll wear them down eventually.”
“Unlikeimmortalslike you, who can turn steel to fire.” Red grinned at him, and Glaive grunted.
“Right.”
“Do you believe in them? Immortals, I mean. Gods. Everyone has their own, it seems,” Red said, when Glaive looked at him. “My ma has a shrine to Leviathan, right, mostly to keep him away, and my dad keeps the chain on his belt—the chain’s this thing we have, to respect the Dream-Eater. Except he doesn’t eat dreams, he grants wishes. There’s a funny story about that, actually.”
“The gods have their own business to attend to,” Glaive said, returning his attention to the fire in hopes he could stave off another of Red’s stories. “Most of them don’t care what trinkets we make to revere them.”
Red snorted. “You haven’t heard of the Dream-Eater, then. And they say the Gentle Boatman carries all of us. He has to care, right? If he guides us when we die?” Red had his fingers clenched around something under his shirt, a lump that could have been a pendant or a locket, and he was staring down at his feet with a worryingly troubled expression.
“Most people curse death.” Glaive frowned at him. “However gentle he may be.”
“I mean, he’s terrifying, sure.” Red kept his hand over the lump in his shirt. “But only because of what he means. I like to think he’s… I don’t know. Nice. Kind. Wouldn’t you want the last person you see before you go to be a friend?”
The stick Glaive was using to stoke the fire snapped in his fingers. “Who sent you to me, boy?”
“What?” Red drew back in alarm. “The lady who makes the assignments. Why?”
Glaive stood, trying to steady himself. It was a coincidence. Or fate, perhaps, that the one apprentice who wouldn’t scamper home after a few days was one who talked about Death as a… afriend.
“I’m sorry if I upset you,” Red said quietly. “I know some Misthotoi aren’t fond of talking about gods. Or not that one.”
Something about the way Red was sitting, looking down at his knees, made Glaive bristle. He couldn’t understand it. Red was just another face, doomed to be cut down in the field one day long after Glaive forgot his name. But Glaive couldn’t shake his uneasiness, and he went to bed, leaving Red to bank the fire.
Their next job was a simple one: the clean death of a man who’d put a bur under the saddle of a nobleman, who fell as a result and died during a hunt. Glaive taught Red how to spot signs of movement through animal paths and abandoned campsites, and when they neared a sad, miserable tent in the woods of Staria, Glaive motioned for Red to string his bow.
They crept closer, with Red taking the lead, and Glaive let out a sharp whistle to startle their prey out of the tent. Red drew the string back, ready to loose the arrow, as a small figure stumbled into the dark.
“Please,” the person said, clutching a worn bag to his chest. “Please, don’t.”
“Fuck,” Glaive whispered, and Red’s eyes widened, his fingers slipping on the string. Glaive jostled Red’s arm just as the arrow went flying, sending it whistling uselessly into the dirt, and the boy by the tent dropped to his knees. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen at most, and he was filthy, dark shadows under his eyes from sleepless nights of running.
“Glaive?” Red whispered, gesturing to his bow, but Glaive shook his head.
“Someone lied when they hired us,” he growled. People tried it, now and then, thinking they could trick him into torturing or killing some poor kid who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Glaive stepped out of the brush, and the boy fumbled at his belt for a knife, holding it out before him like a torch.
“Don’t come any closer!”
“All right, lad.” Glaive stopped, hands at his sides. “Put that down, or hold it properly. We aren’t going to hurt you.”
The boy stared at him, hands shaking around the hilt of the knife, and quickly dropped it. Glaive closed the distance and picked it up, holding it to the moonlight.
“It’s not a bad knife, but you’ll be better off with a crossbow. How much food do you have left?”
“I… I didn’t mean to do it,” the boy said. He was breathing hard. “When they paid me, I thought it was a prank. You know. Make him fall, so he’d look silly. I didn’t think you could die from a fall.”
“Haven’t been around horses much, then.” Glaive checked the tent. No food, of course. He didn’t think the boy knew enough to keep his supplies out of reach of animals, not with the shoddy way he’d tried, and failed, to cover his tracks. “Fine. Red, get our things and come back here.”
