Page 88 of Storm Front
“She did this to you,” Azaiah said softly. “Pallas.”
At the name, Cillian winced as if Azaiah had struck him. “Yeah. And I can’t die until that bitch pays.”
“She’s why you walk the earth, far beyond when a mortal should leave.” Azaiah could almost hear her wild laughter, see a jester puppet dancing on its strings.
The sound of a melody echoing off the fallen stones…
Cillian went still, next to him. “I don’t want to talk about it. If you’re not here for me, is it the mercenaries? One of them wore your pendant around his neck.”
Azaiah sat up straighter. “Oh?”
“Yeah. I let him and his man stay, gave them a bell in case you got too close. Is that who you’re chasing, then? Or is it the other one? The other… long-lived one?”
“I— The one who wore my pendant, he was immortal?”
“Nah. Taliesin, him and his man, Scout, are running from someone. I thought it was you, like I said. Then there was another mercenary. Named Glaive. Stopped by, watched the dancing. I knew something was up with him. He’s… Let’s just say I recognized him, yeah?” Cillian’s smile was grim, and he didn’t seem to notice that Azaiah was staring at him, still and unblinking. “The way he was, I mean. Anyway. Are you after all of them?”
“No,” Azaiah said. “I would imagine the… one you recognized… was after the others.” The thought brought a pang—was Glaive hunting Ranger, now? The kind man who’d been Glaive’s apprentice, whose presence had made possible the last time Azaiah had seen Glaive? Would his be the last death, the one that would make that final blossom drop from the tree?
“Huh. Funny thing, though,” Cillian said, climbing to his feet. “For a mercenary, he seemed pretty uninterested in finding them. Stuck around for a night, and when someone tried to talk about Taliesin and Scout, he just walked away. Seems to me if you were hunting someone, you’d want to know where they went… unless you were only following because you had to.”
Azaiah had no idea what to think. If Glaive was going to kill Ranger, it meant the end had come. Ranger—or Taliesin, the man Glaive had called Red—was the last person who had managed to stir Glaive’s compassion over the last how many hundreds of years? To end him, to kill whoever this new man of his was, that would be the water poured over the coals of Glaive’s heart. Nyx was all but gone, and this would snuff him out, leaving only Death’s glaive behind.
But if Glaive was stalling—perhaps he didn’twantto kill? Azaiah didn’t know the truth, but he did know that he had a choice to make. He could go and see, and risk losing himself to the dark mirror once and for all… or he could simply go to Aleks, apologize for this happening so soon, and ask to be taken across the river.
Azaiah got to his feet. He could sense something in Cillian, apurpose, and beneath the oil slick covering the flame of his soul… it was bright enough, and something there told Azaiah it would be all right. “I cannot take you before your time, nor do I know where she is, the one you seek. But I can tell you this: Long ago, before the corruption took her, she was my sister. And she was very close to my brother, the Lord of Dreams, for art and dreams have always walked together. Somnus, my brother who bore that title, I took him across the river some time ago. Seek out his successor, Astra, who sleeps on his throne and weaves dreams in the dark.”
“Great. That’s real helpful, thanks,” Cillian muttered, tossing the clove down and grinding it out with his boot. “You hear that music? That means it’s time for us to pick up and go. All I’ve managed to do is outrun her so far. But I guess you can’t do that forever, can you? Not when other people suffer if you do.”
Azaiah felt as if this man, with his long-lived cursed soul, had struck him. “No,” he said carefully. “I suppose that is true. We do have to stop running at some point.”
“Face the music, so they say. But the music is what I’m trying not to face. Anyway, I don’t know what brings you here or why, but whatever it is, safe travels, I guess. When I get tired of running, I guess I’ll see if I can find this brother of yours. Even if I’m starting to think I made you up, and none of this is real.”
He didn’t say anything else, just turned and walked back to the troupe’s camp. It was a bit like a war camp, with the tents and colorful flags and cookfires, the sounds of fifes and drums. But rather than honoring War, it honored Art, who was lost to corruption and yet still out there, somewhere.
Which is what would happen to him, if he were to see Glaive again. The last blossom falling, the last storm cloud, the laststorm. The rain would start and never stop, and even this determined, cursed dancer would be swept along with the rest.
Azaiah knew what he should do. He should go to Aleks, not to Glaive. Yet he couldn’t avoid the allure of the question,But what if I’m wrong? If only there were some way to know for sure before making this one final move.
The end of the game of Winter had come at last, and it was up to Azaiah who would win. Compassion, or ruin?
He thought of Aleks, who would do as Azaiah asked, though he would grieve the loss of his mortal life. He thought of his siblings. Of Declan and Arwyn, taking turns playing mayor in some town in Thalassa, endlessly entertained by their own drama. Of Leviathan, swimming in the waters off Mislia, the only one would who survive the rains—for a time. Of Ares, sleeping in the shape of a sword hung in a crypt… not dead, but eventually turning to rust when the waters would find them. Cillian and his troupe, their fires drowned, the tents washed away, the bright banners sodden. Astra, gone when there was no longer anything left that could dream.
Nyx, smiling at him in a tent over a Winter board. Swearing vengeance and kneeling not for him, but for his double, the dark tide waiting so patiently to be unleashed. Azaiah thought of a tree in northern Staria, a tangle of wood and bramble beneath the waters when it was all over, when everything was drowned and dead.
The tree.
Azaiah would have his answer, wouldn’t he, if he saw it? There would be one last blossom… or there would not, and he’d know it was over. Then he would go to Aleks. No time to see his siblings and say goodbye, but they would understand. This was the only way he could save them all, but he had to be sure.
It did not take him long to get to the tree. He fell into the smooth, cool waters of his river and drifted, staring up at the stars that did not exist in the sky of the mortal realm. Maybe they weren’t stars at all. Maybe what was above him was the source of the river, the headwaters, and the lights were the souls of those who had passed on. Maybe Azaiah’s light would hang there, bright and cold, in the endless dark of a preternatural sky.
When he climbed from the river, he was staring up at the tree.
It was barren, all the dead leaves having blown off… except for the highest branch, where the single red blossom still clung. And Azaiah saw something besides the wood of the branch and the sparse foliage that had been there before. Tiny leaves, newly budded and the same bright spring green as Azaiah’s eyes, grew around the blossom. Farther back were more small green buds, not yet ready to open, but they werethere.
Such a little thing, those budding leaves. But that’s how it always was, wasn’t it? Life grew in stages. Flowers were seeds before they blossomed. Leaves were closed up tight, hugging the branches, before they unfurled. Death was never the end, merely a transition. Even if he let hisothercome forth, even if the rains fell and drowned the world, something else would take its place. Therewasno end. There was only this: death, rebirth, life.
Azaiah drew his cowl up, feeling the scythe at his back and the current of his river flowing through him. He would not falter, and he would not lose himself to corruption. The end of the game had arrived, and it was time to see what card Nyx would choose in this, the final hand.
